Private Wealth Management: For Individuals and Families
Through an energizing mix of rigorous academic insight and practical experience, this program teaches wealth owners a comprehensive, integrated, and strategic approach to wealth management.
Get the introduction to Stuart Lucas's book, Wealth: Grow It and Protect It, when you download the program brochure.
As a wealthy individual, you are working to protect and grow your wealth, enjoy financial security, and build a lasting legacy. Effective investment management is critical, of course, but successful wealth management is an integrated and strategic discipline which also includes tax, estate planning, philanthropy, governance, and family culture. Each family's situation is unique, and no one solution will suffice for all.
During the PWM program, you will:
- Clarify your family and financial goals.
- Design a strategy to preserve and manage your wealth.
- Oversee financial advisors with greater confidence, accountability, and results.
The program incorporates case studies, lectures, and small and large group discussions. Because some of the most valuable learning in the course takes place in the shared experiences among classmates and peers, we create a confidential and solicitation-free environment. All participants must sign a confidentiality agreement before joining the course.
To facilitate the interactive nature of the course experience, enrollment is limited.
Location
Chicago Booth, Gleacher Center, Chicago, ILThe Gleacher Center is located just steps away from Chicago's Magnificent Mile, home to world-class dining, shopping, museums, and entertainment.
Social Events and Networking Opportunities
This program provides an exclusive opportunity to build a strong network with other wealth owners. In addition to collaborative classroom learning, you'll get to know other program participants during evening cocktail receptions and class dinners—an opportunity to share experiences, express ideas, and connect on a new level with your peers. Participants enjoy unique dining experiences around the city; past venues have included the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, a renowned showcase for the history, art, and archaeology of the ancient East.
New value-add: Pre-Course Sessions on Investment Basics
The PWM program is designed to meet participants with varying levels of investment knowledge. For those less experienced with investing, participants are invited to attend two 90-minute virtual sessions on investment fundamentals to lay the groundwork before the program starts. These sessions are held over two evenings (Central Time) several weeks prior to the in-person program date.
In these live-online sessions, taught by Professor Kathleen Fitzgerald, you'll deepen your knowledge of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investment vehicles. You'll learn investment principles such as the time value of money, calculating realized returns, estimating expected returns, risk vs. return, diversification, asset allocation, benchmarking, and performance measurement.
This program is for wealth owners only, with financial assets of USD $20 million or more. Single family office executives may attend with principal family members, but other financial advisors may not attend.
Private Wealth Management is designed for US and international individuals and families who have built significant wealth in this generation, have inherited family wealth, or are contemplating or have recently experienced a transition, such as a liquidity event or change in family leadership.
PWM will be of greatest interest to those:
- Striving to maintain prosperity and a flourishing family through retirement and, for many, across generations
- Contemplating—or recently experiencing—a significant liquidity event, whether through the sale of a company, inheritance, or other major wealth transition
- Committed to engaging their families in more productive dialogue about the challenges and opportunities of wealth
- Seeking added confidence to evaluate and select financial advisors and/or to set strategic direction for a family enterprise
We have found that multiple members of the same family—husband and wife, parent and offspring, cousin and cousin—derive considerable benefit from taking the course together. The program gives them a foundation for continued productive dialogue well into the future.
Enrollment Requirements
Completed applications should be submitted as early as possible. Candidates will be notified of acceptance within one week. Application does not guarantee admission; candidates will be selected on their ability to benefit from, and contribute to, the program and valuable peer-learning environment.
John Heaton
Prior to joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 2000, Heaton was the Nathan S. and Mary P. Sharp Distinguished Professor of Finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He also has held positions at MIT's Sloan School of Management and at the Hoover Institution. Heaton is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The practical problems investors and institutions face are a key component of his teaching.
Originally from Canada, Heaton earned a bachelor's degree in commerce at the University of Windsor in 1982, a master's degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario in 1984, and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1989. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2000. Outside of academia, Heaton enjoys music, skiing, and sailing.
