Held in Jersey last week (5 December), the Awards – now in their third year – celebrate and recognise individual and team excellence, knowledge and best practice across the private wealth sector in Jersey and Guernsey, with winners being selected by an independent panel of judges.

The win follows on from Crestbridge FOS being successful in the same category at Wealthbriefing’s MENA Awards in Dubai last month – a category the firm has won for two years in a row – with this latest award further underlining its capabilities in supporting families of wealth with their global, complex and increasingly diverse needs.

In selecting Crestbridge FOS for the Award, the judges noted in particular that the firm has continued this year to ‘excel in delivering tailored, high-quality fiduciary services with integrity and expertise’, with a ‘commitment to independence, client trust, and employee well-being’.

Commenting on the award win, Heather Tibbo, CEO of Crestbridge Family Office Services, said:

“This year, we have been acutely focused on continuing to build on the reputation we have earned over the past decade for providing technical excellence and top-tier client service, aligned with our strategy to differentiate ourselves in a highly competitive market. This award, which maintains our recent success in being recognised as a leading independent player in the family office space, is a reflection of those efforts and is testament to the collective expertise and experience of our growing team.”

Stephen Harris, ClearView Financial Media’s CEO, and publisher of Wealthbriefing, added:
“These awards are so beneficial as they give organisations the opportunity to clarify their strategic thinking, have it independently validated, be recognised internally and externally and to celebrate in style with their peers.”

The awards have been established to recognise outstanding contributions made by individual team members over the course of the year. Nominations can be submitted by anyone in the firm, and sit across the three categories of our core values Integrity, Professionalism, and Agility. Our judges reviewed all the nominations, ultimately settling on a winner and runner up in each category. Those names announced on the night were:

Integrity: Debbie Donaldson, Manager (winner) for her energy, dedication, kindness, and commitment to her team, and Sarah Eden, HR Business Partner (runner up) for her work with the social committee and championing of inclusion.

Professionalism: Charlie Lucas, Administrator (winner) for his consistently impressive delivery of often highly complex work, and Marta Latek, Administrator (runner up) for her dedication to client service and unswervingly positive disposition.

Agility: Roxana Dumitrache, Team Support (winner) for her tireless and flexible cross-functional support of colleagues, and Ian Carr, Facilities Officer (runner up) for ensuring we benefitted from a comfortable and safe office, made more challenging in this year of relocation.

The variety and quality of nominations in this first year was impressive, making the judges’ task anything but easy. We would like to extend our congratulations to this year’s winners and runners up.

Now in their eleventh year, the Awards were held in Dubai last week to celebrate and recognise excellence, knowledge and best practice across the private wealth sector in the Middle East and North Africa region, with winners being selected by an independent panel of judges.

The win reflects Crestbridge FOS’s deep understanding of the Middle East region, a market where it has developed strong relationships over a number of years, supporting the global and increasingly complex objectives of a growing number of families based in the region.

In selecting Crestbridge FOS for the Award – which the firm also won last year – the judges noted in particular ‘the firm’s dedication to the Middle East, evidenced through its continued enhancement of Sharia-compliant structures’, as well as its wider growth and evolution as an independent business over the past year.

Heather Tibbo, CEO of Crestbridge Family Office Services, commented on the award win:

“To have won this particular Award for the second year in a row is a reflection of our sustained focus on delivering superior client service to families in the Middle East. This is a region where, as a team, we have gained considerable experience and knowledge over a long period of time. There is no doubt that clients appreciate our team’s ability to understand their needs and demands as well as our specific Islamic Finance capabilities, and we continue to focus on enhancing our service capabilities in this important region.”

Stephen Harris, CEO of ClearView Financial Media’s and publisher of WealthBriefing, added:

“We have seen a marked increase in entrants and interest in all our global awards programmes and Wealthbriefing MENA is no exception. These awards are so beneficial as they give organisations and individuals the opportunity to clarify their strategic thinking, have it independently validated, and be recognised internally and externally.”

Daniel and Faizal discuss how Gulf based families are choosing to structure their wealth, and which of Jersey’s wealth management products they are choosing and why. Plus, Daniel shares key insights into working with Gulf based family offices and enterprises, and how he sees this developing.

Listen to the episode here: https://jsy.fi/3YoTciF

The award, which honours the memory of late JSCCA president Chris Stuart, recognises those who have shown inspiring mentorship, acted as an ambassador of the profession, prioritised and invested in team members, and helped them reach their full potential.

Karen has played a key role in supporting her team as the firm has undergone a transition, continuing its journey as an independent and privately owned business. Not only did Karen oversee the restructuring of her team and the redefining of its role, but did so while successfully carrying out day-to-day responsibilities of the business to clients, partners, and others.

