Welcome to Wealth of Wisdom: Top Practices for Wealthy Families and Their Advisors. We are excited to introduce it to you.

We are particularly enthused because of the book's practical nature and the fact that the exercises and tools you will find inside have been used successfully in the real world. No family or advisor has all the answers, and we can all learn from each other, so this work pulls together rich, hands-on content from diverse sources and shares it with all families.

They say you should create the book you want to read. So that's what we did!

In putting together a book like this, there are many people to recognize and thank for their contributions—including inspiration, encouragement, writing, and editing. Just like our first book, Wealth of Wisdom: The Top 50 Questions Wealthy Families Ask, this volume draws on multiple voices and countless practical experiences to answer the questions and address the issues that so many families of wealth face. We are grateful for the many hands that have brought this volume to life. For us it has been a labor of love and a community project and has built a literal “wealth of wisdom” for families around the world.

We would like to particularly thank our contributing authors. They are the best in the world in their fields and have a wealth of experience, which they have enthusiastically shared with us in this book. They are family members, family advisors, educators, business leaders, authors, speakers, thinkers, practitioners, and mentors, and a literal “Who's Who” of the global experts in issues that are important to families of wealth.

We gratefully acknowledge and express our appreciation to Stacy Allred, Patricia Annino, Josh Baron, Doug Baumoel, Linda Bourn, Jean Brunel, Greg Burrows, Joe Calabrese, the late Charles Collier, Joan DiFuria, Andrew Doust, Zahra Ebrahim, Etienne Eichenberger, Jamie Forbes, Dean Fowler, Richard Franklin, Jim Garland, Joline Godfrey, Stephen Goldbart, Sharna Goldseker, Katherine Grady, Jim Grubman, Stephanie Hardwick, Barbara Hauser, Lee Hausner, Scott Hayman, Kofi Hope, Jay Hughes, Bo Huhn, Suzanne Huhn, Susan Hyatt, Dennis Jaffe, Kim Kamin, Josh Kanter, Kristin Keffeler, Voyt Krzychylkiewicz, Małgorzata Smulowitz, Rob Lachenauer, Kathy Lintz, Eugene Lipitz, Susan Massenzio, Greg McCann, Kathryn McCarthy, Ian McDermott, Scotty McLennan, Keith Michaelson, Arden O'Connor, Don Opatrny, Danielle Oristian York, Michelle Osry, Bart Parrott, Natasha Pearl, Scott Peppet, Ellen Perry, Leslie Pine, Mark Pletts, Courtney Pullen, Mimi Ramsey, Ned Rollhaus, Kirby Rosplock, Guillermo Salazar, Jill Shipley, Ruth Steverlynck, Christian Stewart, Claudia Tordini, Jamie Traeger-Muney, Blair Trippe, Wendy Ulaszek, Peter Vogel, John A. Warnick, Matthew Wesley, and Susan Winer.

From Tom

I would like to thank the partners and staff at Northwood Family Office who serve and support our client families and help them with all the strategic and practical activities required to manage wealth and develop successful thriving families. I would also like to thank the families who have entrusted their wealth and their lives to Northwood's care.

I would also like to express my appreciation to a very experienced author and friend, Mark Daniell, who got me started on this journey of writing books when he invited me to co-author Family Wealth Management: 7 Imperatives for Successful Investing in the New World Order. I will always be grateful.

And I would like to thank Keith Whitaker, my co-author in Wealth of Wisdom: The Top 50 Questions Wealthy Families Ask, as well as this book—Wealth of Wisdom 2.0. Keith is an experienced family advisor, a wise thinker, and a superb writer. He has been a pleasure to work with on both projects, and we too have become friends.

Finally, I would like to thank my family—Karen, Kate, Ben, Miranda, and Sunny—for their support, encouragement, and belief in me and the importance of projects like this.

From Keith

Wealth of Wisdom was my co-editor Tom's vision, and I am deeply grateful to him for inviting me upon the journey with him.

Many thanks go to my associates at Wise Counsel Research and to our client families, from whom I have learned so much, as well as to my partner, Susan, who has always been ready to recall me from the clouds to life's practicalities.