Family Business Audiocast | Episode 36 | Christina Wing & Maryann Bell | Wingspan Legacy Partners

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About Our Guests:

Christina Wing is the co-founder of Wingspan Legacy Partners, an advisory firm dedicated to helping families and founders navigate the complexities of family dynamics, business operations, wealth management, and legacy planning. She also serves as a senior advisor at Crestview Partners and is a faculty member at Harvard Business School, where she created the course Demystifying Families in Business. Christina began her career at Goldman Sachs, gaining deep experience in finance and operations before transitioning to leadership in family office advisory. A Harvard MBA graduate, she is committed to shaping strategies that integrate governance, philanthropy, and long-term vision, empowering families to build impactful, sustainable legacies.

Maryann Bell is a partner at Wingspan Legacy Partners, where she leads the advisory practice, specializing in designing governance structures and policies for multi-generational enterprises. Her career spans international experience with Goldman Sachs in New York, Boston, and London before settling in Austin. A Harvard MBA graduate, Maryann is an accomplished governance expert, having chaired seven boards and serving as the director of the Gallivan Bell family office. She brings a strategic and holistic approach to guiding families through succession and legacy challenges, ensuring sustainability across generations.

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[Transcript]

R. Adam Smith: [Intro] Welcome to the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn. I am R. Adam Smith, creator of this audiocast series. As an entrepreneur, investor, founder, investment banker, and board leader the last 25 years, I am fortunate for my many experiences within the family firm industry. 

A warm thank you to our live audience on LinkedIn today – and for those listening in the future. 

A brief comment on why I created this broadcast: private companies are a passion of mine, having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, and having engaged for two decades in deals, strategic transformations, investments, and boards, with an array of fascinating family enterprises, family firms, and family offices. I founded this series to offer a useful platform for listeners to hear from veterans, academics, and leaders in the vast family firm ecosystem. Whether you are a family business owner, building, running, or advising a family office, or just expanding your family office activities, I hope these conversations are useful and enlightening. And now, it is time to turn our attention [01:00] to our accomplished guest on today’s episode.

I'm very pleased today to host Christina Wing and Maryann Bell of Wingspan Legacy Partners, a leading global elite advisor to many sophisticated families and their family offices and family enterprises and ecosystems and one of the leading organizations of its kind in the world.

And in fact, a repeat guest on the Family Business Audiocast. So, Christina, great to have you back, and Maryann to have you here.

Christina Wing: Thank you. We're happy to be here.

Maryann Bell: Thank you again.

R. Adam Smith: It's a victory just getting us all together. That's a big one. So, I'm going to talk about you first, and then we'll dig in. We'll start with Christina.

She is the founder of Wingspan Legacy Partners and, as many of you know, a faculty member at Harvard Business School [HBS] where she created the course Demystifying Families in Business and she's super active there [02:00] at Harvard in many ways. You can see that on LinkedIn. And, with a background earlier as a CEO of a single-family office, and also earlier at Goldman Sachs, Christina is dedicated and extremely qualified to help families navigate the complexities of business operations and also wealth management and philanthropy and lifestyle matters.

Her work in the firm focuses on fostering alignment and designing effective governance frameworks and preserving legacy, of course—one of my favorite topics and Christina’s as well, talking about legacy often across many generations. And finally, her passion and the firm's for societal impact, and her unique insights into the intersections of family and business dynamics make her a very sought-after expert.

Her colleague, Maryann, is a partner at the firm. She leads the advisory practice where she works in the designing of the governance structures and policies for multi-generational enterprises earlier [03:00] at Goldman Sachs as well in New York, Boston, and London. Now she's in Austin. Maryann brings a holistic and strategic approach to guiding families through the succession legacy issues. She's also an MBA from Harvard and accomplished governance expert who has chaired seven boards. She's also the director of a family office called Gallivan Bell.

I'm delighted to have you today. Thank you for letting me go over your distinguished backgrounds and we'll go into some talking points first together.

So, let's start with the families and their unspoken rules and undercurrents that shape those relationships within the family or at the governance level—super tricky these days. There's such an explosion of G2 and G3 and monetization or not of large family enterprises.

