April 7, 2025 • 34 mins
This week, our host, Fabian Ruggieri chats with David Werdiger, Family Wealth Generalist. Having navigated his own journey from working in his own family's business, to working on software development, to successful tech entrepreneur, and finally to his current role as an author and generalist advisor on family dynamics and wealth transition.
Through this conversation, Werdiger emphasises the importance of collaboration between specialists and taking a family-centric rather than advisor-centric approach. His work through Swinburne University, Harvard Business School, and the Ultra High Net Worth Institute reflects this multifaceted approach to helping families create legacies that last beyond financial wealth.
Whether you're part of a family business, navigating succession or simply interested in the psychology of wealth, this conversation offers valuable perspectives on building "castles" that stand the test of time across generations.
Enjoyed the episode? Follow Finance Friends Podcast on Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok for daily updates and more inspiring conversations. Got questions or ideas for future episodes? Send us a DM @financefriendspodcast!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello Finance Friends listeners.
Today we have David Werdiger.
Welcome, David, how are youtoday?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm well, thanks, Fabian, and thanks so much for
having me.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well, thank you for being on.
I went to an event a couple ofweeks ago where you were the MC
for, and spoke about, familydynamics and family office and
intergenerational transfer ofwealth, which was really
interesting and something thatyou do.
You're a specialist in thisfield at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, so that was the Prime Financial Group event.
I think we can give them amention.
Yeah, we can, and yeah, it wasa lot of fun, nice crowd and I
love talking about what I do,but it took me a long way to get
to where I am now, which isitself an interesting journey, I
guess.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, and that's what we're here for today is to
understand that journey, becauseyou don't start off as an
18-year-old wanting to giveadvice advice to families around
structure and dynamics and,potentially, policy and whatever
(01:11):
might involve in governance.
So let's talk about the start.
Where did you when you werefinishing high school, what did
you want to do?
Did you know what you wanted todo and what did you study at
university?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh gee, when I was finishing school.
So I grew up in a businessfamily, I grew up around that
and at the time that was textilemanufacturing and commercial
property and my dad was verysuccessful and it was sort of
expected that I work in thebusiness as a student, which I
did, and I'm the youngest offive by a long gap.
And in the business already mydad was running it.
(01:46):
But I had three others brother,brother-in-law and cousin, all
of them 10-plus years older thanme.
And there's little me, theyoungest, the spoiled one,
working in this business andthinking what do they think of
me?
You know, am I going to betheir boss one day?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And in school I was very, very good at maths and
science, really bad at English.
I actually failed my trickEnglish, and so, you know, I
went to university, studied alittle bit after school and then
went to university, and by thetime I finished university I
thought you know what?
I don't want to be in thefamily business.
It probably took me 30 years towork out why.
(02:27):
But one thing that was veryimportant to me at the time was
to get a job on my own merits,and that's probably become a bit
of a theme.
So the first thing I did was Igot a job for Macintosh
Securities a stockbroker, butnot a stockbroker.
I was a software geek.
(02:47):
I was developing real-timestock market information systems
, and then I was a quant analyst.
So a lot of your listenersmight be familiar with Iris.
I was one of the developers ofthe predecessor to Iris.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Oh interesting, I didn't know that.
Yes, because obviously softwaredevelopment now is a big thing
and everything with tech, andobviously ai seems to demand a
premium in terms of humancapital, skill set, but also
business growth opportunities.
So I'd imagine softwareengineering when you started,
(03:20):
macintosh security is verydifferent to what it is today.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh my God, we had a big computer room which was
air-conditioned, okay, and wehad this big data general
computer and a hard disk.
And my boss at the time, whowas later one of the founders of
Iris, he said to me disk spaceis cheap and this is in the late
80s and we had, oh I don't know, we were so excited we might
(03:45):
have had like a 20 meg diskdrive, like a washing machine
size, and it was just.
Software development wassomething completely different.
We were spitting out, sendingdata over leased lines to dumb
terminals which were displaying80 by 25 characters.
That was our space.
We could work on the guys whowere doing the graphs.
(04:06):
They were doing them withlittle lines, with vertical bars
and plus signs to simulate agraph.
It was a very, very differentage of software development
compared to these days cloud andscreens and user interfaces
that we'd never dreamed of backthen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, so when you so, you were at Macintosh
Securities for how many?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
years, I think three, four years in those two roles
software role and then I was aquant analyst with the research
department, which was tons offun, yeah.
So I tended to find myselfgravitating towards software
jobs that revolved around makingsense of a lot of data, and
that was something that I reallyenjoyed doing.
But even though I was in a job,I wasn't comfortable.
(04:55):
I wasn't working nine to fivebecause I grew up.
You don't work nine to five,you just do whatever needs to be
done.
But even though I was anemployee, that's how I was
looking at the place and Ithought this is not for me.
I don't want to climb anycorporate ladders, I want to be
in business.
So I left that and started abusiness.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So how did you come to the decision of the business
to start and talk us about thatbusiness?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So in Robert Kiwasaki Harance I owned a job.
I didn't own a business.
I left full-time employment andI started developing custom
software for people.
So I thought about that and Ithought, okay, look, I've got a
business, I'm my own boss, butwhat am I selling?
I'm selling my time.
Yeah, and you know, time that'sthe most precious resource
(05:43):
we've got.
We don't want to be sellingtime because there's only so
many hours in the day and all ofus have exactly that.
But I continued to do that fora while and I went from one job
to the other and I realised youknow how am I going to scale
this business?
The only way to scale abusiness that's selling time is
to sell other people's time andtake a margin on it a
professional services business.
And I didn't want to do thatbecause I wasn't comfortable
(06:06):
doing that.
I was comfortable coding andwriting software and that was an
expression of creativity for me.
And I was fortunate in themid-'90s to stumble across a
software development opportunityof a telco billing system.
And after I had the opportunityto do that, suddenly I had a
lightbulb moment because one ofthe people I met said you know,
(06:29):
I've got some other people whoneed billing systems.
This was a time in Australia oftelco deregulation and all these
baby telcos were popping up andthey all needed billing systems
and I thought, oh, okay, thisis my opportunity to pivot from
selling time to selling IP.
Okay, this is my opportunity topivot from selling time to
selling IP.
I'll redevelop this billingsystem as my own IP and I will
(06:53):
own that and sell it many times.
And that was a good in concept.
