ABOUT THE BOOK

The Family Office Navigator offers enterprising families a comprehensive and practical guide to design a modern family office that considers the complexity of their family, wealth, and enterprise in turbulent times.

It offers a new framework to help families grow their total family wealth across generations.

It is a collaboration between IMD Business School, Cambridge Family Enterprise Group and the Family Business Network.

Upon completing the Family Office Navigator, you will have:

Family Office Navigator Book

  • understood the critical role of family offices within your family enterprise ecosystem.
  • explored the underlying motivations and aspirations driving your family office journey.
  • crafted a well-defined purpose for your family office, covering both financial and non-financial objectives.
  • determined the key activities and services of your family office.
  • chosen the appropriate resources and structures, while establishing vigilant oversight and sound governance.
  • acquired the knowledge and confidence to launch a new family office or to redefine the course of your existing one.


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A Guidebook for the Whole Family

The Family Office Navigator is not just a book or a tool. It is a platform and opportunity for your family to come together and make collective, informed decisions about your family office in an enjoyable, hands-on, and open way.

We encourage you to involve your family in this journey. The book is arranged as a number of building blocks or key elements of a successful family office. Each block is accompanied by key questions and exercises to help your family discuss and answer the why, what, who and how of your family office.

It is our hope that the Family Office Navigator will bring your family closer together and foster understanding, while also enabling you to make the right decisions about your family office. We encourage you to use it collectively as a family—an approach that we have found useful in our work with hundreds of families and family offices worldwide.

Perhaps arrange workshops with the Navigator. Print out the trade-offs and exercises. Engage family members in answering the key questions. Discuss and integrate different points of view. Develop the clarity, unity, and decisiveness needed on this crucial journey. We hope that an inclusive process inspires new ideas, appreciation, and collaboration in your family as you build your family office.

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What is the significance of the
CORAL REEF METAPHOR?

This was a deliberate choice by our design team.

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Imagine your family enterprise as an environmental ecosystem, such as a coral reef.

A coral reef is a diverse underwater ecosystem made up of colonies of tiny living organisms which, along with other creatures and life forms, create a complex and colorful environment. A coral reef provides food, nutrients, shelter, and protection for a wide variety of marine life and also protects coasts from storms and waves. As a coral reef grows, all organisms living there play a role in its flourishing, and work together in symbiosis with each other.

We use this metaphor because we see some parallels with family enterprises. Your family enterprise is a complex system too, which contains a diverse collection of activities, assets, and individuals that work together to grow your family enterprise and steward it into the next generation. It includes your family, your businesses, your family office, your investments and assets, your philanthropy, your network of relationships, your employees, your community, and your family’s life, among others.

Your family office is an integral part of your family enterprise ecosystem. If designed right, your family office has an important vantage point that allows it to integrate, oversee, and develop the functionality and future-readiness of all aspects of your coral reef or family enterprise system.

UPCOMING MIT PROGRAM

Future Family Enterprise Program

March 16–21, 2025
October 5-10, 2025

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UPCOMING CFEG PROGRAM

Compounding Your Family’s Wealth

April 2-4, 2025

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