From the largest generational wealth transfer in history comes the discipline of family strategy

The world is about to witness the largest generational transfer of wealth in history. In the United States alone, more than $120 trillion is expected to change hands over the next decade. At the same time, family offices, which manage the wealth of entrepreneurial families, are multiplying at an unprecedented pace, while countries compete to attract these families and their large fortunes that are increasingly mobile across international borders.

Every transfer of wealth also brings with it an equally critical transition: the transfer of responsibility, leadership, and a family's ability to maintain a shared sense of direction over time. This is why the dissemination of family offices represents one of the most noteworthy developments in the evolution of family capitalism.

Italy offers a particularly meaningful perspective on this transformation. Although this country is still a smaller market than Europe's leading financial hubs, the number of family offices continues to climb. In 2025, there were 244 family offices, up 10.4% from the previous year, marking the fifth consecutive year of expansion. Together, they oversee more than €1 trillion in assets and display a distinctive feature compared with other countries: a relatively high presence of multi-family offices, reflecting a broad network of family businesses that share expertise and infrastructure. At the same time, Italy's growing appeal to international wealth holders is helping to further enlarge this ecosystem.

Over the past few decades, the role of the family office has steadily broadened. Alongside investment management, responsibilities now include succession planning, family governance, next-generation education, coordinating increasingly complex wealth structures, and overseeing assets ranging from corporate holdings and real estate to art collections and philanthropic initiatives. Wealth management has become part of the broader mission of supporting the long-term continuity of the entrepreneurial family.

This evolution also requires the ability to manage escalating complexity through a strategic lens. Entrepreneurial families operate more and more across international markets, involve an ever greater number of family members, navigate longer and more complicated succession processes, and manage wealth that combines financial, entrepreneurial, and relational dimensions in deeply interconnected ways.

It is in this context that the concept of Family Strategy has emerged: an approach that views wealth as one expression of a family's broader purpose and seeks alignment across three fundamental dimensions:

• Family Legacy: The family's identity, values, and long-term vision.
• Family Governance: The set of rules and processes that make shared decision-making possible over time.
• Family Future: The preparation of future generations to assume leadership and stewardship responsibilities.

Family Strategy therefore offers a perspective that precedes and guides investment decisions. Decisions regarding investments, wealth structures, or succession acquire their full meaning only when they are embedded within a shared vision capable of connecting a family's past with its future aspirations. The growth of family offices reflects a rising awareness that, in contemporary family capitalism, preserving wealth also means preserving a family's ability to govern it, interpret it, and renew it across generations.

As the great wealth transfer unfolds, entrepreneurial families will be called upon to pass on not only financial assets but also expertise, responsibility, trust, and the ability to build continuity across generations. As family offices continue to evolve in the years ahead, Family Strategy is poised to become a core discipline in the governance of family wealth and its long-term continuity.

It is from this conviction that the Family Strategy Lab at SDA Bocconi was established, with the goal of defining Family Strategy as an independent academic discipline grounded in research and dedicated to addressing the challenges faced by entrepreneurial families. The framework developed by the Lab, based on an extensive review of the international academic literature, is designed to provide families with an integrated approach to legacy, governance, and next-generation preparedness. This initiative is carried out in collaboration with Diamond Tower Family Strategy, BNP Paribas' family office in Italy. Within the framework of this partnership, BNP Paribas contributes its operational expertise in wealth management and family advisory services, while SDA Bocconi provides independent research and its Family Strategy framework, offering a strategic perspective that precedes and guides wealth management decisions.