Henry Brandts-Giesen knows a thing or two about the lives of wealthy families. 

Partner and Global Co-Chair of Family Office & High Net Worth at Dentons, Brandts-Giesen works as a general counsel and strategic advisor to family offices, with renowned work that spans family office design, succession, structuring, governance, residency planning, risk management, and strategic philanthropy.

He’s based in New Zealand, and while Singapore is his principal hub for consulting work, he consults globally regardless of location.

“I act as a jurisdictionally neutral architect of global wealth plans. I help families define their objectives, design the strategy and governance framework, select the right jurisdictions and advisers, and then coordinate implementation across borders.”

Being region-agnostic means he works with varying client archetypes, but he says “they are usually internationally connected families, entrepreneurs, and family offices whose assets, family members or advisers span several jurisdictions.” 

Brandts-Giesen has had a meaningful role in professionalizing the family office industry, publishing books, sitting on the board of STEP and speaking regularly at conferences. 

Yet while the industry has evolved, often the biggest obstacle he faces at work is an age old one: inertia. 

“The greatest challenge is usually not designing the plan. It is keeping the family actively engaged long enough to implement it. My consulting projects are easily displaced by urgent transactions and operational issues, while the family leader may understandably be reluctant to confront personal vulnerability, plan for incapacity or succession, or begin releasing control.”

To solve this, he says considerable emphasis on agreed timelines, clear ownership, and disciplined project governance is essential.

Rise of the Multi-Hub

Newer challenges come from the global flexibility of wealthy families, which has shifted the conversation from ‘Which is the best jurisdiction? to ‘Which jurisdictions are best for which purposes?’ 

“Financial capital, human capital, operating businesses, investments, and philanthropy do not necessarily belong in the same place,” says Brandts-Giesen. “I increasingly help families design core-and-satellite or hub-and-spoke arrangements.” 

“The home jurisdiction may remain the centre of family and operational life, while Singapore or another stable jurisdiction provides custody, structuring, regional investment access, philanthropy, or optionality. Each additional hub must have a defined function and justify the extra legal, tax, regulatory and management complexity.”

Asia is the fastest growing wealth region today, and Brandts-Giesen notes that the region will become even more important to the global wealth industry as Asian families move on from first-generation wealth.

“More family offices will formalise governance, engage the next generation, diversify beyond operating businesses and property, and build international advisory teams.

“At the same time, I expect APAC to attract more private capital from North America and Europe. As part of broader diversification strategies, many Western families are seeking not only access to growth but also jurisdictional diversification, geopolitical optionality, and exposure to new economic engines.” 

The move towards stewardship

Last week major private banks asked top law firms to reduce their bills due to AI-enabled efficiencies, and Brandts-Giesen says the technology is certainly accelerating work while also raising the standard expected of client standards. 

But for him, the most important innovation he’s noticed is “the growing recognition that wealth consists of multiple forms of capital: financial, human, intellectual, social, and spiritual.” 

“Earlier in my career, private wealth planning was dominated by technical and structural solutions. Today, the leading families are increasingly focused on purpose, governance, education, communication, philanthropy, and preparing future generations for responsibility.”

This view echoes other industry experts we’ve recently engaged with, highlighting a shift that Brandts-Giesen explains is ‘the industry slowly moving from structuring wealth to stewarding family capital.” 

Communication and trust

Through his over 20 years of experience working in wealth, something unusual that struck him is how the greatest risks to family wealth are internal rather than external. 

“Poor communication, unclear authority, unresolved family dynamics, and reluctance to discuss succession can do more damage than creditors, volatile markets, operational risks, or tax.”

“The strongest families are not necessarily those with the cleverest structures. They are the ones that learn to make decisions, communicate, and solve problems together.”

These traits are essential to avoid family disputes, which can be destructive when there are vast sums of wealth involved, though Brandts-Giesen says these rarely begin as legal problems. 

“They usually arise from unmet expectations, poor communication, perceived unfairness, or longstanding relationship dynamics. The technical issues can often be solved. Creating enough trust to navigate the human issues is much harder.”

He highlights how crucial trust is when it comes to solving some of his most challenging work, notably with succession. 

“The hardest part is helping a family leader prepare for a future in which they are no longer in complete control. 

“These are often people whose judgement, concentration and personal authority created the wealth, so asking them to contemplate incapacity, succession or shared decision-making cuts against the qualities that made them successful.”