When the architecture of the past must answer to your family today.
Inherited architecture, reviewed against the family that holds it now.
Multi-generational families do not arrive without architecture. The work is rarely to undo it. It is to put it in relation to the family that exists today.
The erosion that catches stewardship families is not catastrophic. It is incremental, and it accumulates quietly until a decision has to be made under pressure.
The structures composed by the founding generation were composed for the family of that day. The family of today is older, larger, and arrayed differently. The work is to keep what the founders built and put it in conversation with what now exists.
Four reviews the calendar tends to defer.
Each, attended to in time, is worth more than any single quarter’s investment return.
The trust review, ahead of the twenty-one-year horizon.
Every Canadian family trust faces a tax event on its twenty-first birthday — the CRA treats the trust as though it had sold everything that day. It is rarely a planning event when it arrives. It is a planning event five to seven years before. Distribute, restructure, form a new trust underneath, or wind down entirely. Options are wide if the calendar permits. Narrow if it does not.
Governance documents, refreshed against the family in the room.
The shareholders’ agreement drafted when the founders were still operating. The family constitution authored before the rising generation came of age. The buy-sell funded against a balance sheet that no longer applies. A clause-by-clause review, with corporate counsel, surfaces the gaps while they are still easy to close.
The introduction of the rising generation.
They do not arrive ready to steward what they did not build. The work is preparation, not delegation — structured exposure to the architecture, the advisors, the governance, the obligations. Senatus convenes the conversations the senior generation rarely has the time or distance to compose alone.
Philanthropy, as discipline rather than line item.
At this stage, philanthropy is rarely a question of whether. It is a question of how. Private foundation or donor-advised fund. Gifts of appreciated public shares. Gifts of operating-company shares before a future sale — materially better after tax than cash after. Held as discipline, philanthropy compounds family meaning across generations.
A continuing rhythm, kept across generations.
The relationship operates on the cadence the chapter requires: annual structural review, quarterly working sessions, proactive coordination ahead of any consequential decision. The architecture is composed to outlast individual advisors and to be inherited by the rising generation in working order.
My father composed the structure thirty years ago, with the best counsel of his generation. The work was not to second-guess any of it. It was to put what he built in conversation with the family that exists today — my children among them.
Twelve adjacent audiences.
Most principals belong to more than one. The architecture is composed for the family in front of us; the descriptions below are how families most often arrive.
The Founder’s Chapter
The enterprise, the estate, and the architecture, coordinated in concert.
The Liquidity Event
Approaching, mid-sale, or year one beyond the exit — the architecture for the years that follow.
The Transition
Widowhood, divorce, inheritance, or the passage to the next generation.
Business Owners & Founders
The founder whose balance sheet lives inside the operating company.
Real Estate Developers & Principals
Entity-dense portfolios, refinancing cycles, and the passage of the book.
Medical, Dental & Allied Health
Professional corporations, retained earnings, and the practice as an asset.
Legal, Accounting & Finance
Senior professionals whose own architecture is the last to which they have time to attend.
Executives & Senior Corporate Leaders
Concentrated equity, deferred compensation, RSU cadences, and the sequencing each requires.
Technology Founders & Venture Principals
Pre- and post-exit founders, operators, and fund principals; the tax position differs at each stage.
Cross-Border Families — Canada & U.S.
Dual residency, dual citizenship, U.S.-situs assets, and the treaty work each occasions.
Women Principals & Female Heads of Household
Founders, executives, widows, and inheritors, engaged on terms of their own choosing.
Philanthropists & Family Foundations
Families for whom philanthropy has moved from line item to operating discipline.
Review what you have inherited.
The architecture composed in a previous chapter is best reviewed against the family that holds it now — while the calendar still permits the full set of options. Inquiries are read in confidence and answered within one business day.