Steven Kaplan
He is the co-creator of the Kaplan-Schoar PME (Public Market Equivalent) private equity benchmarking approach. A Fortune Magazine article referred to him as "probably the foremost private equity scholar in the galaxy.”
Kaplan teaches advanced MBA and executive courses in entrepreneurial finance and private equity, corporate finance, corporate governance, and wealth management. BusinessWeek named him one of the top 12 business school teachers in the country.
Professor Kaplan co-founded the entrepreneurship program at Booth. With his students, he helped start Booth’s business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge (NVC), which has included over 800 companies that have raised over $1 billion and created over $8 billion in value including GrubHub, Braintree/Venmo, Tovala and Simple Mills.
Kaplan serves on the board of Morningstar and several fund and company advisory boards. He has been a member of the faculty since 1988.
He received his AB, summa cum laude, in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard College and earned a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.
Stuart E. Lucas
Stuart founded Wealth Strategist Partners (WSP) as the successor to his family's investment platform, where he was co-Chief Investment Officer for many years following the sale of Carnation Company, the business founded by his great-grandfather.
Stuart has been an investment professional for over 35 years. In addition to his duties with WSP, Stuart is Chairman of the Investment Committee of National Public Radio and is a board member of the National Public Radio Foundation.
Stuart designed and leads the University of Chicago Booth School of Business's Private Wealth Management continuing education program, which has served over 500 individuals and families in the 12 to 14 years since the course’s inception. His book, Wealth: Grow It and Protect It (FT Press), has been published on three continents. He is the author of numerous articles on investing and wealth management, most recently "The 50% Rule" and "Pick Your Battles" (Journal of Wealth Management), co-authored with Alejandro Sanz. His latest book, "The Taxable Investor's Manifesto" (Wiley), will be published in early 2020.
Previously, Stuart was the Senior Managing Director of the Ultra-High Net Worth Group within Private Client Services at Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase), director of a multi-family investment office in Paris, France; General Manager of European operations of Wellington Management Company in London, England; and Assistant Portfolio Manager of a Forbes Honor Roll mutual fund.
He has a B.A. with honors from Dartmouth College, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Kathleen Fitzgerald
Kathleen also holds the position of Senior Director of Academic Support at the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business in Chicago, London and Hong Kong in which she prepares students of Chicago Booth Executive MBA program for the rigors of Chicago’s quantitative approach to finance, economics, statistics, and marketing.
Her professional experience includes auditing and tax consulting at Ernst & Young, LLP and forensic accounting consulting at Chicago Partners.
Kathleen graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics in 1990 and a MBA in 1994. She passed the Unified C.P.A. examination in 1994 and holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.
Sara Hamilton
Sara founded the Family Office Exchange (FOX) as an industry clearinghouse and peer network for family offices in 1989. Within a few years, Sara could see that families needed help developing their enterprise vision and managing their family transitions, in addition to overseeing their family offices. As a result, FOX became an advisor to family owners of the enterprise, in addition to sharing family wealth best practices and being an industry advocate for the importance of private enterprise in a global economy.
In her role as family advisor, Sara provides consulting advice to a select group of enterprise families and helps identify enterprise best practices for the FOX Knowledge Center. She supports the development of new FOX learning programs and delivers educational programs at the University of Chicago Booth School in Chicago and at VU University in Amsterdam. At the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Sara is an adjunct faculty member in the Private Wealth Management and Wealth Essentials courses.
As Board Chair for FOX, Sara oversees the values, vision, and mission for the firm; provides oversight for the strategic investments made by the business; and serves as an advocate and advisor to the unique membership community that FOX represents. FOX has a unique team of 20 subject matter experts who oversee 480 member relationships in 24 countries. The FOX management team is based in Chicago, New York, Denver, Richmond, Pittsburgh, So Florida and Madrid.
