For families whose affairs have outgrown any single advisor.
One trait the families we serve hold in common.
The families and principals who engage Senatus Wealth differ in almost every operative respect — the shape of the balance sheet, the jurisdictions in which they hold interests, the generation at which they meet us, the advisors already in place. They are united by a single recognition: that the cost of uncoordinated counsel has come to exceed the cost of coordinating it.
For some, the recognition arrives with a liquidity event. For others, with a generational handoff. For many, it arrives without announcement — in a conversation with one advisor concerning a document drafted by another, regarding a structure that no longer answers to the family for which it was built.
The audiences set out below describe where the architecture fits most precisely. They are not exclusive categories. A family may belong to two or three at once, and most do.
Three lenses upon a single architecture.
The families Senatus serves are best described in three registers: by the chapter of life in which the work is required, by the profession or asset class that shapes the balance sheet, and by the context that surrounds the circumstances. Most principals belong to more than one.
The Founder’s Chapter
The enterprise, the estate, and the architecture, composed in concert.
The Liquidity Event
Approaching, mid-sale, or year one beyond the exit — the architecture for the years that follow.
The Stewardship Chapter
Families two and three generations into the enterprise and the estate.
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 across generations.
Medical, Dental & Allied Health
Professional corporations, retained earnings, and the economics of 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.
When coordinated counsel ceases to be optional.
It arrives when a missed election, a mistimed transaction, or an undocumented assumption costs more than a discipline-specific advisor can reasonably be expected to catch on a quarterly cycle. When each advisor is excellent in isolation, and the family is paying for the gaps between them.
It arrives when the next generation must be introduced to the enterprise and no one has been given the mandate to do so. When the operating company, the estate, the trust, and the cross-border position are each well-handled alone, and no single point of accountability holds them together.
If any of the descriptions above resembles your circumstances, the appropriate next step is a private conversation.
Senatus accepts a limited number of new relationships each year, predominantly through private referral. A member of the Private Office will respond, in confidence, within twenty-four hours.
Request a Private Conversation