But then, you know, I had thesecompanies starting telcos and
they said we're not going tospend big money on a billing
system.
Well, we don't want to.
Some of them did.
But one of them said I'd ratherlease it from you, I don't want
to pay for it.
And so, with this customer, Ideveloped a model, a business
(07:16):
model now known as SAS, wherethey leased the system and they
paid for it through a percentageof turnover, that was bill
through the system.
And that was really a turningpoint for the business and
really enabled us to grow andpick up all of these young
telcos.
And and in a way we wereinvesting in them because some
of them turned out to be duds,you know, we had some cost to
(07:39):
set them up and onboard them,but once we did, we had low cost
to serve eventually and and itwas a nice business because it
had recurring revenue and thatsort of kickstarted me into
probably the larger phase ofwhat I now call, in hindsight,
my second career as a techentrepreneur, because I started
(08:01):
two other telco businesses and Ipartnered in two others and I
had what I called a Lego set oftelco.
And I say that because when Iwas little I used to play with
Lego and I wanted to be anarchitect and I guess I was an
architect, but I was anarchitect of businesses and that
(08:23):
was a lot of fun.
And the other thing I did atthe same time or in parallel
with that was I joined a coupleof non-profit boards in my
community, which was a fantasticlearning experience learning
about non-profits and my familywas very philanthropic and
hands-on in non-profits so Igrew up around that, so familiar
with that space but reallylearning about it as a director
(08:45):
learning about director'sobligations, learning about
non-profit governance, learningabout strategy, learning about
how boards worked, and also oneof the roles was an opportunity
to meet a number of otherfamilies from my community and
learning about all the thingsthat they were doing in terms of
intergenerational wealth, andit was a real eye-opener for me.
I loved it and I thought, wow,this is something my family
(09:11):
ought to do.
But my family wasn'tparticularly interested.
My dad knew what was best foreverybody, as people of his ilk
did, and that was his way ofdoing things, but nevertheless I
knew that at some point I wouldbe responsible for a share of
(09:31):
significant wealth, or howeverthat would pan out, and I felt
an obligation to continue toprepare myself.
And then so we're now sort ofat what ended up being towards
the tail end of my second careeras a tech entrepreneur.
A few things happened somebusiness related, one health
related sort of got me thinkingwhat I want to do with my life,
(09:54):
and I developed this mentalmodel of time and purpose, time
being our most important assetand therefore the decision how
we spend our time is really oneof the most important decisions
we make where we want to bespending our time, and I thought
you know what I don't want tobe an owner-operator of business
(10:16):
.
Until the day I die, I wasalready on a journey in that
business to be more working onthe business rather than in the
business on a journey in thatbusiness to be more working on
the business rather than in thebusiness, and I felt it was
really important to delegate andempower others to do that,
because I couldn't do it myself.
And I thought, well, whatshould I do with my time that
could make a difference and thatcould leverage my skills, sort
(10:39):
of like a bit like the Japaneseconcept of ikigai.
Yeah, and what I came up withwas was I thought you know what
I'm from a family.
I understand families insideand out.
I understand technology.
I understand entrepreneurship,I understand governance and
strategy.
I'm developing more and moreknowledge about family dynamics
(11:01):
and intergenerational wealthtransition.
I thought you know what?
What I'd really love to do isadvise other families on how to
navigate it, because it's notsimple and that's you know.
I ended up writing a book aboutit.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what's the name of the book?
So can you share that with us?
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So the book is called Transition how to Repair your
Family and Business for theGreatest Wealth Transfer in
History.
I wrote this now in 2015, 2016or thereabouts, and you know
there was a lot of talk aboutthis great wealth transfer
because, you know, people hadcalculated the significant
wealth that was generated by thebaby boomer generation and they
(11:43):
started reasoning well, thesebaby boomers, they're going to
start retiring at age 65 becausethat's retirement age, and what
are they going to do with thiswealth?
They're going to give it totheir kids, probably.
And then people started toquantify it and you know we're
talking trillions of dollars andyou know it started to become a
thing and people are stilltalking about it today because
(12:05):
it hasn't really happened yetand one of the assumptions is
that people would retire at 65.
But if you are, you know, ablue-collar worker, then you do
retire around about the age of65.
But if you are an entrepreneur,then you can work well into
(12:25):
your 70s, 80s and beyond.
So we're seeing this thingextending in duration more than
people expected and someinteresting effects out of that.
We live in a time when four,sometimes five, generations of a
family are alive at the sametime.
My mother bless her, she'll be90 shortly and she has three
(12:50):
great-great-grandchildren.
I call it the 5G upgrade, butthat's going to become more
common.
And uh and and.
For families to navigate thisit starts to get very tricky and
you get various effects.
People are living longer,people are being are healthier.
(13:12):
So think about king charles.
Okay, so, for a long time hewas Prince Charles.
Some people might say too long,charles, one day you'll be king
.
How many times would he haveheard that and how many times
would he have thought to himselfmummy, when is this going to
happen?
And it didn't happen until hewas 73.
(13:35):
You know, I really feel for himbecause he's sitting there
waiting to become king and youknow he's got all of his royal
duties and obligations and youknow, and he's next in line.
I think, oh, you know that's atough gig and now he is king and
good on him.
But you know those years hisbest years, you might say
(13:59):
perhaps in his you know 40s and50s.
Where were they?
You know, why couldn't he beking then?
And we're seeing this KingCharles, prince Charles effect
in families where the incumbentgeneration are in their 70s and
80s and still active in thebusiness and the next generation
(14:19):
are in their 40s and 50s andsaying you know, do I have a
role?
And then their children are intheir 20s and 30s and bursting
with energy and wanting to dotheir thing, and so this wealth
transition is not necessarilyfrom one generation to another,
but really has to consider threegenerations simultaneously in
(14:41):
some families.
So it's a very interestingspace.
So it was in that context thatI wrote a book and crafted a
career and started writing a lot, which I really enjoy and
working with families, and Iwork with families helping them
navigate wealth transition,navigate succession.
(15:02):
But I do it not as a lawyer,not as an accountant, not as a
wealth manager.
It's probably easier todescribe it in terms of what I
don't do than what I do, becausesome people don't get it.
They say oh, you do structuring?
No, no, no, no, no.
I work on non-financial familycapital.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, so it's about opening up the conversation with
the family and ensuringeveryone has a say and
everyone's on the same page,spot on.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Exactly.
