Edwin Smith

Rupert Phelps has had a storied career. The family office services partner at Smith & Williamson left the Life Guards in the late Nineties to pursue a career in finance. ‘I was keen to start at an aggressive American bank with international presence, meritocratic culture and excellent training,’ he explains in his article on leadership in this Issue 69 of Spear’s.

‘When you move on to the private side you have a completely different relationship with your client,’ says Annamaria Koerling, who is described as a ‘star’ by peers and has a regular column in Spear’s (see page 29). ‘An investment banker is selling something, but on the private side you’re an advocate for your client – in partnership with them. There’s something satisfying about that.’

As UHNW families are going global, growing in size and complexity and making bolder investment moves, there’s more and more call for specialist family advice. At KPMG, Catherine Grum leads her team in making sure their needs are met, working alongside her counterparts in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia. ‘If you have a small in-house team of family officers, each one is a cost to that family, but working with us it’s like a tap that we can turn on and off,’ she says. ‘We can bring in new expertise where appropriate.’

‘Our schools of thought are massively complementary,’ says Edward Goodchild of his new hire, Guy Christie. ‘We were fund managers together a long, long time ago, so I knew we’d be a good fit.’