Imagine an entrepreneurial couple who have spent decades building a successful family enterprise. They’ve navigated countless business challenges, made difficult decisions, and accumulated substantial wealth through hard work, smart choices, and perhaps some fortunate timing. Now, as they contemplate stepping back from day-to-day operations, they face a challenge that keeps many successful business owners awake at night: ensuring their children are truly prepared to manage not just the financial assets they’ll inherit, but the values, principles, and responsibilities that come with substantial family wealth.
Their children bring different educational backgrounds, varying levels of business experience, and diverse interests to the table. Some have pursued careers outside the family business, while others have been involved from a young age. This diversity, while enriching in many ways, creates complexity when planning for succession. The parents worry whether their children possess the practical knowledge, decision-making frameworks, and financial reflexes they’ll need to preserve and grow the family legacy. Will the next generation understand the weight of responsibility that accompanies their inheritance? Will they make sound decisions when faced with complex financial, legal, and strategic choices?
This anxiety represents one of the most common concerns that advisors working with multigenerational family enterprises encounter. The fear isn’t primarily about the children’s intelligence or character—most parents have confidence in their children as individuals. Rather, the concern centers on whether the rising generation has been adequately exposed to the real-world concepts, challenges, and decision-making frameworks they’ll encounter as business owners, wealth stewards, and community leaders.
The Catalyst for Structured Financial Education
This widespread concern among business families prompted Richter, a business family office, to develop a comprehensive financial literacy program specifically designed to educate family members across all ages and backgrounds. George Angelopoulos, a partner at Richter, explains that observing this pattern among client families provided the catalyst for creating the program. He recalls working with one particular family where the situation crystallized the need for structured financial education.
In that family, the parents were approaching retirement age after decades of entrepreneurial success. Their children, who had pursued different educational paths and possessed varying levels of business experience, were beginning to take more active roles in the family enterprise. However, the parents worried that despite their children’s capabilities and good intentions, they hadn’t been equipped with the practical reflexes and hadn’t been exposed to the real-life concepts they would inevitably encounter as entrepreneurs and business owners. The parents recognized that theoretical knowledge from formal education, while valuable, doesn’t always translate directly to the specific challenges of managing family wealth and business interests.
This recognition—that even capable, educated children might not possess the practical financial literacy necessary for stewarding substantial family wealth—inspired Richter to create a structured approach to family financial education.
A Customizable Framework for Family Financial Literacy
The program Richter developed consists of ten distinct modules that address the multifaceted needs of high-net-worth families. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all curriculum, the program is designed to be highly customizable, adapting to each family’s unique context, values, life stage, and specific concerns. This flexibility ensures that the education provided remains relevant and immediately applicable to the family’s actual circumstances rather than presenting generic content that might not resonate with their situation.
The curriculum spans a comprehensive range of topics, beginning with foundational concepts and progressing to more sophisticated areas of wealth management. The modules cover the basics of budgeting and personal finance—ensuring that even family members who will inherit substantial wealth understand fundamental principles of spending, saving, and financial planning. From this foundation, the program advances to more complex concepts including wealth management strategies, taxation principles and planning, legal structures for holding assets and organizing business interests, approaches to philanthropy and charitable giving, and governance frameworks for family enterprises and wealth.
Each module is specifically tailored to reflect the family’s particular context, incorporating their values, addressing their specific concerns, and accounting for where different family members are in their personal and professional development. The program structure includes dedicated coaches who provide continuity throughout the learning journey, ensuring that lessons build upon one another and that family members have consistent support as they work through the curriculum. Additionally, subject-matter experts with deep knowledge in specific areas—whether taxation, legal structures, investment strategy, or other specialized topics—provide targeted, practical advice when particular modules require specialized expertise.
The Weight of Responsibility and Decision-Making Impact
The ultimate goal of this educational initiative extends beyond simply imparting financial knowledge. According to Justine Delisle, a partner at Richter, the program aims to prepare family members for the genuine weight of responsibility that accompanies substantial wealth. This preparation involves helping each family member understand that their individual decisions—whether about personal spending, business strategy, investment allocation, or philanthropic commitments—may have important impacts that extend beyond themselves to affect the entire family system.
“Each family member needs to understand that each of their decisions may have an important impact,” Delisle explains. “So, with that level of responsibility, we wanted to provide the tools for the next generation and the entrepreneur to become more well-rounded.” This perspective recognizes that wealth stewardship isn’t merely a technical exercise requiring financial knowledge—it’s also a responsibility that requires mature judgment, understanding of consequences, and alignment with family values and objectives.
Multigenerational Learning: Engaging All Ages
One of the most powerful aspects of the program involves bringing together family members from multiple generations to engage in learning experiences that apply across age groups. This multigenerational approach helps clarify each individual’s responsibilities and role within the family system while building shared understanding and vocabulary for discussing complex topics.
Delisle describes one particularly memorable example involving a family whose participants ranged in age from seven years old to sixty years old. This three-generation group participated together in a module focused on cybersecurity—a topic that might initially seem too technical or age-specific to engage such a diverse group. However, the module proved relevant to every generation at different levels of depth and application.