I liken it to building a castle, and this is what families are
building.
They're building something thatis going to last, hopefully for
generations, and any suchbuilding needs a foundation, and
so the foundation of a familythat lasts a long time are three
(15:56):
things.
The first one is communicationeverybody having a voice.
Communication is stronglycorrelated with trust.
I was thinking on my way hereand some stuff that I'd read.
One of the biggest problems Iencounter are parents that don't
trust their children, and howthat manifests is oh, I'm
(16:18):
worried that the kids aren'tready, I'm worried that the kids
are spoiled, I'm worried thatthe kids are not going to do the
right thing, and those are allways of saying I do not trust my
children.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So how do you overcome that then?
If they don't trust theirchildren and that one part of
the discussion, but obviously itis important with what you do,
how do you overcome that?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You need to get them on board, okay.
So I think about, sometimes, aspectrum.
I don't want the kids to bespoiled, and this is a concern,
because when you are raised withwealth, there is a risk, and
the risk is that you do not endup being resilient, that you
don't have drive, you don't havepurpose, and you grow up with
(17:13):
plenty having everything youneed, and that can be a
disincentive to do anythingproductive with your life, and
this is a concern of parents.
So that's one extreme.
So how do people respond to anextreme?
They go to the other extreme.
They'll say we are going tohide our wealth, we are going to
withhold it from our children,we're going to be really tough
(17:35):
with them.
And that is also not a healthyextreme.
I've seen families that have theKing Charles effect, that the
kids find out in their 70s thatthey suddenly inherited
significant wealth and they'refilled with resentment.
They're saying hang on, why thehell did I struggle in my 30s
(17:55):
and 40s when I needed it most,when you guys had all this money
?
Okay, you didn't have to showerme with it, but help me out.
So that's the opposite extreme.
We don't want that.
Or the other thing you have isthe sandwich generation, the
parents who say, oh look, youknow our kids who are in their
50s.
They're sitting there, butreally we want to empower their
(18:16):
children.
So the children end up beingwhat's called a sandwich
generation and being pushed out,where they say, well, no, we
thought we were doing this forour children, but maybe we're
doing this for our grandchildren.
And the children become themeat in the sandwich.
So those are two extremeapproaches either shower them
with wealth and spoiling them,or withhold wealth.
(18:38):
And I say, what is the risk?
Each one of these has a risk.
What is the risk of sharing thewealth with the kids and that
means trusting them and thatmeans talking about it and what
are the risks of not trustingthem and not sharing them?
And how do you find what I callthe Goldilocks zone?
(18:58):
That's going to be, you know abit each way where you use that
wealth to tell a more positivenarrative.
Not, this wealth will ruin youand spoil you, but this wealth
can empower our family.
This wealth can bring ourfamily together and help our
family develop other forms offamily capital.
(19:21):
So wealth firms they deal withfinancial capital assets.
I deal with non-financialcapital.
Probably the most important issocial capital.
A social capital is the abilityof a group of people to work
together towards a sharedpurpose.
(19:41):
I help families create andnurture that capital so that
they can be a family, not just abunch of people who share some
genetic material and some assets, but a family who together can
do amazing things for theirfamily, for the community, for
the world around them.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, and, if you like, I'm 37,.
I've got a pretty openrelationship with my parents
about their wealth and helpingthem.
Given my finance background,would you recommend is it up to
obviously know the familydoesn't have an advisor to bring
the generations together wouldyou recommend you know the
(20:24):
parents start having thatdiscussion with their children
early?
Is it up to the children tobring that?
You know?
Ask the parents to have thatopen discussion.
Is there a solution, an easysolution like that, if you don't
have someone like yourself thatcan open up that discussion?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Some families are open enough to be able to do it
themselves, but very often itneeds somebody external, outside
the family, because you know,when it comes to parents and
children, parents are tooemotionally involved.
Outsiders, outside advisors,can be objective and therefore
can give better quality advice.
That's untainted.
But you raise a really goodpoint.
(21:05):
Where does it start?
And sometimes it starts fromwhat I call the rising
generation.
Some people call it next gen.
I prefer rising gen, the risinggeneration coming to me and
saying our family's got aproblem, can you help?
And and I I say the risinggeneration coming to me and
saying our family's got aproblem, can you help?
And I say you've got to.
(21:25):
You know, I'd love to help, butwe need everybody on board.
And you have in families, apower dynamic.
You have and I'll shortly bepublishing, with my friend Betsy
, a paper on power dynamics infamilies and a tool to analyze
them.
A lot of this comes down to notmoney but power, and money is
(21:48):
just an instrument of exertingpower over children and over
other family members, and so ifthe process does not have the
blessing of the people, of thefamily members in power, it
(22:09):
really can't go ahead.
So it might be initiated by thechildren, or it might be
initiated by the parents, but itneeds the buy-in of the key
people in the family to say thisis going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
If there is someone in the family that is just not
interested.
You know, I want to like you asa young child, a young
professional.
I want to create my own destiny.
That must happen often.
And how do you navigate that?
When someone says you know what?
I don't want to be part of thisdiscussion.
I'm going to build my ownwealth, I'm going to empower
(22:44):
myself Does that happen often?
If so, how do you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Absolutely.
It happens often and it's veryimportant for families to be a
family because they want to, notbecause they have to.
So again, you don't want to endup as a bunch of people who are
bound together by shared assetsand that's what keeps them
together.
So the families that do it well, allow the children the space
(23:12):
if they want, to do their ownthing and even to leave, and
this optionality being able toleave is one of the most
powerful things.
It's like and I also do workwith operating business.
It's like having a businessthat's exit ready, and I help
business owners make theirbusinesses exit ready.
(23:32):
Does that mean they want toexit?
No, they don't have to, butthey've got the optionality.
If they get a knock on the doorone day with an offer that they
can't refuse, they can take itbecause the business is in a
shape that they can and they'vegot an emotional relationship
with their business that ismature, that they're able to
move on from the business.
(23:54):
So back to your question theoptionality of saying we as a
family, we communicate, weidentify what we have in common
and our shared purpose, butthat's not everything.
We don't necessarily have afamily identity that subsumes
our personal identity.
We have space for both, boththe collective identity and the
(24:15):
individual, and the familiesthat do it well have that both
the collective identity and theindividual, and the families
that do it well have that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So we've spoken a lot about families and obviously
this is relevant to everyonebecause everyone is part of the
family and we talk about thisintergenerational transfer.