If you could both talk about the principles you find most effective in helping families break through [04:00] some of these challenges of succession and, of course, transparency and ongoing communication.

Maryann Bell: You know, the most common phrase that we hear from our families is, “We don't talk about that.” And we strongly encourage them to start addressing issues that are complicated. Even Warren Buffett, in his recent note sent right before Thanksgiving, strongly encourages families to share with their children and the broader family at large what's in their will because there has been longstanding reluctance to talk about succession, talk about death, talk about intentions, and that in itself creates a very difficult backdrop for families to steward their assets multi-generationally if they don't have those conversations.

R. Adam Smith: So, one of the questions I had for you, Maryann, is this glue that holds together the families and their enterprises. So, on one hand, the family [05:00] is the founder; they have the pride, the ego, the control of the enterprise, but then the enterprise is also often meant to be sold.

So, when you meet with these families that are considering the legacy and the business being held versus being monetized and sold, how do you think of those issues? You know, not just M&A, but it could be a recap, could be a merger, it could be an ESOP. Let's talk about that a bit.

Maryann Bell: Sure. Well, I'm going to refer back to what we just talked about. It's somewhat ironic that we say “governance is the glue” because you first have to get unstuck. And that's really where we start the process, where we start to talk about some of the challenging and difficult issues.

But when it comes to the glue, really what we're talking about is a family, in many cases multi-generationally, who have shared ownership of an asset. And unless there's clarity on governance, [06:00] whether it's ownership governance, policy governance for multi-generational access and onboarding, or at least a shared understanding of what the goals of this asset that is owned by different people are, then that is a recipe for disaster.

So, when we talk about the glue, we talk about putting in place whether it's a shareholder agreement or tactics like a buy-sell so there's an understanding for or an access for liquidity, or even multi-generationally, access to capital for next generations. That's a really important way to have independent agency and, at the same time, alignment on this shared asset and stewardship of the asset.

Now, making a decision on selling an asset or a merger or taking large capital from a partner are important decisions. And the ability to make decisions [07:00] sometimes can be complicated if there isn't decision-making governance. In other words, who gets to decide?

R. Adam Smith: Right.

Maryann Bell: What's the threshold to make the decision? It’s interesting. Again, I'm referring back because it's an interesting data point; Warren Buffett said he wanted his children to have unanimity, you know, all in agreement for any decisions. And that was his decision-making governance. That's how he felt the stewardship of the assets could be best protected.

Oddly enough, we have many families with three owners. It just is one of those patterns we've seen. And in many, many cases, it's two out of three. You know, again, it depends on the family and what feels comfortable to them.

R. Adam Smith: Okay. So, governance is important, but there are lots of different types of governance. And on this show, with many of your friends—Richard Wolkowitz, Valerie Galinskaya, Emily Bouchard, Jim Grubman—there are lots of different [08:00] pieces of governance and I guess the construction of the governance. Even with the communication you're talking about, there's tension within the family and maintaining a culture of respect within the family members.

There's such an explosion of the family office space. Can you talk a bit about that? What's changing going from the old school to the new school, right? Old money to new money, G1 and G2. What's going on in the market today in terms of how these companies are evolving, and what does that mean for the next-gen in their roles within the family business?

Christina Wing: So, I think when we say, “family business,” people typically don't include family office in that space. And so, when we start to say, “family enterprises,” that includes family offices in people's minds.

R. Adam Smith: Definitely.

Christina Wing: And so, when you think about the governance, you know, you have governance of operating companies, which is the board of directors, you have governance of [09:00] family, which can be family constitutions or sibling agreements, and then you have governance of wealth. And the governance of the wealth is a combination of the principal setting and asset allocation, which is the mission and how they want to run the money, how do they develop the business plan, and then how do they execute [it].

The governance inside family offices is starting to resemble that of other asset management firms wherein there's an investment committee, there's deeper rigor, but the family office component that does concierge type of services is still somewhat unregulated, so to speak, and we're seeing families that want their family office to go through multiple generations having to take into account how different people will use and interact with that family office.