“We discussed governance around social media, the risks involved, and why families need rules,” Delisle recalls. The conversation addressed how family members’ online presence and digital activities could create risks for the family enterprise, the importance of privacy and security in protecting family wealth, and how different family members’ social media use might inadvertently expose sensitive information. Remarkably, even the seven-year-old participant could meaningfully connect to the conversation, understanding at an age-appropriate level why families establish rules about technology use and online behavior.
This example illustrates how thoughtfully designed financial literacy education can engage family members across wide age ranges by finding the threads that connect everyone’s experience while allowing for different levels of sophistication in how concepts are understood and applied.
Adapting to Real-Life Circumstances
The program’s effectiveness is significantly enhanced by its ability to adapt to real-life circumstances that families are actually facing, making the education immediately relevant rather than purely theoretical. Angelopoulos describes how Richter has customized the program based on what’s happening in participants’ lives at the time of their engagement with the curriculum.
In one instance, a family was preparing for an impending marriage of one of the younger generation members. Recognizing this real-life situation, the instructors adapted the legal module to spend additional time on matrimonial regimes—the legal frameworks that govern property rights within marriage. “We slowed down on matrimonial regimes because it was immediately relevant,” Angelopoulos explains. Rather than treating this as merely an academic topic, the family could explore how different legal structures might protect family assets, what considerations apply when a family member marries someone from outside the family enterprise, and how to have constructive conversations about these sensitive topics.
In another poignant example, participants were dealing with an end-of-life illness affecting a grandparent within the family. The estate planning module, which might otherwise be somewhat abstract for younger family members, suddenly became intensely relevant and practical. The module provided clarity about what taxation implications would arise following their grandparent’s death, what roles various family members would need to assume in managing the estate and inheritance, and how the family’s wealth structure would evolve through this generational transition. “The module provided a better understanding of what taxation would look like once their grandparent passed away, and the roles they would need to assume,” Angelopoulos says. This real-time application helped transform potential anxiety about an upcoming transition into constructive preparation and clearer understanding of responsibilities.
Diverse Outcomes: From MBA Programs to New Ventures
The outcomes families experience from participating in the financial literacy program vary considerably based on individual circumstances, interests, and life stages. However, a common thread running through participant experiences is a sense of empowerment—feeling better equipped to make decisions, take on responsibilities, and contribute meaningfully to family enterprises and wealth management.
One particularly striking outcome involved a participant who discovered through the program just how deeply interested he was in understanding the family enterprise at a more sophisticated level. This realization inspired him to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree, seeking to deepen his knowledge and prepare himself for a more substantial leadership role within the family business. The program essentially helped him identify a clear path for his professional development that aligned with both his personal interests and the family’s needs.
Spouses who marry into business families often face unique challenges—they become part of the family system and may eventually need to participate in decisions about wealth and business matters, yet they frequently haven’t been involved in the enterprise’s history or development. Many spouses who participate in the program report feeling significantly better prepared to step into decision-making roles when needed, equipped with foundational knowledge that helps them understand the family’s financial situation and contribute meaningfully to important discussions.
Young entrepreneurs within families often use the program as a foundation for launching their own ventures, whether within the family enterprise or independently. The comprehensive exposure to topics like business structures, taxation, financing, and governance provides practical knowledge they can apply immediately as they develop their own business ideas.
“It’s very rewarding to see the next generation come to us and say, ‘I want this program. I want to start my business and I want to be better prepared,'” Delisle says, noting the satisfaction of seeing young family members proactively seeking the knowledge and tools they need to succeed.
A Foundation for Ongoing Support
For Angelopoulos, the program’s adaptability reflects Richter’s broader philosophy of client service. “It’s a microcosm of the way we’ve supported our clients for the last century,” he explains. The program ensures continuity across generations while also introducing families to the breadth of expertise available to support them through various challenges and transitions. This approach reflects a collaborative model of supporting clients across every need they encounter rather than providing isolated services.
Both advisors emphasize that while the financial literacy program represents a crucial step in preparing families for intergenerational wealth transfer, it should not be viewed as a complete solution in itself. “It’s not a finality,” Delisle stresses. “It’s part of a responsible intergenerational entrepreneurial journey. Step one is to be initiated to these concepts. From there, we assist families in building governance frameworks and ensure that their structure is always optimal and well-aligned with their vision and values.”
This perspective positions financial literacy as the foundation upon which families can build more sophisticated governance structures, decision-making processes, and wealth management frameworks. The education provided through the program gives family members a common vocabulary, shared understanding of key concepts, and foundational knowledge that enables more productive conversations about complex family and business matters.
Preserving Wealth Through Education
Families who embrace comprehensive financial literacy for all generations position themselves most favorably for successfully preserving the wealth that earlier generations built. As Delisle notes, the next generation will necessarily play different roles during the evolution of family enterprises compared to the founding generation. “Beyond being part of the family, they may be actively involved in the business, philanthropy, or become shareholders. Each of these roles comes with responsibility—and with the understanding that their personal decisions may impact the entire family system.”
This recognition—that individual choices create ripples throughout the family—underscores why structured financial education represents such a valuable investment for multigenerational families. By ensuring that all family members understand fundamental financial concepts, appreciate the interconnected nature of their decisions, and possess practical tools for navigating complex situations, families significantly improve their chances of successfully transferring not just wealth but also the values and principles that created that wealth across multiple generations.
Acknowledgment: This article was written with the help of AI, which also assisted in research, drafting, editing, and formatting this current version.