But I'm really keen to get anunderstanding of because you
talked about.
You know you've written a bookTransition.
You're writing another bookabout to publish that co-author
your time within the universitysector.
(24:45):
So can you talk to me aboutSwinburne University and also
Harvard Business School as well,and share, provide some insight
to our listeners about what youdo in the education space?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Sure.
So towards the end of my secondcareer I decided to do a
Master's of Entrepreneurship atSwinburne.
I was going to do an MBA andrealised that that was not for
me, and at the time Swinburnewere actually one of the leaders
in entrepreneurship educationand that was fantastic, did it?
Over four years, part-time,really a turning point
(25:19):
supercharged my writing, mythinking, got me looking at the
world differently and Swinburnere-engaged with me a few years
later and I'm now on the courseadvisory committee for
entrepreneurship and Swinburne.
You know a lot of otheruniversities are now teaching it
.
Swinburne made the decision thatthey want entrepreneurship
studies to be everywhere, to becross-disciplinary, and that's
(25:41):
something that we're rolling outand I'm really proud to be part
of that.
And I also am an adjunctindustry fellow, which is a bit
of a long title but it means Isort of build bridges between
entrepreneurship and industry.
That's Swinburne HarvardBusiness School.
I got tapped on the shoulder tobecome a guest lecturer there
and they run some fantastic execeducation in families in
(26:03):
business, and I was able toattend that and lecture at that.
And I'm also part of anothergroup called the Ultra High Net
Worth Institute.
That's a non-profit think tankof advisors to families Network
Institute.
That's a non-profit think tankof advisors to families and
they've got 10 facultiescorresponding to what they
(26:24):
describe as the 10 domains offamily wealth.
So the thing about wealthyfamilies is that their needs.
With increased wealth comesincreased complexity, and no one
advisor can help witheverything.
So you know, I said before I'mnot a wealth advisor.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not anaccountant, I'm not a
structuring person.
I work alongside those people,together in service of the
(26:48):
family, because no one personcan do everything.
No one person has the set ofskills.
So you have these specificdomains and I'm on the faculty
for family dynamics and alsoknow a fair bit about governance
and preparing the risinggeneration.
But I'm not a wealth managerand I don't want to be.
(27:11):
But often I'll work closelywith wealth managers because
they'll say, well, we've gotthis family and they've got an
issue and that's outside ourscope.
We'll say, well, let'scollaborate, let's work together
for the family.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
So bring it together.
Yeah, and that's.
I guess there are some peoplelike the accountant or the
wealth advisor or the lawyerthat might take ownership of
that responsibility, but clearly, based on what you've told me,
can't provide that level ofdepth, and you know they want to
be independent to the specificadvice that they can provide and
(27:46):
their expertise.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, so there's a few really good points there.
Take ownership.
One person needs to be thecoordinator, the quarterback,
the quarterback.
I was going to say?
What are they?
The other metaphor they use theair traffic controller Okay.
And we're seeing thedevelopment of multifamily
offices who are purely that role.
(28:09):
They say we don't do everything.
We're across everything, but wedo nothing.
We outsource that andcoordinate, but we are your
one-stop shop, your single point.
We outsource that andcoordinate, but we are your
one-stop shop, your single point.
That's what we're seeing in themultifamily office industry as
a trend towards recognising thatintegrator role.
But all of it comes from all ofthe advisors saying we don't own
(28:32):
the client, we are there attheir pleasure, and a shift to
be more family-centric and lessadvisor-centric.
And some advisors can be veryprotective of their turf and
that, in my view, is not in bestservice of the family.
That's not what the familyneeds, that's what the advisor
needs.
Hang on to that AUM for dearlife rather than saying, look,
(28:57):
I'd like to get a bigger shareof wallet, but at the end of the
day, I recognise that this is acompetitive situation and I've
got to do my best for what youneed.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And is it an ongoing relationship you have with a lot
of these families, or is it setup and look after yourself?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So in some cases it ends up being ongoing because I
might end up chairing acommittee or an advisory board
or a board, and I've got a lotof experience doing that.
In other cases it might be aproject to get them kicked off
and then they sort of run itthemselves to help them
articulate their shared valuesand purpose.
Set up the governance rules,their shared values and purpose,
(29:37):
set up the governance rules,and then, you know, just check
in regularly.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
What have you most enjoyed about?
Ken?
I'm mindful of time.
I've been going for almost 30minutes and I really love this
conversation.
Let's talk about what you'veenjoyed over your journey at
different stages of your whatthree career up to your third
career would you say yeah, so Icall this my third career.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
What do I enjoy, you know, in my first career I was
basically an introvertedsoftware geek, okay, but then I
came to realise that developingsoftware, developing products,
is actually a creative activityand I love creating.
And so now in my third career,the two things I love is one,
(30:23):
developing and sharing knowledge, and I'm passionate about that
and I speak, I talk on podcastsand other fun things.
But the other thing I love isjust working with families and
helping them on their journeyand seeing them.
This one family.
We were facilitating this boardmeeting and at the end of it
(30:46):
they said oh, you know, you justmust think we're nuts.
And I said you guys arefantastic Because, yes, the
discussion was robust.
It was robust because they care, because they're all at the
table and they give a damn, andthat is beautiful.
So you know, if I'm in aposition that I can help enable
families to do that well, thatmakes my day.
(31:08):
If I can help mend conflictsituations not from we'll never
talk again till we're bestfriends, that may not even be
possible but to help families atleast be talking and and be,
you know, reach a, a detente, amutual understanding and respect
(31:32):
.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That is the most gratifying thing in the world
for me yeah, yeah, it'sinteresting you say that I've
been in situations myself whereI've had to help people come
together, whether it's to settleon a state or just bridge a
relationship.
And you know it is easy to.
I find it very easy to letwater under the bridge, but a
(31:54):
lot of people find that quitedifficult.
But just opening up thediscussion sometimes is, you
know, the hardest thing.
And once that discussion opensthen hopefully you know, people
can bridge their relationships.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, it's very hard and the stuff I deal with.
It might present itself infinancial terms, but it's not.
It's about family dynamics.
It's about the oldest things inthe world jealousies, rivalries
, power and getting to thebottom of that and helping
families work through that.
(32:27):
That's when you know the workI'm most proud of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And that probably will sum up for the day.
