Navigating dynastic dynamics of the 100-year family

“Are you part of this family or not?” The question posed by Logan Roy, the domineering patriarch of HBO’s Succession, to his battling children, captures a dilemma now facing many real-life dynasties: how to maintain unity and purpose as wealth spans a hundred years.

As life expectancy rises, and families increasingly span four, or even five, living generations, a new set of tensions is emerging for wealth managers today. While longevity extends the influence of the older generations, younger members of wealthy families are increasingly seeking a greater voice in managing their families’ wealth, with increasing emphasis on investing sustainably, with good governance, while avoiding complex tax strategies.

As families grow larger and more complex, the onus is on the wealth manager to strike the delicate balance between older family leaders reluctant to relinquish control of a family’s assets at the top, and the need for shared governance that keeps a multigenerational, multijurisdictional family aligned.

Yet fewer than 30 per cent of ultra-high net worth families have a clearly defined and unanimously shared family vision or mission, according to our research.

Wealth managers now find themselves at the centre of this dynamic. They have the structures and tools to bridge these divides, from constitutions to family councils, but must navigate an expanding ideological gap between generations within increasingly complex, 100-year families.

Fragmenting fortunes

Where ultra-wealthy families once saw their fortunes fragment after two or three generations — often due to geographic spread, diverging priorities or weak governance — many are now are increasingly focused on maintaining continuity across generations spanning centuries, rather than decades. And crucially, maintaining purpose through their investments, rather than just increasing value.

Today’s wealthy families are not only larger but more dispersed and interconnected. More than 80 per cent have members across multiple countries, and more than a third hold assets in three or more jurisdictions, according to Julius Baer’s Family Barometer 2025. The wealth management industry itself has evolved to meet this complexity, offering new structures, education and governance tools to preserve continuity.

As wealthy families expand, differing wealth management priorities manifest in fascinating ways. While tax is a constant focus across all cohorts, many of the younger generations reject more traditional tax strategies, or complex deferral structures, partly due to the reputational risks and moral shift following the 2008 financial crisis.

These reputational drivers shaping wealth strategies are particularly pertinent for the younger generations, whose lives are on near constant display. They show stronger interest in environmental, social and governance investing, philanthropy and purpose-driven wealth. Older generations, by contrast, have been more focused on wealth creation and preservation, sometimes with more traditional tax strategies.

Despite these differences, shared priorities remain across generations. We also see rising concerns around safety and security, with data privacy and personal safety now critical factors in wealth strategies. Philanthropy, too, is becoming a bridge across generations, uniting families around shared values and long-term legacy.

Defined by uncertainty

Tax systems can contain huge amounts of waste, and they don’t allow for agency, but philanthropy allows a family to give money away while still holding influence over what it’s used for — vital in a world often so defined by uncertainty.

But what does this increasing complexity mean for the wealth adviser, and how can family offices navigate these widening generational valleys?

One consequence has been a growing allocation to private markets, where families can afford greater control, and therefore alignment with the values and central constitutions which hold wealthy families together.

There has been a marked surge in recent years away from traditional asset classes, equities, bonds and even hedge funds. Now in some cases, as much as 35 per cent of overall portfolios lie in private equity, venture capital and real estate. These investments offer greater influence over the direction of a company through alignment with CEOs and founders, companies which are often working within health, climate and philanthropy.

Younger investors seek assets they can engage with directly, and the influence they offer aligns with the purpose-driven nature of a strong family constitution.

Private markets also build resilience, a key driver is not just higher returns, but better diversification of a family’s overall portfolio — one not subject to the rising and falling tides of increasingly treacherous public markets.

Longevity makes wealth planning more continuously needed, and more consistent, families today have access to better structures, better governance models, and more professional advice than ever before. It also makes it far harder, because those same tools must now stretch across multiple generations, creating links between polar values, priorities and time horizons.

Planning for a 100-year family demands not just technical skill, but the ability to hold together a system that is always evolving - and ultimately, patience.

And the truth is, families are complicated for us all, not just the ultra-wealthy.   

Jamie Banks, head of wealth planning advisory, Julius Baer