Aug 7, 2020
Christian is the founder of Family Legacy Asia, a process consulting firm based in Hong Kong. He assists family enterprises around Asia with family governance, succession, and family learning & development.
He facilitates family meetings and helps families to form and implement family councils, family constitutions and family policies, often in the context of transition planning. He also advises several ultra-high net worth Asian families on trust and succession matters, including acting as a director of private trust companies. His philosophy is that such structures work best when based on understanding the unique culture and relationships within the family.
Christian originally qualified and practiced as a solicitor in South Australia from 1990 to 1994. He moved to Hong Kong in late 1994 joining PricewaterhouseCoopers and became a partner and head of their Trust & Private Client Group. In July 2002 he joined JPMorgan Private Bank to head the bank’s Wealth Advisory team for Asia.
He left JPMorgan and founded Family Legacy Asia in July 2008 to provide independent advice to Asian families on family governance & succession issues. In addition, from May 2016 he became an associate with Wise Counsel Research, a nonprofit think-tank and boutique consultancy based in Massachusetts USA, focused on matters of wealth and philanthropy.
In June 2017, Christian received the award for Leading Individual (Advisor) at the WealthBriefingAsia 2017 Awards, Singapore.
Christian is the author of the chapter on Family Offices in Hong Kong in the book “Family Offices: The STEP Handbook for Advisors” and the chapter on Trusts, Trustees & Family Business in the book “Trust in Prime Jurisdictions” both published by Globe Business Publishing Limited. He contributed a chapter on “Practical tools for building healthy families” to the book “Wealth of Wisdom, the Top 50 questions Wealthy Families Ask” by McCullough and Whitaker, Wiley, 2019. He has also been a regular contributor to The International Family Offices Journal.
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