So thank you very much, David,it's been a pleasure.
That probably will sum up forthe day.
So thank you very much, David,it's been a pleasure.
You shared really good insightinto your career and how you
know your three careersultimately and what you do today
, which is very relevant, andspoken about a lot family
dynamics, intergenerationalwealth, advice and transfer.
So thank you very much forcoming on.
(32:54):
The Finance Friends podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Thanks so much, fabian, I really enjoyed
chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Thank you, thanks, cheers.
Hello Finance Friends listeners.
Today we have David Werdiger.
Welcome, David, how are youtoday?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm well, thanks, Fabian, and thanks so much for
having me.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well, thank you for being on.
I went to an event a couple ofweeks ago where you were the MC
for, and spoke about, familydynamics and family office and
intergenerational transfer ofwealth, which was really
interesting and something thatyou do.
You're a specialist in thisfield at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, so that was the Prime Financial Group event.
I think we can give them amention.
Yeah, we can, and yeah, it wasa lot of fun, nice crowd and I
love talking about what I do,but it took me a long way to get
to where I am now, which isitself an interesting journey, I
guess.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, and that's what we're here for today is to
understand that journey, becauseyou don't start off as an
18-year-old wanting to giveadvice advice to families around
structure and dynamics and,potentially, policy and whatever
(01:11):
might involve in governance.
So let's talk about the start.
Where did you when you werefinishing high school, what did
you want to do?
Did you know what you wanted todo and what did you study at
university?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh gee, when I was finishing school.
So I grew up in a businessfamily, I grew up around that
and at the time that was textilemanufacturing and commercial
property and my dad was verysuccessful and it was sort of
expected that I work in thebusiness as a student, which I
did, and I'm the youngest offive by a long gap.
And in the business already mydad was running it.
(01:46):
But I had three others brother,brother-in-law and cousin, all
of them 10-plus years older thanme.
And there's little me, theyoungest, the spoiled one,
working in this business andthinking what do they think of
me?
You know, am I going to betheir boss one day?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And in school I was very, very good at maths and
science, really bad at English.
I actually failed my trickEnglish, and so, you know, I
went to university, studied alittle bit after school and then
went to university, and by thetime I finished university I
thought you know what?
I don't want to be in thefamily business.
It probably took me 30 years towork out why.
(02:27):
But one thing that was veryimportant to me at the time was
to get a job on my own merits,and that's probably become a bit
of a theme.
So the first thing I did was Igot a job for Macintosh
Securities a stockbroker, butnot a stockbroker.
I was a software geek.
(02:47):
I was developing real-timestock market information systems
, and then I was a quant analyst.
So a lot of your listenersmight be familiar with Iris.
I was one of the developers ofthe predecessor to Iris.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Oh interesting, I didn't know that.
Yes, because obviously softwaredevelopment now is a big thing
and everything with tech, andobviously ai seems to demand a
premium in terms of humancapital, skill set, but also
business growth opportunities.
So I'd imagine softwareengineering when you started,
(03:20):
macintosh security is verydifferent to what it is today.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh my God, we had a big computer room which was
air-conditioned, okay, and wehad this big data general
computer and a hard disk.
And my boss at the time, whowas later one of the founders of
Iris, he said to me disk spaceis cheap and this is in the late
80s and we had, oh I don't know, we were so excited we might
(03:45):
have had like a 20 meg diskdrive, like a washing machine
size, and it was just.
Software development wassomething completely different.
We were spitting out, sendingdata over leased lines to dumb
terminals which were displaying80 by 25 characters.
That was our space.
We could work on the guys whowere doing the graphs.
(04:06):
They were doing them withlittle lines, with vertical bars
and plus signs to simulate agraph.
It was a very, very differentage of software development
compared to these days cloud andscreens and user interfaces
that we'd never dreamed of backthen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, so when you so, you were at Macintosh
Securities for how many?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
years, I think three, four years in those two roles
software role and then I was aquant analyst with the research
department, which was tons offun, yeah.
So I tended to find myselfgravitating towards software
jobs that revolved around makingsense of a lot of data, and
that was something that I reallyenjoyed doing.
But even though I was in a job,I wasn't comfortable.
(04:55):
I wasn't working nine to fivebecause I grew up.
You don't work nine to five,you just do whatever needs to be
done.
But even though I was anemployee, that's how I was
looking at the place and Ithought this is not for me.
I don't want to climb anycorporate ladders, I want to be
in business.
So I left that and started abusiness.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So how did you come to the decision of the business
to start and talk us about thatbusiness?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So in Robert Kiwasaki Harance I owned a job.
I didn't own a business.
I left full-time employment andI started developing custom
software for people.
So I thought about that and Ithought, okay, look, I've got a
business, I'm my own boss, butwhat am I selling?
I'm selling my time.
Yeah, and you know, time that'sthe most precious resource
(05:43):
we've got.
We don't want to be sellingtime because there's only so
many hours in the day and all ofus have exactly that.
But I continued to do that fora while and I went from one job
to the other and I realised youknow how am I going to scale
this business?
The only way to scale abusiness that's selling time is
to sell other people's time andtake a margin on it a
professional services business.
And I didn't want to do thatbecause I wasn't comfortable
(06:06):
doing that.
I was comfortable coding andwriting software and that was an
expression of creativity for me.
And I was fortunate in themid-'90s to stumble across a
software development opportunityof a telco billing system.
And after I had the opportunityto do that, suddenly I had a
lightbulb moment because one ofthe people I met said you know,
(06:29):
I've got some other people whoneed billing systems.
This was a time in Australia oftelco deregulation and all these
baby telcos were popping up andthey all needed billing systems
and I thought, oh, okay, thisis my opportunity to pivot from
selling time to selling IP.
Okay, this is my opportunity topivot from selling time to
selling IP.
I'll redevelop this billingsystem as my own IP and I will
(06:53):
own that and sell it many times.
And that was a good in concept.
But then, you know, I had thesecompanies starting telcos and
they said we're not going tospend big money on a billing
system.
Well, we don't want to.
Some of them did.
But one of them said I'd ratherlease it from you, I don't want
to pay for it.
And so, with this customer, Ideveloped a model, a business
(07:16):
model now known as SAS, wherethey leased the system and they
paid for it through a percentageof turnover, that was bill
through the system.
And that was really a turningpoint for the business and
really enabled us to grow andpick up all of these young
telcos.
