Who we are?

Our Family Office Services help our clients pass on their abundance to the next generation.
Our focus is to develop the tools, methodologies, and analyses you need to achieve your intention to build a lasting legacy.

What we are not?

Trustee

Trustees Corporate Managers and Administrators provide an instrumental service to organize a client’s wealth. We do not provide these services ourselves and we do not act as trustees or directors of a company. We can accept mandates as protectors, advisors, or external members of the family council to provide further color to the intentions of the structures in place. We help coordinate projects between the client, the tax advisors, and the trustees to ensure that these are implemented efficiently.

Asset Manager

We believe there are many good asset managers out there and we do not provide asset management services to our clients to stay independent of the asset management process. We apply modern mathematical models to quantify both the performance and risk metrics of a portfolio. Together with the family and the asset managers, we improve these metrics. We help our clients define the purpose of the investment objective and the Investment Policy Statement. We can also organize and assess beauty contests for asset management mandates.

Tax expert

A client is best advised to have his team of local tax experts help him or guide him through a constantly changing field of complex issues. Together with tax experts, we do provide clients with an actionable strategic plan. The details we leave to the tax experts. We provide our clients with an understandable summary of the framework within which the family can operate without falling foul of the guidelines given by the tax expert. The same applies to the assets managed by asset managers: are these managed most efficiently from a net tax perspective?

Accountant

We do not provide our clients with accounts of trusts or holding companies for taxation or reporting purposes. We focus instead on providing you with the insights you need to rest assured that the asset management process is working as effectively as possible toward supporting your legacy goals.

Lawyer

We do not provide any legal services. Similar to both the trustee and tax planning services, we help coordinate the activities of the lawyers involved in strategic projects.

What we do, is …

Provide you with the Family Office tools, methodologies, and analyses needed to create and maintain your legacy goals. This we do with a focus on your Four Abundances. If you are searching for a bigger Why or have found that the Entrepreneurial Spirit has gone stale within the family, then we are the right partner for you.

Independently analyze the performance and risk metrics of asset managers to incrementally improve these along with the financial intentions of the family and its legacy goals through the definition of Investment Policy Statements.

Our Family Office expertise is in the creation of specialized and unique tools you need to succeed in passing on your wealth to the next generation.
As a first step, we assess the status quo. Then we devise a tailor-made strategy that fits your individual needs, and finally, we put the systems in place to consolidate your family abundance in a family council, allowing it to be further improved over time.

As a result, your assets will be managed more efficiently, your family will be more involved in shaping your legacy, you will be able to start new, exciting, and invigorating projects and see them come to fruition, and you will find more time to replenish precious energy and be ready to make long-term strategic decisions for the generations to come.

Our Team

Nicholas Schwarz

Founder and Managing Partner

Nicholas Schwarz has enjoyed a 20-year career in advising family offices and high-net-worth families and individuals in both their international tax and asset management needs. Nicholas has worked and lived in Switzerland, Australia and Austria, where he currently resides with his wife and daughter.

His career started at KPMG Switzerland, where he advised clients on international taxation. Having completed his formal education as a Swiss Fiduciary with specialisation in taxation, he continued his education to achieve an MBA in Wealth Management from the University of Manchester. Prior to this, Nicholas obtained an Honours Degree in Philosophy. He also holds a certification as a Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Furthermore, he continuously expands his knowledge in investment performance measurement, financial analysis and financial risk management through the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA) and the Global Association of Risk Professionals (FRM), while being a registered Finance Professional in Austria.

Nicholas’ practical experiences range from setting up systems and processes for Family Offices and reporting tools for wealthy families, allowing for a more transparent and better view of strategic risks in the asset management process, to advising both wealthy families and asset managers on the asset management process to improve performance and reduce risks in a portfolio.
In addition, Nicholas advises wealthy families on inter-generational wealth transfer, the adoption of family governance and family values, and the introduction of family council meetings.

Operating out of Vienna, Austria, Nicholas has built a team of analysts, programmers, and advisors who help him provide his services.
Currently, Nicholas is working on a next-generation tool for family offices and wealthy families to ideate, coordinate and strategically manage the legacy of wealthy families.

Nicholas is also highly engaged in providing learning opportunities through case studies for both Masters and Bachelors degrees in Finance, Mathematics and Fintech and Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in Sofia, Bulgaria.

This cooperation allows also for the development of next-generation tools, like the Gamification of Risk Profiles for a more accurate assessment of a client’s risk profile based on metrics found in behavioural finance and leveraged as a tool for asset managers with the aid of artificial intelligence and large datasets.

Anika Samungi

Software Developer

Anika grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, and graduated with a BSc in Informatics from “The St. Kliment Ohridski” University of Sofia. She is a software developer with strong technical skills with a focus on front-end development (JavaScript), with a background of more than 15 years of professional software development. Throughout her career, she has worked with many different teams on various projects, which helped her develop technical leadership and mentoring skills. In her free time, she enjoys drumming, weightlifting, and reading books.

Elena Jansa

Data Analyst and Accounting Specialist

Elena is responsible for the processing and accuracy of accounting data and data preparation, as well as financial analysis for executive reporting. She has over a decade of experience in auditing, financial reporting and data analysis. Her career started in the financial audit division of KPMG Bulgaria, followed by a revenue analyst position in London. She is passionate about numbers and her focus is on making actionable business sense out of large sets of numbers. Elena holds a BSc in Economics. She is a mother of two and in her free time she enjoys trying out new sports (Gaelic football, anyone?) and spending time in nature.

Maria Fougstedt-Becker

Project Manager

Maria Fougstedt-Becker brings 20 years of experience in basic project management coupled with the leadership of employees from the field of software development in an international environment to the table. Born in Helsinki, Finland, raised in Helsinki, Vienna and Tokyo, she carries not only professional but also personal experiences from acting in the multicultural field. She has lived with her husband in Vienna since 1990, 2003, and 2008 two sons expanded the international family. In parallel to her profession, Maria also completed her studies on business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She speaks four languages (Finnish, Swedish, English, and German) fluently. In addition, Maria is continuously trained in project management. Her career to date is characterized by growth and further development in project management, the introduction of new systems for project management and their use. She worked on the evaluation of SAP for project management, then managed projects via MKS (later PTC), used a tool specially designed for time tracking, and most recently JIRA. Maria Fougstedt-Becker’s experience ranges from working with the systems as well as evaluating the need for functionalities of the software tools. Maria has not only successfully completed projects as a project manager, from the budgeting phase to the delivery of the product in an international environment, she was also appointed as the head of a project manager group where she led her project managers and managed strategic projects.

Rebeka Kulcsar-Kurdi

Designer

Rebeka studied traditional art techniques at the University of Fine Arts in the faculty of costume and stage design, in Budapest. Since graduation, she has been working as a corporate designer. She has had the opportunity to design print and web content for clients like HP, Apple, Lexmark, Electrolux, Siemens, and many others. She has experience working with both big companies and small startups, as corporate and private clients. She is always keen to learn something new in the wonderfully complex and large field of creative design.