Sara is co-author of Family Legacy and Leadership: Preserving True Family Wealth in Challenging Times. Sara is on the international governing board for the Foundation for Advancing Impact and Sustainability in Bologna, Italy and the national governing board for Private Directors Association in Chicago.
Stephen R. Quazzo
Stephen R. Quazzo is Co-Founder and CEO of Pearlmark, a Chicago–based private equity real estate investment firm that pursues domestic, value-added strategies through a series of institutional and high net worth investment vehicles. Since its inception in 1996, the firm has made more than 530 office, industrial, retail, multifamily and mezzanine loan investments nationwide, representing a gross investment of over $13.2 billion. Currently the firm oversees an approximately $1.5 billion portfolio of U.S. real estate investments.
From 1991 to 1996, Mr. Quazzo served as President of Equity Institutional Investors, Inc., a subsidiary of investor Sam Zell’s private holding company, Equity Group Investments, Inc. Mr. Quazzo was responsible for raising equity capital and performing various portfolio management services in connection with the firm’s real estate investments, including institutional opportunity funds and public REITs. Prior to joining the Zell organization, Mr. Quazzo was in the Real Estate Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a Vice President responsible for the firm’s real estate investment banking activities in the Midwest.
Mr. Quazzo holds undergraduate and MBA degrees from Harvard University, where he serves as a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors for the business school. He is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Trustee and immediate past Chairman of the ULI Foundation, a member of the Pension Real Estate Association, and a licensed real estate broker in Illinois. Mr. Quazzo is a public company director of Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp. (NYSE: VAC) and Phillips Edison & Company. For 22 years (1994-2016), he also served as a director of Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: HOT), which in 2016 merged with Marriott International (NYSE: MAR). Mr. Quazzo serves on a number of non-profit boards, including: Rush University Medical Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Endowment, the Chicago Parks Foundation, Deerfield Academy, and City Year Chicago.
Patricia Angus
Patricia M. Angus, JD, MIA, TEP, is Founder and CEO of Angus Advisory Group LLC. She is also an Adjunct Professor, founding Managing Director of the Global Family Enterprise Program, and Faculty Director of Enterprising Families Executive Education, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.
For more than 25 years, she has provided legal and strategic advice to global families and firms with multigenerational businesses, trusts, and philanthropy. Publications include The Beneficiary Primer: A Guide for Beneficiaries of Family Trusts and The Trustee Primer: A Guide for Personal Trustees.
She serves on Advisory Boards of Trusts & Estates and the Carter Center and is a Fellow of and faculty member for FFI. She has an Advanced Certificate in Family Wealth Advising and a Certificate in Family Business Advising from FFI. In 2019 she received the FFI Achievement Award in the Field of Family Enterprise, the Interdisciplinary Award.
Angus holds a B.A. cum laude from Amherst College; a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School.
Glenn G. Fox
Caren Yanis
Caren is principal of Croland Consulting, a private practice that guides athletes, celebrities, high net worth families, and social institutions in building a culture of purpose.
As President of Crown Family Philanthropies in Chicago, (2009-2016), she managed organizational redesign and growth, engaged multiple generations, and guided strategy in the U.S., the Middle East, and the developing world.
Caren built Oprah Winfrey’s philanthropies, as Executive Director (2000-2009) at the height of the Oprah Winfrey Show, a period that included Oprah’s Use Your Life Awards, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and the Oprah Winfrey Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko Mississippi where Oprah was born. She led disaster recovery and rebuilding in the Mid-South following Hurricane Katrina that put fourteen-hundred families back in homes. Caren was a member of Harpo’s Senior Management Team.
Caren chairs the board of The Poetry Foundation (a private operating foundation) and has guided it through a series of organizational changes with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is a member of the Board of Visitors at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and at the Women in Philanthropy Institute (WPI).
