International Advisory Board Chair
The UHNW Institute
Founder & CEO
Gallatin Wealth Management
Independent Director
Willow Street Group
Laurent Roux has over 40 years of experience working with families and family offices worldwide. Activities range from strategic wealth management – family legacy and stewardship, family dynamics and organization, family office construction, coordination, trouble-shooting and consulting, to international asset management, asset allocation, portfolio management, manager selection, performance reviews, mutual fund administration and global custody.
He is an Independent Director and Principal of the Willow Street Group and WS Trust Company in Jackson, WY and CEO/Founder of Gallatin Wealth Management. Willow Street is a leading provider of Trust services and Gallatin is a wealth management advisory and consultancy which acts as the trusted advisor/Chief Learning Officer to families, family offices and MFO’s. He was a Director and Managing Director at Pictet & Cie, Private Bankers, Geneva, Switzerland and a number of its international affiliates during his 25 years at his family’s firm. Laurent holds a JD degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego (1980), received a BA from the Univ of Colorado with majors in History and Political Science in 1976, and attended the Graduate Institute of International Studies Masters program in Geneva.
Laurent holds numerous past and present board and advisory board member positions, including the Family Firm Institute, The East West Institute, a global conflict prevention think and do tank, the Family Office Association, the UHNW Institute, The Special Operators Transition Foundation, and The Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs, Historical Society, Community Counseling Center, and National Museum of Wildlife Art. He is a Chair and member of several high level investment committees. He has spoken at numerous forums in Asia, Australia, Europe and the US, lectures and writes on family wealth advising, family offices, private banking, and Trusts.
The Family Firm Institute (“FFI”) is an organization for family enterprise professionals, including advisers, consultants, educators and researchers who help to perpetuate trans-generational family business enterprise. For its network of professionals, FFI provides opportunities to participate in multidisciplinary educational programs and earn professional designations or certificates. Through interaction with international faculty, thought leaders, and a global network of other specialists, FFI Global Education Network (“FFI GEN”) students are provided the opportunity to develop their skills and improve their understanding and effectiveness when working with, in, or studying family enterprises.
Co-founder & Executive Chairman
FODIS
Francois M. de Visscher, a native of Belgium, Mr. de Visscher has advised business-owning families for over 30 years in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. He is a trusted advisor to family ownership groups, family offices, and family companies on a wide range of financial areas that span all evolutionary stages of the life of a family and its assets. These include advising on shareholder liquidity, capital needs and financing, intergenerational wealth and estate transfers, ownership and business restructuring, corporate acquisitions and divestitures, corporate and family governance, family office organization and performance, and diversification opportunities including direct investing.
In 1990, Mr. de Visscher founded de Visscher & Co., one of the world’s leading independent financial consulting firms for family and closely-held companies. He and his team have advised over 300 family companies and family offices worldwide on issues of liquidity, growth capital, and business and family governance. Prior to founding his own firm, Mr. de Visscher was a partner at Smith Barney, where he founded and ran Wall Street’s first Family Business Group. In 2010, de Visscher & Co. developed “Family Capital Partners” as a network of Single-Family Offices to make direct co-investments with other families (“Families Investing in Families®”).
In 2018, Mr. de Visscher co-founded FODIS LP., (“Family Office Direct Investment Services”) (www.fodis.com), and he combined de Visscher Advisors’ Investment Banking and M&A services with those of Carter Morse & Goodrich located in Southport, CT (www.cartermorse.com).
Finally in 2019, Mr. de Visscher also became a senior advisor and associate partner at Cambridge Advisors to Family Enterprise (www.cfeg.com), a highly specialized international advisory for serving family enterprises.
Mr. de Visscher is a shareholder and past Director of his own family’s global enterprise, N.V. Bekaert S.A., headquartered in Belgium and founded by his great-grandfather in 1880. Today the Bekaert Group has sales of $5 billion, operates in over 120 countries, and manufactures and markets a wide variety of steel wire and related products. The family company is publicly-traded and controlled by the Bekaert Family across five generations. Mr. de Visscher has held roles as a director on the board and a member of the family council.
He is a member of the Board of Advisors of CYMI, Ltd (Dayton, OH), MicroBoard (Seymour, CT), UltraPure (Darien, CT) and AUA Private Equity (West Palm Beach, FL).
Among his contributions to the family enterprise field, Mr. de Visscher served as a director and president of The Family Firm Institute (FFI), the preeminent association for family enterprise professionals. He is the former chairman of the European Family Office Conference, and has been a full time contributing editor of Family Business Magazine. He has contributed to many leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times. In 2003, Mr. de Visscher received the Richard Beckhard Practice Award from the Family Firm Institute in recognition of his many contributions to the practice of advising family companies.