And and in a way we wereinvesting in them because some
of them turned out to be duds,you know, we had some cost to
(07:39):
set them up and onboard them,but once we did, we had low cost
to serve eventually and and itwas a nice business because it
had recurring revenue and thatsort of kickstarted me into
probably the larger phase ofwhat I now call, in hindsight,
my second career as a techentrepreneur, because I started
(08:01):
two other telco businesses and Ipartnered in two others and I
had what I called a Lego set oftelco.
And I say that because when Iwas little I used to play with
Lego and I wanted to be anarchitect and I guess I was an
architect, but I was anarchitect of businesses and that
(08:23):
was a lot of fun.
And the other thing I did atthe same time or in parallel
with that was I joined a coupleof non-profit boards in my
community, which was a fantasticlearning experience learning
about non-profits and my familywas very philanthropic and
hands-on in non-profits so Igrew up around that, so familiar
with that space but reallylearning about it as a director
(08:45):
learning about director'sobligations, learning about
non-profit governance, learningabout strategy, learning about
how boards worked, and also oneof the roles was an opportunity
to meet a number of otherfamilies from my community and
learning about all the thingsthat they were doing in terms of
intergenerational wealth, andit was a real eye-opener for me.
I loved it and I thought, wow,this is something my family
(09:11):
ought to do.
But my family wasn'tparticularly interested.
My dad knew what was best foreverybody, as people of his ilk
did, and that was his way ofdoing things, but nevertheless I
knew that at some point I wouldbe responsible for a share of
(09:31):
significant wealth, or howeverthat would pan out, and I felt
an obligation to continue toprepare myself.
And then so we're now sort ofat what ended up being towards
the tail end of my second careeras a tech entrepreneur.
A few things happened somebusiness related, one health
related sort of got me thinkingwhat I want to do with my life,
(09:54):
and I developed this mentalmodel of time and purpose, time
being our most important assetand therefore the decision how
we spend our time is really oneof the most important decisions
we make where we want to bespending our time, and I thought
you know what I don't want tobe an owner-operator of business
(10:16):
.
Until the day I die, I wasalready on a journey in that
business to be more working onthe business rather than in the
business on a journey in thatbusiness to be more working on
the business rather than in thebusiness, and I felt it was
really important to delegate andempower others to do that,
because I couldn't do it myself.
And I thought, well, whatshould I do with my time that
could make a difference and thatcould leverage my skills, sort
(10:39):
of like a bit like the Japaneseconcept of ikigai.
Yeah, and what I came up withwas was I thought you know what
I'm from a family.
I understand families insideand out.
I understand technology.
I understand entrepreneurship,I understand governance and
strategy.
I'm developing more and moreknowledge about family dynamics
(11:01):
and intergenerational wealthtransition.
I thought you know what?
What I'd really love to do isadvise other families on how to
navigate it, because it's notsimple and that's you know.
I ended up writing a book aboutit.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what's the name of the book?
So can you share that with us?
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So the book is called Transition how to Repair your
Family and Business for theGreatest Wealth Transfer in
History.
I wrote this now in 2015, 2016or thereabouts, and you know
there was a lot of talk aboutthis great wealth transfer
because, you know, people hadcalculated the significant
wealth that was generated by thebaby boomer generation and they
(11:43):
started reasoning well, thesebaby boomers, they're going to
start retiring at age 65 becausethat's retirement age, and what
are they going to do with thiswealth?
They're going to give it totheir kids, probably.
And then people started toquantify it and you know we're
talking trillions of dollars andyou know it started to become a
thing and people are stilltalking about it today because
(12:05):
it hasn't really happened yetand one of the assumptions is
that people would retire at 65.
But if you are, you know, ablue-collar worker, then you do
retire around about the age of65.
But if you are an entrepreneur,then you can work well into
(12:25):
your 70s, 80s and beyond.
So we're seeing this thingextending in duration more than
people expected and someinteresting effects out of that.
We live in a time when four,sometimes five, generations of a
family are alive at the sametime.
My mother bless her, she'll be90 shortly and she has three
(12:50):
great-great-grandchildren.
I call it the 5G upgrade, butthat's going to become more
common.
And uh and and.
For families to navigate thisit starts to get very tricky and
you get various effects.
People are living longer,people are being are healthier.
(13:12):
So think about king charles.
Okay, so, for a long time hewas Prince Charles.
Some people might say too long,charles, one day you'll be king
.
How many times would he haveheard that and how many times
would he have thought to himselfmummy, when is this going to
happen?
And it didn't happen until hewas 73.
(13:35):
You know, I really feel for himbecause he's sitting there
waiting to become king and youknow he's got all of his royal
duties and obligations and youknow, and he's next in line.
I think, oh, you know that's atough gig and now he is king and
good on him.
But you know those years hisbest years, you might say
(13:59):
perhaps in his you know 40s and50s.
Where were they?
You know, why couldn't he beking then?
And we're seeing this KingCharles, prince Charles effect
in families where the incumbentgeneration are in their 70s and
80s and still active in thebusiness and the next generation
(14:19):
are in their 40s and 50s andsaying you know, do I have a
role?
And then their children are intheir 20s and 30s and bursting
with energy and wanting to dotheir thing, and so this wealth
transition is not necessarilyfrom one generation to another,
but really has to consider threegenerations simultaneously in
(14:41):
some families.
So it's a very interestingspace.
So it was in that context thatI wrote a book and crafted a
career and started writing a lot, which I really enjoy and
working with families, and Iwork with families helping them
navigate wealth transition,navigate succession.
(15:02):
But I do it not as a lawyer,not as an accountant, not as a
wealth manager.
It's probably easier todescribe it in terms of what I
don't do than what I do, becausesome people don't get it.
They say oh, you do structuring?
No, no, no, no, no.
I work on non-financial familycapital.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, so it's about opening up the conversation with
the family and ensuringeveryone has a say and
everyone's on the same page,spot on.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Exactly.
I liken it to building a castle, and this is what families are
building.
They're building something thatis going to last, hopefully for
generations, and any suchbuilding needs a foundation, and
so the foundation of a familythat lasts a long time are three
(15:56):
things.
The first one is communicationeverybody having a voice.
Communication is stronglycorrelated with trust.
I was thinking on my way hereand some stuff that I'd read.
