Downstairs in the dimly lit private room of a restaurant in London’s Mayfair neighborhood, over 100 guests are engaged in lively banter, broken only by friendly introductions or the need to jostle at the bar for another drink.

This is a family office industry gathering, yet there are no sponsors, unusually few blue suits, almost no gray hair and about a third of guests are female. 

Conversation ranges from the serious business of geopolitics and investment policies to debates over the best Thai restaurant and top school rankings. 

It’s organized yet informal, and that’s entirely the point.

We’re at the latest gathering curated by FOS (Family Office Socials), a network started by Paul Winter and Sam Copley in 2021.

Realizing that most of the networking value from attending industry events was gained from peripheral socializing, they started a WhatsApp group to facilitate this.

In five years it’s grown far beyond original expectations. 

“The evolution of FOS has been completely organic,” says Copley. “What started as a small drinking group is now an international Swiss army knife for all things family office-related.”

After a career start in the UK foreign office, Copley moved into finance over a decade ago, and is currently at a single family office, for whom running a network is naturally beneficial. 

“I spend a lot of my time meeting new families, discussing potential touch-points and exploring synergies between our family office and others.”

FOS is run from London but has expanded globally, with groups in the US, Switzerland, the UAE, Asia-Pacific and Spain. 

And while Copley is 37, fitting with the age bracket of the Mayfair event, he says they cater for all family office folk. 

“It’s a mix of principals, next-gen and investment executives. Age-wise it’s broad - from fresh grads to members in their 70s. We’ve also just launched FOS Women, which had their first event this week.”

Rather than develop their own or explore existing community software, FOS operates exclusively on WhatsApp, which is split into core groups across communities. 

Their core community contains Socials (“The mothership”), Deals & Funds (“Separate groups where families can present investments they have participated in”), Insights (“For articles and research”) and Solutions (“For non-investment related peer-to-peer requests”). 

It works well enough that they have no plans to migrate away from WhatsApp anytime soon.

“The beauty of WhatsApp is that everyone is logged in all the time: If I need a view on the new Sequoia fund, a recommendation for a new tax lawyer in Paris, a view on a conference in Miami or to meet a family office that owns hotels in Asia, I can access nearly 1,000 relevant people immediately. This would not be the case with a log-in platform.”

Copley notes that when he started in the wealth industry, he found family offices’ isolation and emphasis on privacy hampered their ability to form meaningful collaboration, which helped motivate the creation of FOS.

“While the need for discretion won't change, I think innovations, tech-enabled or otherwise, that facilitate greater collaboration, such as pooled due diligence, cost-sharing, co-investments, etc., they have the potential to be hugely powerful.”

While WhatsApp provides all the technology they need, much of the value members obtain is through frequent in-person gatherings.

“We run monthly drinks in Mayfair for our community - generally on the last Thursday of the month. We also run a 'lunch and learn' series with speakers on educational topics like geopolitics and philanthropy, as opposed to fund pitches or companies raising capital.”

They’re also exploring the potential of sports, experiences and other activities that will get people out of boardrooms and enable genuine connection. 

This deliberate alternative to the traditional conference approach aligns with their members’ interest.

“We ran a poll in our FOS Solutions group on which family office networking approaches are the most effective - while there are some excellent large scale conferences out there, these were by far the least popular option selected by our community.”

“I think it's worth remembering that family office professionals and principals, however eccentric they can be, are still humans, and are likely to enjoy art, music, sports and other activities away from conference rooms. This is particularly the case for younger members of the ecosystem.”

As with any private network of UHNW individuals and family office executives there are constant attempts at infiltration. 

Copley notes that most prospective members are introduced by existing members, and while both him and Winter do due diligence before admission, it’s his partner that acts as gatekeeper.

“Paul has more of a 'bad cop' role, ensuring the rules we've established are followed, deleting unsuitable content and - occasionally - kicking people out of FOS.” 

He adds that with any hint of misrepresentation, or general behaviour at odds with the ethos of FOS, Winter has stepped in to ban the offenders. 

It’s also led to the odd delicate situation.

“Mayfair is small and we constantly bump into former FOS members on Berkeley Street or in one of the clubs, some of whom take expulsion extremely badly.”

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