Heather Tibbo, Chief Executive Officer of Crestbridge Family Office Services commented: ‘This is fitting recognition of Karen’s innate leadership skills and tireless dedication to her team and the firm. Successfully managing change demands operational expertise, resilience, empathy, and the ability to unite the team around a vision. Karen has demonstrated all of these qualities and more, and is a worthy recipient of this award’.

In addition to the award, Karen has earned a £500 donation to the local charity of her choice. She has selected Youthful Minds, part of Mind Jersey, who work to raise awareness and reduce the stigma around mental health in Jersey.

Held in London recently (24 September), the event – of which Crestbridge Family Office Services (FOS) was once again a sponsor – brought together more than 500 professionals from across the private wealth sector to explore the concept of a ‘Permacrisis’, from geopolitical upheaval to technological disruption.

Keynote speaker at the event was former diplomatic editor for Sky News and bestselling author Tim Marshall, who highlighted the emergence of a ‘multipolar world’, whilst a fireside chat with Claire Williams, one of the most successful women in Formula 1 history, focused on the need to identify opportunity in moments of significant change.

Across two panel sessions, other key points included:

• The world is currently experiencing a combination of the ends of economic, political and geopolitical cycles, which is creating significant complexity for families
• Being tuned into the wider environment and listening to clients carefully is critical for advisers in this environment, with circumstances around safety and security now driving family decision making far more than issues around tax
• Building flexibility into structuring, keeping an eye on the long-term and ensuring good standards of governance are all vital in enabling families to navigate change, drawing on the platforms provided by jurisdictions like Jersey that can offer stability and robust frameworks
• Change and volatility can provide opportunities too and families should be alive to that possibility

Commenting on the event, Heather Tibbo, CEO, Crestbridge Family Office Services, said:

“There’s no doubt that the concerns and values of families are changing as they adopt a new world view. Safety and security are absolutely critical and we need to respond to that, by being sensitive to those concerns and empowering clients to build into their structures the sort of flexibility they need to navigate this period of change in the long-term.”

Published this week (21 October), the annual rankings provide a comprehensive analysis of the leading fiduciary service providers for international private clients. Split into independent and non-independent categories, the rankings this year feature a total of 52 firms, spread across three tiers.

Within the independent category, and for the 6th consecutive year, Crestbridge FOS is included in the top tier.

The rankings are calculated based on a number of criteria including size, reputation, quality and range of service, and performance over the past 12 months.

Commenting on the latest rankings, Heather Tibbo, CEO, Crestbridge Family Office Services, said:

“Our consistent focus is on providing the highest possible levels of service and I’m pleased that this has been reflected once again by being recognised as a top tier firm in these industry benchmark rankings. The fact that we have earned this position on a regular basis is testament to the collective deep knowledge and significant experience of our team. In a complex landscape for families, we remain committed to continuing to enhance our proposition and support families in increasingly diverse ways.”

The full list from eprivateclient can be found here.

The global value of philanthropic capital, for instance, is estimated to stand at more than US$2.5trn (Philanthropy and the Global Economy, Citi Bank 2022), with 73% of family offices now managing philanthropic efforts in some capacity (BNY Mellon, February 2022).

Family philanthropic efforts are becoming more professional, more sophisticated and more targeted – and there are good reasons for this evolution. 

The ‘external’ benefits of adopting such an approach are clear through the tangible impact family-driven philanthropy is having in society and on the planet. But families are also increasingly alive to the more ‘internal’ benefits of philanthropy too.

Increasingly, families are understanding that the very process of philanthropic professionalisation – from opening up conversations around philanthropy to developing and implementing purpose-driven strategies – has the potential to bring multiple additional benefits to the family, through better governance, more efficient structuring and family cohesion.

In turn, this new family approaches to philanthropy is also set to create a multiplier effect, paving the way for a number of additional opportunities.

Benefits

From an external perspective, the clear need for private capital to step up and support good causes remains strong. 

UN figures show, for instance, that if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) investment needs to 2030 are to be met, some $30 trillion of additional investment must be found. Private capital, including through philanthropy, will play a key part of that.

The signs are that families are aware of that need and are ready to step up. 27% of family offices, for example, emphasise giving back to society through philanthropy as a key priority, according to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2023.

Beyond these external impacts, though, philanthropy is increasingly being embraced by families to help reinforce family values and promote family cohesion. 

Whilst in the past, philanthropy might have been driven by the personal values and goals of a patriarch or matriarch, a truly joined-up family approach to philanthropy can provide a platform to help bring different voices to the table, engender better understanding between family members, and create a unified dynamic that reinforces a family’s values.

A genuinely shared family philanthropic strategy can provide a good ‘ringfenced’ channel for families to educate the nextgen. Giving them a certain amount of autonomy but with clear parameters, philanthropy can create a training ground for the nextgen, providing them with an environment to develop financial skills and better understand the environment they operate in, whilst empowering them to apply themselves to a cause they are passionate about.

Practical Outcomes

Building strong family cohesion through philanthropy can be a powerful process that can have a number of additional practical implications too.