[10:00] And so, setting boundaries around cash management, setting boundaries around how you can decide to participate or not participate in different illiquid assets, and then, most importantly, setting boundaries around shared assets. And so, the family office eventually will most likely have more governance in place than even operating companies because the missions of individuals can be different as opposed to the operating company. So, we're seeing that start to really come up.

The big shift with the rising gen is many of them are much more interested in social impact and different types of investing, which means the mission might not be an absolute return on invested capital, it might be a return on social, it might be a return on different things. And so, the number one best thing is to stay fluid, keep evaluating, [11:00] and make sure the team you have to execute matches your mission, and put the governance around that. And that's how you're going to win.

R. Adam Smith: Okay, good. And where does the classic structure of corporate governance come into play for the family offices, let's say, the independent director and all of the disciplines around the board of directors versus the family charter?

Christina Wing: Very few family offices have traditional boards of directors. They might have investment committees that they have outsiders that sit on. For family offices to go through multiple generations, they're going to have to form boards of directors just like other financial institutions have. If you look at many of the top private equity firms, they have boards of directors that have internal people and external. And so, as these family offices get greater clarity on their mission, I believe that they'll also put [12:00] greater rigor around an independent board that helps govern this entity.

R. Adam Smith: And just on that point quickly, we've had some executive recruiting elite players on the show and talked to them, let's say, the Linda Macks and the Korn Ferrys. Do you think that family enterprises are building their governance more word of mouth or do you think they actually go the professional route or both?

Christina Wing: I believe that most family offices start bottom-up. And so, what that means is, they make some money, they start investing, then they hire some people, and then they come up with a mission. So, they start upside down. As they restructure and actually create a mission business plan execution team, they are bringing in outside external board members as well as bringing in the right skill set [13:00] inside the family office to execute.

One thing about family offices that is finally changing and I'm so happy about is that they're really starting to collaborate with each other. And so, just like if you run an airline, you want to beat your other airlines. But if you run a family office, you can win along with other family offices and often will if you collaborate more share information [and] share investments.

So, as we see that collaboration, we're seeing an increase in best practices of governance.

R. Adam Smith: Absolutely. You can definitely see that in the statistics that come out of Camden, Northern Trust, JP Morgan, Bessemer, and Citibank, on the reports, but we're also seeing that human capital, the excellence but also the collaborations—you can see that in all the conversations by you guys and of course Ron [Ronald] Diamond and the kind of backchannel SFO [14:00] workflow that Angelo Robles and others talk about. I think that's really exciting. But a lot of it, I think, is still backchannel.

So, on that front, Maryann, there are some of these rigid structures that have been in place over a long time. Let's say you have full control by G1 or you have no board of directors or you have no charter or you have a more patriarchal philosophy toward family values. So, when Wingspan has these clients that want to evolve, how does that go? What's it like walking them through the evolution of being more mindful, involving the children, expanding the board, expanding management, and external human capital? It's tricky.

What does it look like when you have that client relationship?

Maryann Bell: You know, Adam, you've done a very nice job characterizing what we've seen with several families that we're working with here in Texas where they have—through blood, sweat, and tears, shall we say—grown [15:00] a business from a very small, basic level with very little structure to a very successful business and have not constructed the governance alongside it. And, you know, that's really truly where an advisor coming in as an external perspective can be very valuable to a family business/family enterprise and help stand up and put together the governance that can allow for multi-generational transfer.

The construction of a very intentional board to complement the needs of the CEO is very important to look at skill sets that are not in the room, networks. And the thing that's really helpful is that there now has developed—you know, you talked about some very good headhunter firms and certainly people who are well-regarded in the space. But there are a lot of experienced executives [who] want to serve on boards and want to serve, [16:00] in particular, on family boards because they feel that there's a great need to add value and add professionalism to those environments and they want to help.

So, we've done that here and the one word I would say that reflects the feelings of the CEO is “from reluctance to relief.” And it's very comforting, if that's an appropriate word, to have additional expertise in the room, the network expanded. And, quite frankly, alongside that expertise development that we create with boards, we strongly encourage multi-generational engagement, whether it's creating a board observer platform or, in the cases where members of the family serve in the business, to elevate them to senior management to be able to participate.

