New Year, New Opportunities: How JTC Private Office and SDA Bocconi are Guiding the Future of Global Family Wealth

What does legacy mean for entrepreneurial families today? Legacy is no longer just about portraits in boardrooms or foundations with the family name. It’s about identity, purpose and social impact and how these shape the future, not just preserve the past.

To help families navigate this evolving landscape, JTC Private Office has recently partnered with the esteemed SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan (“SDA Bocconi”) to create The Family Legacy Monitor. This new thought leadership hub will be dedicated to exploring questions that matter most to international families of wealth. The platform will harness both JTC’s deeply practical experience in global family decision-making and SDA Bocconi’s academic perspective, bridging the gap between research and reality.

Why This Partnership Matters

JTC Private Office understands not just the structures, but the day-to-day complexities that families face in managing cross-border wealth, succession and governance. By moving beyond traditional, transactional approaches, the team takes time to understand each family’s unique aspirations and values, building trust and creating solutions that reflect their clients’ aspirations.

SDA Bocconi brings the clarity of global best practice, structure and academic insight. As one of the elite ‘triple crown’ business schools, SDA Bocconi turns lived experience into systems, intuition into insight and insight into practical tools, especially for the next generation stepping into responsibility.

The Family Legacy Monitor will offer families globally a new class of support: with ongoing research, insights, workshops, leadership reports and creative campaigns that will help them to discover and plan their roadmap for the future.

Rethinking the Meaning of Legacy

When most families talk about legacy, they immediately think of inheritances: assets, properties, businesses transferred from one generation to the next. But legacy is multi-layered. There is the biological legacy, the continuity of the family line; the material legacy, wealth, businesses and achievements, as well as the social legacy based on reputation, networks and a meaningful contribution to society. Most crucially for the Next Gens is the identity legacy, which is founded on values and purpose, the very essence of what the family stands for.

Next gens now think “I didn’t just inherit a business. I inherited expectations, a name and a story.” Families now understand that identity and social legacy matter just as much as material assets. That’s why many Next Gen leaders want to shape, not simply receive the legacy.

From Preservation to Evolution

Like so many things in life, legacy isn’t static. Healthy family legacies evolve over time, moving from simply protecting what’s been built, to reimagining what’s possible. Evolving allows for both preservation and growth, whilst to stand still one can risk legacies becoming outdated, lose purpose or jeopardise the business itself. SDA Bocconi’s research can help map a path from static and preservative legacies, to evolving and dynamic ones.

The challenges facing families are very real. Succession can mean navigating conflicting expectations. Cross-border families must contend with laws, cultures and competing visions. Next Gens want clarity, a seat at the table and education that speaks to their reality, with practical guidance and insights to help them.

Legacy, Redefined for Today

Next Gens aren’t passive receivers but builders, creators and authors of the next chapter. Their job is not merely to protect the legacy, but to evolve it and to steer continuity into emotionally mature leadership.

With a world more connected, yet at the same time more complex than ever spanning continents, causes and cultures, we want to help change any feelings that legacy is a heavy burden and instead help the Next Gen view it as a strategic advantage. The Family Legacy Monitor is an invitation to join the conversation, gain clarity and lay the foundation for purposeful, impactful business, wealth and mindset transfers across generations.

If this makes you think about your own family and its legacy, imagine how transformative it could be to have structure, support and insights.