Roles such as Head of Philanthropy are increasingly common within family offices, giving them a more formal organisational model to help develop and implement bespoke strategies professionally and with confidence. It can also provide a good opportunity to revisit governance frameworks and family charters, to ensure documentation is clear and aligned with purpose-driven values.

In turn, this is helping families undertake robust reviews around how they structure their philanthropic activities. How can they differentiate between different types of philanthropic activity – charitable giving, impact investing and seed investing, for instance? What structures should they be using to help them realise their objectives effectively and efficiently?

Seed funding or ‘venture philanthropy’ to support start-ups or higher risk social benefit projects, for instance, might require very different structuring options to more straightforward ‘pure giving’ to a charity.

There is also the question of active and direct involvement, which is becoming increasingly popular amongst families. The fact that 48% of families have established their own foundations would support this and demonstrate that families are firmly fixed on the long-term (Campden Wealth, 2023).

Meanwhile, co-projects with other families are also becoming more common as families look to pool resources where values, objectives and approaches are complementary, with a view to achieving greater impact. Further, families are also integrating philanthropy more with their wider wealth, business and investment activities, and this is having an impact on structuring options. In fact, there is growing understanding that philanthropy needs to permeate all other areas of a family’s affairs if it is to be authentic and have the desired measurable impact.

Expertise

As family approaches to philanthropy become more embedded within a family’s holistic framework, there’s no doubt that specialist advice is increasingly important. 

It’s telling that although 71% of family offices believe they have a role to play in alleviating economic inequality, just 41% have a philanthropic strategy in place to do that (Milken Institute, 2021). In that light, external advisers can be critical in enabling conversations amongst family members so they can set out their visions, agree a way forward and put that into practice through effective and robust documentation, control mechanisms and structuring. 

The complexities of risk monitoring, governance, evaluation and measurement in particular are areas where is a growing demand for specialist advisers. Having the benefit of an independent voice that can provide rational, data-driven advice can be highly valuable in an area that can be highly emotive too.

Despite these potential complexities, philanthropy continues to evolve at pace. Families taking a fresh, open and coherent approach stand to make a real impact, in multiple ways – on the world around them, on their own operation, and on their long-term legacy.

These were some of the trends to emerge from a roundtable held recently, hosted by Jersey Finance’s Director – UK Robert Moore, and attended by a range of family and private client professionals, including Crestbridge Family Office Services Executive Director Daniel Channing.

In particular, participants at the roundtable noted the persistent and significant growth in the private wealth sector, driven by a sustained rise in HNWIs relocating and bolstering their presence in the region, in turn increasing demand for family office and ancillary expertise to support bespoke family diversification strategies.

In addition, participants also highlighted the heightened sophistication of the investment landscape in the region. As well as sovereign wealth funds, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), providing considerable opportunities for joint ventures with private investors looking to diversify, the alternative funds landscape is also maturing and expanding – with hedge funds in particular growing in popularity in both the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

Commenting on the roundtable, Daniel said:

“There’s no doubt that the growing and rapidly evolving family office landscape across the Middle East is presenting a number of new opportunities for advisers as families look to professionalise and diversify. Jersey in particular has become increasingly important as a hub for family structuring where there is a Middle East nexus, whilst there is also a growing demand for advice around succession and nextgen wealth transfer.

“Meanwhile, on the investment side, the sophistication we are seeing now amongst Middle East families is shining a spotlight on the Jersey Private Fund, which has become a go-to vehicle for targeted, tailored and flexible structuring in the alternative asset space.”

Jersey-based Stephanie is included in the ePrivateClient 2024 NextGen Leaders List, published today(9^th September). The list recognises and celebrates rising stars from across the private client landscape in the UK and Crown Dependencies.

In compiling the list, the publication considers a number of factors, including individual expertise and achievements over the past 12 months, career progression, feedback from colleagues, and the performance of their company.

Stephanie was also included in the eprivateclient 2024 NextGen Leaders Channel Islands List, published earlier this year.

Stephanie has over 11 years’ experience in dealing with complex and sensitive structures on behalf of global families. Working with both private wealth and corporate vehicles, she assists with the establishment and ongoing administration of a broad range of structures for UHNWIs in the Middle East. A mentor to other team members, Stephanie holds the STEP Diploma in International Trust Management.

Heather Tibbo, Chief Executive Officer of Crestbridge Family Office Services, said: “We are really proud of the focus we have as a firm on attracting and nurturing talent and providing an environment for our people to thrive, and that focus is reflected in the fact that our people have featured regularly in this list over recent years.

“As we continue to grow and evolve as an independent and privately owned business, the strength of our team will be pivotal in differentiating us in the market. With that in mind, I’m delighted that Stephanie has been recognised on the national stage. Her enthusiasm, collaborative approach and understanding of the importance of service quality makes her a great ambassador for Crestbridge Family Office Services.”