So, you're looking at stewardship, but not just the external, but also internal to the family.

R. Adam Smith: That's great. We were just talking about [17:00] M&A and liquification and monetization. We won't go further into that. We don't have time, [but] that's one of my favorite topics anyway with my background. But we can talk about that at a later point.

It's nice to see my friend Juan Manuel [Fernandez Cortina] from Banco Santander from Mexico. Hola, Juan. Good to see you again. You guys can talk offline. He runs the investment banking for Banco Santander. So, you're talking about Latin America. You guys can catch up.

So, Cristina, you talked about this psychological side of deserving the wealth. I've talked about this with Jim Grubman [and] also with authors, Alfredo de Massis, this concept of deserving wealth. Tom [Thomas] Deans has his own particular point of view, as you know, on this transfer mechanism of the economic psychology of the wealth.

So, how do you address these psychological issues and not let the capitalism philosophy overwhelm the pride of creating the wealth itself?

Christina Wing: [18:00] So, this is a tricky one, and many second-generation people, depending on how far along the first gen was, saw their wealth change. And so, they saw kind of the struggle of the first gen and then the change. Those people tend to have less guilt around the wealth because they felt part of the creators. Those [who] come into great wealth from birth tend to feel more guilt and more responsibility/shy away from it.

And, you know, there are so few people that run around the world talking about their family business because they feel like it makes them look like a rich kid. And, in reality, many of them have the opportunity to outperform in society in such an amazing way if they grab onto it.

So, what we encourage the rising gen to do is, what does fair mean? Let’s not worry about [19:00] fair. Let’s worry about, what’s the clarity that comes with whatever your responsibility is going to be to the wealth, and what are you going to do with it? And how do we keep you motivated and really increase your motivation? Because motivation is contagious. And so, if the rising gen has great motivation and grabs onto what they have, they're going to pull up others with them.

And so, you know, from Wingspan's perspective, we are completely betting on the rising gen and we're betting on them by investing in them and educating them, and, most importantly, introducing them to each other so they're not on this lonely journey where they feel like they just can't talk about things, because there is an element of loneliness.

R. Adam Smith: In our family office and in this dynamic of the network, it is very valuable, but it's still competitive. There's confidentiality, there's privacy, there's pride, there's ego. [20:00] So, it's definitely super important. I think it will grow. But of course, there's the haves and have nots and there's the real genuine networks, and then there's sort of the more the conference networks.

But I think you talked about motivation. I spoke with Chelsea Toler recently, who you know. She's wonderful and a super capable next-gen. It seems like people like her are getting very active in more of a polymath approach to the family office and not just doing one thing.

Maryann, what do you see in the next-gen in terms of their activities? Because it's one thing to be motivated by the wealth and the power, but then if, let's say, as next-gen, you don't really want to do that work, you want to do something else. You have to find something else to do that's not the traditional family operating company activity.

Maryann Bell: I think that what we'd like to start families to cultivate is a sense of entrepreneurial [21:00] spirit and identity. And so, it doesn't have to be in the core business that the family has originally created wealth, but that we as a family stand for creating new things and solving problems. And, you know, whether that's necessarily ambitiously seeking out the same type of wealth creation as the original wealth or whether it has a social impact ambition or starts to serve an industry or a field that is just brand new to the family.

So, we absolutely see a difference of ambitions among rising generations. You know, a little shift of values. It doesn't mean it's away from the original set of family values, but increasingly, we're seeing younger or rising gens not necessarily wanting to go back into the business, or even if they're going to be in the business or in the enterprise, it's an affiliated way. Maybe they're interested in real estate and not the core business. Maybe they're more interested in [22:00] getting involved in the family office philanthropy and not the business.

So, creating platforms for engagement is really important. We're also seeing families creating access to capital that has—it's not just free money being given, but access to capital for funding new businesses that have prerequisites, parameters of performance, and payback periods. It's not a loan like you would get in the bank but it's a real source of seed capital because, again, the family chooses to bet on themselves.