She is a frequent keynote and podcast speaker at wealth management and estate planning conferences with a focus on family offices and impact investing. Recent keynotes and podcasts include: The Heart of Giving (BBB), Dentons, Family Business Magazine’s Family Wealth and Legacy Conference, Family Office World, Yale Philanthropy Conference, and FEW.
Caren is an adjunct professor at Tulane University, the University of Chicago Booth School in their Private Wealth Management program, the Spertus Institute, and the Sports and Entertainment Impact Collective (formerly part of Johns Hopkins).
Caren understands the social change landscape. Her engagement in the sector has spanned media (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Inc., WSJ, Country Living) and startups like Leading Edge, formed to build organizational capacity in nonprofits. She has developed economic and education programs in Africa in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and through public private partnerships and worked extensively in Israel and the Middle East on cross boundary projects related to coexistence and the environment. She holds a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Emerson College, studied speech and language pathology at Mercy College, and has a certificate in Strategic Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations from Stanford University.
In her spare time Caren hosts salons that bring bold thinkers together for meaningful conversations. She has a passion for listening deeply, navigating challenges, and guiding people who have the potential to make the world a better place.
You will learn practical, tested, and actionable frameworks:
- Learn the key value drivers for preserving and growing wealth and how to use them, wherever in the world you reside
- Define your financial and family objectives within a comprehensive family enterprise management strategy that is consistent with your business, family values, and personal circumstances
- Explore family purpose and values within the context of a family enterprise. It’s a lot of work—is it worth it? Why?
- Optional: Learn the basics of investing in financial markets during two live-online pre-course sessions. You'll deepen your knowledge of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investment vehicles. You'll learn investment principles such as the time value of money, calculating realized returns, estimating expected returns, risk vs. return, diversification, asset allocation, benchmarking, and performance measurement.
- Gain a deeper dive into the nuances of asset allocation “factors”—such as value, momentum, and quality— that affect performance and the way value added, or “alpha,” is measured. Is past performance a good predictor of the future?
- Examine real estate as an important asset-class complement to equities and fixed income. Depending on how real estate is structured, it can have significant tax benefits that put more of the return in your pocket
- Select an investment strategy that is realistic, prudent, tax-efficient, and actionable given the time and resources you have to commit
- Learn the differences among the investment, brokerage, and wealth management industries, and their complex relationships and incentive systems. How can you align their interests with yours?
- Decide how to evaluate, select, and oversee the firms and individual advisors who are right for you and your family. Do you make decisions based on trust, service, or performance?
- Build performance evaluation, good reporting, and accountability into your relationships with your advisors
- Learn how trusts and other sophisticated planning instruments can reduce tax exposure, protect privacy, provide flexibility, and serve a family’s many generations without potentially spoiling them
- Explore governance systems that help your family steward assets wisely and encourage your family members to flourish. After all, human capital is your family’s most important asset
- Learn lessons from families that successfully maintain and grow their wealth within thriving families for multiple generations. These lessons can be rolled up into the concept of “entrepreneurial stewardship” that reinforces rigor and vigor. Wealth doesn’t necessarily demotivate; in fact, wealth and the skill to use it purposefully is a powerful combination
- Finish the program with a list of action items that will make a real impact on your wealth management
PWM comes highly recommended
94% of surveyed PWM participants said they felt they’ve become a better steward of their wealth, and 100 percent would recommend the program to others.
The PWM curriculum is built around an invaluable framework for preserving wealth and enhancing family happiness, covering everything from risk management to family governance. The program helped me organize my thoughts and identify gaps in my financial plan that I hadn’t considered. Now, instead of second-guessing myself, I feel confident knowing I’m following in the footsteps of those who have successfully navigated these challenges before.
- Ashwin Srinivasan, Partner, P600 Advisors LLC
The program provided great information, relevant case studies, and real-world experience, especially on how to work better with family.