One of the biggest problems Iencounter are parents that don't
trust their children, and howthat manifests is oh, I'm
(16:18):
worried that the kids aren'tready, I'm worried that the kids
are spoiled, I'm worried thatthe kids are not going to do the
right thing, and those are allways of saying I do not trust my
children.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So how do you overcome that then?
If they don't trust theirchildren and that one part of
the discussion, but obviously itis important with what you do,
how do you overcome that?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You need to get them on board, okay.
So I think about, sometimes, aspectrum.
I don't want the kids to bespoiled, and this is a concern,
because when you are raised withwealth, there is a risk, and
the risk is that you do not endup being resilient, that you
don't have drive, you don't havepurpose, and you grow up with
(17:13):
plenty having everything youneed, and that can be a
disincentive to do anythingproductive with your life, and
this is a concern of parents.
So that's one extreme.
So how do people respond to anextreme?
They go to the other extreme.
They'll say we are going tohide our wealth, we are going to
withhold it from our children,we're going to be really tough
(17:35):
with them.
And that is also not a healthyextreme.
I've seen families that have theKing Charles effect, that the
kids find out in their 70s thatthey suddenly inherited
significant wealth and they'refilled with resentment.
They're saying hang on, why thehell did I struggle in my 30s
(17:55):
and 40s when I needed it most,when you guys had all this money
?
Okay, you didn't have to showerme with it, but help me out.
So that's the opposite extreme.
We don't want that.
Or the other thing you have isthe sandwich generation, the
parents who say, oh look, youknow our kids who are in their
50s.
They're sitting there, butreally we want to empower their
(18:16):
children.
So the children end up beingwhat's called a sandwich
generation and being pushed out,where they say, well, no, we
thought we were doing this forour children, but maybe we're
doing this for our grandchildren.
And the children become themeat in the sandwich.
So those are two extremeapproaches either shower them
with wealth and spoiling them,or withhold wealth.
(18:38):
And I say, what is the risk?
Each one of these has a risk.
What is the risk of sharing thewealth with the kids and that
means trusting them and thatmeans talking about it and what
are the risks of not trustingthem and not sharing them?
And how do you find what I callthe Goldilocks zone?
(18:58):
That's going to be, you know abit each way where you use that
wealth to tell a more positivenarrative.
Not, this wealth will ruin youand spoil you, but this wealth
can empower our family.
This wealth can bring ourfamily together and help our
family develop other forms offamily capital.
(19:21):
So wealth firms they deal withfinancial capital assets.
I deal with non-financialcapital.
Probably the most important issocial capital.
A social capital is the abilityof a group of people to work
together towards a sharedpurpose.
(19:41):
I help families create andnurture that capital so that
they can be a family, not just abunch of people who share some
genetic material and some assets, but a family who together can
do amazing things for theirfamily, for the community, for
the world around them.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, and, if you like, I'm 37,.
I've got a pretty openrelationship with my parents
about their wealth and helpingthem.
Given my finance background,would you recommend is it up to
obviously know the familydoesn't have an advisor to bring
the generations together wouldyou recommend you know the
(20:24):
parents start having thatdiscussion with their children
early?
Is it up to the children tobring that?
You know?
Ask the parents to have thatopen discussion.
Is there a solution, an easysolution like that, if you don't
have someone like yourself thatcan open up that discussion?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Some families are open enough to be able to do it
themselves, but very often itneeds somebody external, outside
the family, because you know,when it comes to parents and
children, parents are tooemotionally involved.
Outsiders, outside advisors,can be objective and therefore
can give better quality advice.
That's untainted.
But you raise a really goodpoint.
(21:05):
Where does it start?
And sometimes it starts fromwhat I call the rising
generation.
Some people call it next gen.
I prefer rising gen, the risinggeneration coming to me and
saying our family's got aproblem, can you help?
And and I I say the risinggeneration coming to me and
saying our family's got aproblem, can you help?
And I say you've got to.
(21:25):
You know, I'd love to help, butwe need everybody on board.
And you have in families, apower dynamic.
You have and I'll shortly bepublishing, with my friend Betsy
, a paper on power dynamics infamilies and a tool to analyze
them.
A lot of this comes down to notmoney but power, and money is
(21:48):
just an instrument of exertingpower over children and over
other family members, and so ifthe process does not have the
blessing of the people, of thefamily members in power, it
(22:09):
really can't go ahead.
So it might be initiated by thechildren, or it might be
initiated by the parents, but itneeds the buy-in of the key
people in the family to say thisis going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
If there is someone in the family that is just not
interested.
You know, I want to like you asa young child, a young
professional.
I want to create my own destiny.
That must happen often.
And how do you navigate that?
When someone says you know what?
I don't want to be part of thisdiscussion.
I'm going to build my ownwealth, I'm going to empower
(22:44):
myself Does that happen often?
If so, how do you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Absolutely.
It happens often and it's veryimportant for families to be a
family because they want to, notbecause they have to.
So again, you don't want to endup as a bunch of people who are
bound together by shared assetsand that's what keeps them
together.
So the families that do it well, allow the children the space
(23:12):
if they want, to do their ownthing and even to leave, and
this optionality being able toleave is one of the most
powerful things.
It's like and I also do workwith operating business.
It's like having a businessthat's exit ready, and I help
business owners make theirbusinesses exit ready.
(23:32):
Does that mean they want toexit?
No, they don't have to, butthey've got the optionality.
If they get a knock on the doorone day with an offer that they
can't refuse, they can take itbecause the business is in a
shape that they can and they'vegot an emotional relationship
with their business that ismature, that they're able to
move on from the business.
(23:54):
So back to your question theoptionality of saying we as a
family, we communicate, weidentify what we have in common
and our shared purpose, butthat's not everything.
We don't necessarily have afamily identity that subsumes
our personal identity.
We have space for both, boththe collective identity and the
(24:15):
individual, and the familiesthat do it well have that both
the collective identity and theindividual, and the families
that do it well have that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So we've spoken a lot about families and obviously
this is relevant to everyonebecause everyone is part of the
family and we talk about thisintergenerational transfer.
But I'm really keen to get anunderstanding of because you
talked about.
You know you've written a bookTransition.
You're writing another bookabout to publish that co-author
your time within the universitysector.
(24:45):
So can you talk to me aboutSwinburne University and also
Harvard Business School as well,and share, provide some insight
to our listeners about what youdo in the education space?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Sure.
So towards the end of my secondcareer I decided to do a
Master's of Entrepreneurship atSwinburne.