Christina Wing: And, if I may add, I think that the thing that we want to be very conscious of and we’ll state it on record, we don't want every family member going into their family business. We think that the people [who] are qualified, [who] have a passion for it and want to expand it and nurture it, should. But we do want [23:00] all family members to be responsible owners. And so, we're also educating them on the difference [between] being an owner-investor versus an owner-operator. And if you want to take a different path but be a responsible owner-investor, like power to you. We need more entrepreneurs, and we need people that are hungry to do different things.

And so, it used to be if you didn't work in the family business, you weren't part of the family, and we're really demystifying that.

R. Adam Smith: Great. Therefore, that's the term in your class at Harvard. Talk about that briefly, the demystification. So, is that stripping out the ego, or is that more like collaboration, or just more about pride? It's a complex concept and, obviously, it's very detailed because you have a whole master class on it, but if you could summarize it here that would be great.

Christina Wing: Well, I mean, demystifying anything in a quick summary is probably challenging, but what we try to do is in the class understand where [24:00] IQ meets EQ and, inside a family business where business and emotions can intersect, how to separate those out in a way that's constructive.

And so, for our rising gens, what we are all about is, you have to want to learn things. If you want to be inside the business, you have to go for full immersion and you need to take responsibility. And with that responsibility, improving yourself, you'll get respect. And that is only when you can encourage change and evolution, which all businesses need. If you come, you know, flying in as a rising gen, and [on] day two you're encouraging change without taking the path of the learning, the immersion, and the responsibilities, you don't have that respect yet.

And so, we kind of are demystifying the path of how to work in a business that has concentrated ownership whether you’re a family member or not. Because most of us [25:00] work in family businesses and aren’t a family member, and we also have to be able to navigate how those businesses operate.

R. Adam Smith: So, I think there is a massive opportunity and a communication and empowerment dynamic going on from the next-gen where there's the internal empowerment by the traditional family business and the first gen, their parents, giving them freedom to do other things, not just an operational role if they're not qualified or interested.

I think there's one side of it that there has to be that, let's say, mutual respect to something different. And then, on the other hand, there's the external knowledge of, let's say, going to a masterclass or Harvard Business School or even being empowered by Tony Robbins or doing a startup. And I think this is really an important dynamic in the evolution of wealth. And so, the family, let's say the family enterprise, can avoid that eternal tension [26:00] between the generations, right? And then there's also philanthropy.

So, maybe if each of you could talk a bit about philanthropy, that would be great. There are 10-20 trillion wealth transfers going on and [when] you and I talked earlier, you said that inheritors give at a much slower rate than earners. How's this playing out in the market today in terms of philanthropy, expansion, and next-gen?

Christina Wing: Well, I think it's gotten a lot of people's attention because you're starting to see a lot more conversations on giving and all of the components that go into smart giving. What I would say is, we've always looked at large-scale giving as somebody's legacy. And for the rising gen to step into a legacy that's been created by someone else and execute on it is not overly fulfilling.

What I mean by that is, these young rising gens and everyone has an individual legacy and then a group legacy. It might be the group legacy [27:00] of your company, it might be a group legacy of teaching at HBS, whatever it may be. And so, what we're encouraging as people are inheriting is, you know, what are you going to do with your one precious life to create your own legacy? And how are you going to honor the legacy before you in a collaborative way with how that person or people felt and how you feel?

And what that means is, you know, legacy doesn't need to be what happens when you're gone. Legacy is something that every day you're adding to your legacy. I had my last class at HBS today for the semester and the legacy of our Demystifying the Family Enterprise class had an ending today. But what happens from here is we will build on that legacy.

And so, I hate to think that legacy only is something that is about the dead. I think it's about the living and how you live intentionally. And the giving has to be how the [28:00] living want to give in conjunction with those that created maybe the money and what the society needs. I mean, a lot of the money that's being inherited will be given to organizations that we don't even know about yet, don't exist yet, and are problems that we haven't even thought about yet.

That's what's so powerful about the money that's being passed on if we get them to understand how to actually do it.

R. Adam Smith: That's wonderful. Obviously, the billionaire's [Giving] Pledge was a massive development with [Bill] Gates and Buffett and sort of set the bar with that perspective, which is wonderful.

