Implementation
Some families want the standard and the method, and will do the work themselves. Others want it built with them — by people who have done it before — and then run by their own team. Implementation is for the second case: a staged engagement that diagnoses what your office actually needs, builds it properly, and hands it over as a system you own.
Who this is for
This is not about whether you have people. Most families who come to us for implementation already do — a chief of staff, a family office manager, sometimes an established internal team. It's about whether you have the standard, and the capacity to build it while the office keeps running.
Even capable offices are often built on instinct — no documented method, no external benchmark, nothing that would survive the person who built it. Implementation brings the standard and the senior experience to architect it properly, then hands it to your people to run.
Your team is busy running the office as it exists today. Building the system underneath it — while it keeps running — is the work you want experienced hands on.
A liquidity event with structuring deadlines. A jurisdiction move. A lender's diligence. A trustee requiring documented authority. When there's a date on the calendar, you want the framework built to the deadline, not learned on the way to it.
Some principals would rather bring in people who have built this before than build it slowly themselves — and then have their own team run it. That is exactly what this is for.
Whether you have a lean team of one or an established internal office, implementation brings the standard and the experience.
Your people run it when we're done.
How it works
Three stages. Each one stands on its own, and each one ends in something you own.
The Wealth Clarity Session. Before anything is built, we assess how the office actually runs: a facilitated session across ten operational domains, scored by an assessor on how complex each part genuinely is and how well that complexity is currently governed. You receive a written report — findings ranked by severity, anything urgent escalated, and a prioritised roadmap with an owner and an output for every action.
This is where most engagements begin, and some end here by choice. The roadmap is yours to act on with us or without us, and the fee is credited in full if you go further.
The governance. The Investment Policy Statement. The Delegation of Authority — who approves what, up to what limit, and who acts in your absence. The succession and continuity specification, written as the brief your lawyer drafts the instruments from. The entity map: every entity, what it holds, in which jurisdiction, and who controls it. And the coordination function defined — what the role covers, what authority it carries, and what it does not touch.
The operating layer. The application, built for your structure. The registers as a maintained system — entities, advisors, obligations, assets. The consolidated compliance calendar across every jurisdiction. Decision and commitment records. The risk register and a documented wire protocol. Written operating procedures your team runs on.
The advisor audit. Every relationship and banking connection mapped by function, jurisdiction, cost, retention basis and mandate — producing your total annual advisory cost, which is often the one number nobody has seen in one place.
Once it's built, someone keeps it true. There are two ways that works, and both are legitimate.
Your team takes it over. With the procedures written and the system handed over, an internal team can run the office themselves. Most do — and their people join Circle 26 membership, which is where the standard, the templates, the Monthly Sessions, and the peer circle live. That's how the office stays sharp without staying dependent on us.
Or we hold the standard with you. Continuity is the ongoing discipline: quarterly verification of the record against reality, an annual governance review, updates to the system as your structure changes, and a written annual statement of your governance position — suitable for a lender, a trustee, an insurer, investment advisors, or a co-investor.
Many families use both: Continuity in the first year while the team finds its rhythm, then their own people carrying it with membership behind them.
Maintenance
Within eighteen months of any build, there are two new entities, a trust has been funded, an advisor has left, a threshold has changed, and three obligations have moved. A structure map that is seventy per cent accurate is worse than none, because people rely on it.
Every implementation therefore ends with a decision about who keeps it true — not as an upsell, but because a system nobody maintains was never worth building. Your team with membership behind them, Continuity with us, or both. What matters is that the answer is deliberate.
Boundaries
Implementation is not us taking over. It is us building the system, then handing you the keys.
We don't run your office. We define the coordination function and equip whoever fills it. The day-to-day belongs to your people.
We don't draft legal instruments. We specify precisely what your succession documents need to contain; your lawyer drafts them. You pay them once, for the right instrument.
We don't give tax advice. We convene your advisors across every jurisdiction on one brief, so the structuring decision is made from a shared picture. The technical work stays with them.
We don't manage assets, take custody, or sell products — and we take no fee, rebate or commission from any advisor, bank or provider we organise. Ever.
We don't stay indispensable. Everything works without us, permanently. If the relationship ends, everything is handed over within ten working days at no cost.
What you own at the end:
The operating layer and everything in it. The application running on infrastructure you control. Every governance document in editable form — each one version one with a review date, because your situation will change and the documents should change with it.
Pricing
Every implementation is a fixed fee against a defined scope — never a retainer, and never a percentage of your assets. You know the price and the deliverables before any work begins. If the scope changes, we re-quote before doing the work, never after.
The engagement is staged, so you are never committing to all of it up front. The diagnosis stands alone. The build is scoped and priced only once we have seen the structure — and where a dated event will reshape it, we deliberately scope the operating layer after the event, so nothing is built twice and nothing is billed twice.
Fees are set by complexity, never by assets — the number of entities, jurisdictions, advisors and obligations, not the size of the portfolio. Two families with the same net worth often need very different engagements; two with very different net worth sometimes need nearly identical ones.
We confirm the figure in writing after the Wealth Clarity Session, before you commit to anything.
Any firm that quotes an implementation price before seeing your structure is guessing — and you would pay for the guess later.
For scale: a fully staffed single family office at this level of complexity runs to seven figures a year, every year, plus premises and employment risk. This is a one-time engagement at a fraction of a single year of that — and the result is owned, not rented.
The long-term relationship is almost never the build. It's the membership.
Implementation gives a family the system. Membership is what keeps the people running it good at it — the standard to work to, the templates and operating system, the Monthly Sessions, and a peer circle of others doing the same job. For an internal team that has just taken over a newly built office, that is the difference between a system that stays true and one that quietly drifts.
Most implementation engagements end with the family's team inside the membership. That is the design, not an afterthought: we would rather your people become excellent at running your office than remain dependent on ours.
Questions
Usually more so. A team gives you capacity; what implementation adds is the standard, the architecture, and the senior experience of having done it before. The system gets built properly, and your people run it — better equipped than they were.
The diagnosis takes two to three weeks. The governance stage runs about thirty days. The operating layer follows in eight to twelve weeks once the structure is settled — and where a liquidity event or restructuring is ahead, we scope that stage after it deliberately.
Yes, and some families do. The report and roadmap are written so you can act on them with your own team and advisors. If you go further within ninety days, the fee is credited in full.
Then we say so. Often the honest answer is that the office is closer than the family thought, and membership — the standard, the method, and the room — is the better path at a fraction of the cost. We would rather point you there than sell you an engagement you don't need.
The people you meet. Engagements are led by senior practitioners, not delegated to junior staff — which is why we take on only a small number at a time.
Start with the assessment. Five minutes, and an honest read of where your office stands before any conversation about scope or fee.
Start with the assessment