I was going to do an MBA andrealised that that was not for
me, and at the time Swinburnewere actually one of the leaders
in entrepreneurship educationand that was fantastic, did it?
Over four years, part-time,really a turning point
(25:19):
supercharged my writing, mythinking, got me looking at the
world differently and Swinburnere-engaged with me a few years
later and I'm now on the courseadvisory committee for
entrepreneurship and Swinburne.
You know a lot of otheruniversities are now teaching it
.
Swinburne made the decision thatthey want entrepreneurship
studies to be everywhere, to becross-disciplinary, and that's
(25:41):
something that we're rolling outand I'm really proud to be part
of that.
And I also am an adjunctindustry fellow, which is a bit
of a long title but it means Isort of build bridges between
entrepreneurship and industry.
That's Swinburne HarvardBusiness School.
I got tapped on the shoulder tobecome a guest lecturer there
and they run some fantastic execeducation in families in
(26:03):
business, and I was able toattend that and lecture at that.
And I'm also part of anothergroup called the Ultra High Net
Worth Institute.
That's a non-profit think tankof advisors to families Network
Institute.
That's a non-profit think tankof advisors to families and
they've got 10 facultiescorresponding to what they
(26:24):
describe as the 10 domains offamily wealth.
So the thing about wealthyfamilies is that their needs.
With increased wealth comesincreased complexity, and no one
advisor can help witheverything.
So you know, I said before I'mnot a wealth advisor.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not anaccountant, I'm not a
structuring person.
I work alongside those people,together in service of the
(26:48):
family, because no one personcan do everything.
No one person has the set ofskills.
So you have these specificdomains and I'm on the faculty
for family dynamics and alsoknow a fair bit about governance
and preparing the risinggeneration.
But I'm not a wealth managerand I don't want to be.
(27:11):
But often I'll work closelywith wealth managers because
they'll say, well, we've gotthis family and they've got an
issue and that's outside ourscope.
We'll say, well, let'scollaborate, let's work together
for the family.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
So bring it together.
Yeah, and that's.
I guess there are some peoplelike the accountant or the
wealth advisor or the lawyerthat might take ownership of
that responsibility, but clearly, based on what you've told me,
can't provide that level ofdepth, and you know they want to
be independent to the specificadvice that they can provide and
(27:46):
their expertise.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, so there's a few really good points there.
Take ownership.
One person needs to be thecoordinator, the quarterback,
the quarterback.
I was going to say?
What are they?
The other metaphor they use theair traffic controller Okay.
And we're seeing thedevelopment of multifamily
offices who are purely that role.
(28:09):
They say we don't do everything.
We're across everything, but wedo nothing.
We outsource that andcoordinate, but we are your
one-stop shop, your single point.
We outsource that andcoordinate, but we are your
one-stop shop, your single point.
That's what we're seeing in themultifamily office industry as
a trend towards recognising thatintegrator role.
But all of it comes from all ofthe advisors saying we don't own
(28:32):
the client, we are there attheir pleasure, and a shift to
be more family-centric and lessadvisor-centric.
And some advisors can be veryprotective of their turf and
that, in my view, is not in bestservice of the family.
That's not what the familyneeds, that's what the advisor
needs.
Hang on to that AUM for dearlife rather than saying, look,
(28:57):
I'd like to get a bigger shareof wallet, but at the end of the
day, I recognise that this is acompetitive situation and I've
got to do my best for what youneed.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And is it an ongoing relationship you have with a lot
of these families, or is it setup and look after yourself?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So in some cases it ends up being ongoing because I
might end up chairing acommittee or an advisory board
or a board, and I've got a lotof experience doing that.
In other cases it might be aproject to get them kicked off
and then they sort of run itthemselves to help them
articulate their shared valuesand purpose.
Set up the governance rules,their shared values and purpose,
(29:37):
set up the governance rules,and then, you know, just check
in regularly.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
What have you most enjoyed about?
Ken?
I'm mindful of time.
I've been going for almost 30minutes and I really love this
conversation.
Let's talk about what you'veenjoyed over your journey at
different stages of your whatthree career up to your third
career would you say yeah, so Icall this my third career.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
What do I enjoy, you know, in my first career I was
basically an introvertedsoftware geek, okay, but then I
came to realise that developingsoftware, developing products,
is actually a creative activityand I love creating.
And so now in my third career,the two things I love is one,
(30:23):
developing and sharing knowledge, and I'm passionate about that
and I speak, I talk on podcastsand other fun things.
But the other thing I love isjust working with families and
helping them on their journeyand seeing them.
This one family.
We were facilitating this boardmeeting and at the end of it
(30:46):
they said oh, you know, you justmust think we're nuts.
And I said you guys arefantastic Because, yes, the
discussion was robust.
It was robust because they care, because they're all at the
table and they give a damn, andthat is beautiful.
So you know, if I'm in aposition that I can help enable
families to do that well, thatmakes my day.
(31:08):
If I can help mend conflictsituations not from we'll never
talk again till we're bestfriends, that may not even be
possible but to help families atleast be talking and and be,
you know, reach a, a detente, amutual understanding and respect
(31:32):
.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
That is the most gratifying thing in the world
for me yeah, yeah, it'sinteresting you say that I've
been in situations myself whereI've had to help people come
together, whether it's to settleon a state or just bridge a
relationship.
And you know it is easy to.
I find it very easy to letwater under the bridge, but a
(31:54):
lot of people find that quitedifficult.
But just opening up thediscussion sometimes is, you
know, the hardest thing.
And once that discussion opensthen hopefully you know, people
can bridge their relationships.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, it's very hard and the stuff I deal with.
It might present itself infinancial terms, but it's not.
It's about family dynamics.
It's about the oldest things inthe world jealousies, rivalries
, power and getting to thebottom of that and helping
families work through that.
(32:27):
That's when you know the workI'm most proud of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And that probably will sum up for the day.
So thank you very much, David,it's been a pleasure.
That probably will sum up forthe day.
So thank you very much, David,it's been a pleasure.
You shared really good insightinto your career and how you
know your three careersultimately and what you do today
, which is very relevant, andspoken about a lot family
dynamics, intergenerationalwealth, advice and transfer.
So thank you very much forcoming on.
(32:54):
The Finance Friends podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Thanks so much, fabian, I really enjoyed
chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Thank you, thanks, cheers.
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