Mr. de Visscher is Honorary Consul of Belgium in the United States and serves as Chairman of The Society of Friends of Belgium in America. He is a certified public accountant and a member of the American Institute of CPAs. He holds a Bachelor of Economics honors degree from Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and an MBA from Rutgers University. Mr. de Visscher is fluent in English, Dutch and French.
ONIDA Family Advisors Ltd
Location: Valletta, Malta
Jennifer has spent two decades helping global family enterprises and family offices navigate the opportunities and complexities of multigenerational wealth. Her work focuses on helping families clarify purpose and wealth identity, navigate succession, strengthen family dynamics, and develop rising-generation leaders. She also supports families in creating governance structures that reinforce continuity and shared stewardship across generations.
Drawing on her lived experience as a next-generation family business leader and entrepreneur, Jennifer also serves—with her husband—as Co-Chair of Class Afloat, a mission-driven school at sea with a 40-year legacy of experiential education. This combination of advisory and family business leadership gives her rare insight into the realities of multigenerational family life and next-gen development.
A trained executive coach, facilitator, and mediator, Jennifer is a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute (FFI) and holds FFI’s Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising (ACFBA). For more than a decade, she has been a highly rated instructor in FFI’s Global Education Network and a sought-after speaker at international family enterprise and family office forums.
CEO Family Office
Location: Hong Kong China
I have over 30 years of experience in private client field, focusing on estate planning, tax and trust work and in working with families, principals and single family offices on generational succession planning.
I am qualified as a lawyer in both Hong Kong and in the UK and have practiced for 12 years in tax and trust.
I then joined JPMorgan Private Bank and subsequently HSBC Private Bank. In both roles, I head up the Asia wealth advisory team and trust company in offering clients and families a holistic suite of planning solutions from tax and estate planning, wills and trust to family governance process and facilitation, philanthropy advisory and charities/foundation administration and in setting up family offices and related advisory matters.
I am currently heading up a single family office based in Hong Kong.
I am an experienced business operator with expertise in private client services and have a track record of success in leadership, business development, motivating sales and in driving change in an established organization.
I enjoy building successful teams and am passionate about supporting the local community.
Founder
Robins Advising
Location: Geneva Switzerland
Gregg Robins is the founder of Robins Advising (www.robinsadvising.com), where he advises clients on how to deal with their most complex problems and situations that they face in the management of their personal wealth and their business interests. Robins Advising operates in a close strategic partnership with Global Gate Capital (https://globalgatecapital.com) and other specialist partners to provide clients and their families with a robust, global offering and platform.
Gregg has spent decades in wealth management as a business and thought leader, and as a valued advisor to his clients. His career in financial services has included leadership roles in banks such as Citigroup, UBP and UBS. He has chaired and spoken at industry events in financial services, with particular focus on wealth management.
Gregg was recently named a Dean’s Fellow of Oxford’s Saïd School of Business. With this appointment, he is involved in shorter and longer term projects, including mentoring, teaching, and an initiative in the area of inter-generational wealth. He is a Leader’s Council Member of the Ultra High Net Worth Institute and part of its International Advisory Board.
Gregg received his B.A. in Economics at Rice University. From there, he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to attend Oxford University, where he earned Masters and Doctoral Degrees with a specialty in Finance and a geographical focus on Russia and Eastern Europe. A native of the Bronx, New York, Gregg currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with his wife Karen, where he is a dual Swiss-American national. He is the proud father of three daughters, now fully engaged in their respective careers in veterinary medicine, hospitality, and luxury travel.
Principal Consultant
Nathanson Pearson
Location: Melbourne Australia
David Werdiger is director of Nathanson Pearson in Melbourne Australia, an established provider of practical and appropriate solutions specifically for high net worth families. As a published best-selling author of Transition he has assisted many HNW families to navigate the complexities of succession planning, intergenerational wealth transition, and family governance.
David’s background as a second-generation family member, his 30+ years as a tech entrepreneur, together with a confidential and empathetic relational approach to the challenges of family related business issues, has allowed him to facilitate unique solutions for clients by tapping into his personal knowledge and strategic thinking.
At the UHNW Institute – a global think tank of practitioners servicing ultra-high-net-worth families – David is a Leaders Council member and on the faculty for the Family Dynamics domain. He is an accredited advisor at the Family Business Association, on the expert panel at &Simple and Respada, a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School, and has several roles at Swinburne University.
David is married with five children and deeply engaged with his local community through a number of non-profits. He’s writing his second book – about the challenges of the modern always-connected digital world. In between all that, he is passionate about sport – particularly AFL, cricket and NFL.