Christina Wing: But, Adam, one thing about that is, it set the bar to decide to give a bunch of your wealth away intentionally, but it's not a roadmap of how to give it. And so, we don't want to see all these incredibly well-intentioned people sitting on the sidelines waiting for the perfect plan to jump into their hands. [29:00] Giving is a really hard thing to do, and it also requires entrepreneurship, hard work, and KPIs.

And so, I mean, don't fool yourself. A family foundation is another family business, and it's one that needs amazing governance and support in order to be effective.

R. Adam Smith: Right. Not just the passion and liquidity but also the structure and knowledge, and also, especially, the external knowledge of advisors. I mean, your private bankers, your T&E, your consultants, your lawyers, your accounts are super complicated.

Hopefully, that will continue to grow dramatically as the wealth is growing at such a rapid pace, especially in the OECD countries.

Back to legacy, Maryann. So, legacy; it's often framed as something to preserve. As Christina was saying, it doesn't end with a sale of a company or a brand ending or being sold, but it's an opportunity [30:00] to adapt and create and also to embrace the next-gen and other activities like philanthropy.

So, what is Wingspan doing on that front to encourage this ongoing living concept, as opposed to a static binary outcome?

Maryann Bell: Well, as Christina said, we are definitely betting on the rising gen. And Christina teaches them every day in her classroom and her programs. We have a program called Wingspan Forum that is intentionally designed for a rising gen to start to give them a year-long community and program to engage with peers to learn what others are doing, to have mentoring and scaffolding around their education, and to give them a sense of empowerment.

But really, one of the phrases that we like to empower young rising gen with is, "We expect a lot from you, and we expect you to do big things.” That doesn't mean you need to recreate your family wealth, [31:00] but we expect you to have an impact and to have a purpose. And in doing so, we provide the agency for independence. I love when Christina talks about individual legacy as well as family legacy because you can get consumed by your family legacy. That's not going to be sustainable.

An individual being able to cultivate their own identity and their own legacy allows for that multi-generational energy, enthusiasm, and motivation that will allow for good stewardship.

R. Adam Smith: It seems like the next-gen getting together in person, in think tanks, at strategic sessions, even at conferences—it could be Tiger 21, it could be Opal, it could be something with Cresset, you know. There are lots of different ways to get together. It could be the club—I think it's super important to encourage that so [that], like you said, they really embrace their own desires and values.

But that also requires a bit of more empathy and more acceptance [32:00] of the first generation for their children, for their family to evolve, and to not sort of say, "I want to take your company over." That's why I think the Tom Deans approach is quite niche, but it's quite interesting to say, "If you really want to be in the business, okay, then double down and buy it, or let's get involved. If not, then it's okay to go do something else."

It's very complicated, but it's an interesting topic.

Christina Wing: So, Adam, on that part, what's so amazing is, I've really never met a first gen where I don't love to hear their story, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. But the stories are so empowering. What's hard is, many people don't hear the great stories of the second gen, the third gen, the ninth gen. And so, celebrating the history of the first gen and what they did and the sacrifices, whether they even realized they were making sacrifices because many times it started with just needing to put food on the table. We have to remember that [33:00] every generation is going to have their story. And what do we learn from that story and how do we encourage new ones to be made?

When you sit with first gens and you really honor listening to their story, and then talk about like, “What kind of story should I have?”, that's when you open the doors to the entrepreneurial understanding taking off. It's not about taking what you built and kicking you out. It's about building on what you built with my own story. And that's where we're going to get forward.

We have to expect every generation to have their own story.

R. Adam Smith: I love that. That’s very inspiring. Thank you for clarifying and going deeper on that point. I think legacy is the most complex and most important element of family enterprises in our world today because capitalism is a powerful force that we all can embrace and it's great to have wealth and to be proud of that, but then also to understand that it has greater implications, [34:00] not just for the family, but for the company, the employees, the community, the philanthropy, all the exponential impacts you're talking about.

Maybe just to wrap up here, if you each would like to talk about a large family enterprise in the world that you admire. Just a bit on that example and what is inspiring to you.

Christina Wing: Go ahead, Maryann. You go first.