The most impactful thing I learned was the holistic frame of a family enterprise and family wealth. It was helpful for me to see how you could look at an enterprise holistically. The virtuous cycle versus vicious cycle concept also really stood out. I left with a full binder of great education tools that I will be able to reference. I've already shared helpful materials and frameworks with some key people in the family enterprise. Read a Q&A with Marty about his experience with the program.
- Marty Ozinga, CEO of Ozinga
If you and your family want to strive to make a difference in the world with your wealth, then PWM is a no-brainer.
- Logan Bitter, Managing Director, South Central Inc.
Perhaps the only forum where everyone feels comfortable about openly and honestly discussing not only wealth management, but wealth and what comes with it. The knowledge gained from your peers can be invaluable.
- Steve Bisulca, President, Veridian Healthcare, LLC
This class provides an overview of how to approach wealth in a proactive and positive way. As Stuart [Lucas] says, ‘wealth without values is just money’—I have found this to be so true. As stewards of wealth, our role is to help our family maximize their potential so they each can live a full life and help others do the same. For me, learning about investing, managing the operating business, and the importance of a family purpose and values provided a solid framework that I can apply right away. In addition, the instructors were fantastic and learning from my other classmates’ experience was priceless!
- Jeff, past participant
A+. The best wealth management seminar I have ever attended.
- David W. Burleigh, Partner, Buechner Haffer Meyers & Koenig
Excellent program and I would say better than others that I have attended. I found it extremely beneficial to attend with my family, and we liked that the program's structure allowed time to share knowledge and learning with each other and fellow classmates.
- Kristen, past participant
My family learned a great deal from the knowledgeable faculty and interaction with other participants. Attending with my family was enormously valuable and I would highly recommend it -- we could discuss the sessions and how they related to our situation, further cementing what we learned.
- Esther Brabec
Rare to have access to this quality of participants, academics, and professionals. Great experience not solely based on program content, but total class.
- William Brewer, CEO, Cornell Forge
The course provided the perfect launch platform for setting my financial objectives and beginning the exercise of deciding on investment strategies and confronting the overall wealth management challenge.
- Guillaume Cuvelier, Founder and former CEO, SVEDKA Vodka
The course was incredibly interesting and thought provoking. The true 'transparency' of shared information by faculty and participants was especially refreshing.
- Kathy Leventhal
The organization and planning of the program was very good. Excellent lectures and group orientations and networking.
- Andres Araujo, Director of Trademarketing, D'casa
This is a must course for anyone interested in a multiple generational approach to investing and wealth management. The perfect balance between new insights and confirmation of long held beliefs.
- Steve Richardson, COO, Alamosa PCS
Your program covered a great deal of complex material and made it come to life! As a result of what my wife and I learned, we are going to make BIG changes in our portfolio. It is a long trip from Shanghai, but I can honestly say it was one of the most valuable weeks in my life.
- Patrick Hopkins
The PWM program is the most profound education ever delivered to me. Thinking of wealth as ‘well being’ will likely enhance the lives of the Guminski family for generations.
- Christine Guminski
PWM was a milestone; it helped us by giving a path to manage wealth and family. Since then, our wealth has suffered no big changes, our ships are in safe harbor, and the family is more united than ever.
-Past participant
The program provides a systematic and comprehensive review of the topic of wealth management. The material presented was informative and references were provided so we can go much deeper on particular topics of interest. This evidence-based approach to a complex topic is what high wealth individuals need.
- Richard Scott, Professor, Reproductive Endocrinology
The program is right on. It covers all the topics that you need to plan, design, execute, and mentor your family wealth. You can’t find a better program out there!
- Lin Yu Chang, Owner and General Manager, Y.F., J.F.,U.F. Universe
As ever, what separates Chicago Booth from other business schools is that Chicago Booth endows students with the ability to be great and to be good.
- Patrick Dessert, Principal and Founder, PDMC Ventures and Booth MBA 2012
This program typically runs twice a year, May and October.