Today, it is my pleasure and honor to speak with Prof. Maarten de Groot, Endowed Chair of Resilient Family Businesses & Enterprise Families at VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics. Prior to completing his PhD at VU Amsterdam in 2021, Maarten had a long and distinguished career in wealth management. He co-founded and ran one of Europe’s largest and most innovative multi-family offices, VermogensGroep, which was acquired by UBS in 2008, and later he was Executive Chairman of Eligius, the single-family office of the Goldschmeding family in the Netherlands.

Maarten was knighted by the King of the Netherlands for his contributions to society, and is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the 2022 Sustainable Investments Award, the 2023 Business Impact Award, and the 2023 VU Crowds Award. He is the founder and director of the VU Center for Enterprise Family Research and is the program director of the Responsible Ownership for Enterprise Families (ROEF) executive education program at VU Amsterdam, which was created and run in partnership with FOX.

Maarten has studied and worked with multigenerational families for decades and has identified many of the key topics and priorities that successful families focus on. He shares some of the most important factors and themes that define and propel families’ journeys through time and across generations.

Possibly the most universal topic that is relevant to all families across the globe and throughout time is preparing the next generation for the future stages of the family journey. Maarten talks about how he sees the importance and centrality of engaging and preparing the rising gen to play a meaningful role in their family enterprise.

One important practical suggestion Maarten has for families, and especially for the younger members of the rising gen, is to understand and develop their relationship with wealth. He highlights some of the key challenges rising gen members face and what they can do to overcome them in order to see their role as wealth owners in a positive and healthy way.

Maarten spearheaded the development of the ROEF Academy (Responsible Ownership for Enterprise Families) program – an innovative, world-class educational program, designed jointly by VU Amsterdam and FOX. We just successfully concluded our first year and graduated the first cohort of young next-gen family members. Maarten offers an overview of the ROEF program, its mission and design, and how it helps rising gen owners identify and prepare for their role in the family enterprise.

Do not miss this deeply insightful conversation with one of the most distinguished thought leaders in the multigenerational family wealth space. Maarten is a celebrated academic researcher and educator, a successful entrepreneur and family office executive, and a globally recognized practitioner and advisor to many enterprise families across the globe.