Maryann Bell: Well, I'm connecting in from Austin, Texas, so I have to have a shoutout to the impact that Michael and Susan Dell have had both globally as well as here in Central Texas. They are not a Wingspan family [but] just from afar [I] know them and have great admiration. They have supported a children's hospital, the first medical school in the country in the last 20 years, I should say, and have done a lot for the Central Texas community.

But, closer to the Wingspan friends and family, I have to [35:00] have the deepest amount of gratitude and admiration for Bill Cummings who has created great wealth and is a signer of the Giving Pledge. And he has constructed, similar to Patagonia, a donation of his real estate empire to his foundation. And his foundation is very actively and generously giving away money to the Boston/Boston metropolitan area.

So, they're just great wealth creators and great givers.

Christina Wing: I think those are two great examples. I'm going to go overseas. I think one of the things is, and Maryann and I talk about this all the time, we have a lot of amazing givers in the United States, but we also have a lot of amazing givers globally, and they give for different reasons and in different ways. There's the Özyeğin family in Turkey, which I'm a big [36:00] admirer of. They are in their second generation. First gen came over here with like $2 in his pocket and put himself through college and then business school, went back to Turkey, and is very loyal to the country and built a conglomerate.

Before he had his first payday, he literally started building a university inside Istanbul in order to provide education for others. This family has been giving disproportionately to their wealth since inception. The mother in the family, the grandmother, would give you the shirt off her back. And they are always there for both planned and emergency giving. Planned giving meaning they realized that the number of women going to school was so much lower than men because it wasn't safe for a lot of the women to walk on the road. So, they built girls dormitories near schools so girls could spend the night.

They realized that a lot of single parents couldn't do things. They built [37:00] mother-daughter and father-son training programs for parents that might be single parents.

And then, on top of all the things that they do like that, when an earthquake hits Istanbul, they're the first ones there, bringing in homes and other things. And they're an example of a family that puts family, country, and business all together in such a way that it's impressive. And they had the smoothest transition to G2 from G1. And the G3s are the most kind, lovely people.

It's just a story that everybody should follow. And they just like each other. And so, how do you get much better than that? Like they do good, and they do well, and they're fun.

R. Adam Smith: That's impressive. And when possible, with platforms like this or yourself or you could bring them to Harvard, I think it's really exciting to bring them to a live audience and they can share those stories so they seem more genuine and more [38:00] tangible.

Christina Wing: And they do. I have my protagonist in almost every class, and last year the grandmother and grandfather and G3 came. This year G3 came and G2 zoomed in, and it's invaluable learning. They're so humble. All of our stories have great beginnings and we're just in the “now” gen. I mean, we've got so much to come and there are so many fun things to happen.

R. Adam Smith: That's great. Thank you for the positive energy. We'll wrap up now because we're overtime, but I'm sure we'll be talking more. This is one of our final episodes for this very robust and intense and complex year. It's wonderful to have you up here and very grateful for you to come back on the show.

Christina Wing: Well, I am grateful to have you. And I think next time we might have to call on some of these audience participants because they are writing notes on the side, but there are some people in the audience that have some really good comments.

R. Adam Smith: Absolutely. We'll find some way [39:00] to do that in the new year. And, Maryann, great to have you join today.

Maryann Bell: Likewise. And I hope to see you in Texas. But more importantly, thank you for doing this, Adam. This is really important to have this engaged dialogue. And thank you to everyone who has been able to listen in and really appreciate all the questions. And, more importantly, keep doing what you're doing because this group of people that we're all serving needs a lot of help and it's an exciting opportunity for everyone.

R. Adam Smith: It is. And that legacy that's really specific to each of them. So, thank you to the guests and to Christina Wing and Maryann Bell from Wingspan Legacy Partners.

This is R. Adam Smith signing off. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn.

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Explore the strategic intricacies of family business success with the RAS Family Business Audiocast. Join R. Adam Smith as he delves into exclusive discussions with global leaders shaping the future of private wealth and enterprise. Each episode offers a rare glimpse into the core decisions driving prosperity in high-stakes markets. Tune in to gain expert insights and innovative strategies that empower family businesses to thrive across generations.

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Opinions presented are personal and do not represent the positions of speakers’, sponsors’, or guests’ organizations.

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