It’s no secret that super-rich families are, well, super-secret. So for investment professionals yearning to tap into this clandestine market, every opportunity for networking and intelligence gathering theoretically helps.
Enter the Digital Forum, a private group on Harvest Exchange, an online networking and collaboration platform for investors. Launched in December 2013, Harvest Exchange functions sort of like Facebook for investors, a place to connect and share information. It consists of a public platform where financial services firms post investment-related content and in secure, invite-only groups.
The Digital Forum, which was launched by the Family Office Association earlier this month, is one such group, offering investment professionals who work with family offices the opportunity to e-schmooze with peers and learn what makes the world’s wealthiest families tick.
The association describes it as a place to share best practices, ask questions and discuss opportunities, as well as gain access to the FOA’s proprietary research and multimedia library, which was previously only available to a group of single family office investors. Essentially, a Digital Forum membership provides access to everything but the family offices themselves for $170 a month.
The combination of both public and private forums provides a one-stop-shop for investors, including family offices, said Peter Hans, Harvest Exchange’s co-founder and CEO. “They use Harvest Exchange to publicly access and discover the investment products and services that are best suited for them. And they can be invited to access and even create their own private networks in order to securely collaborate with peers and colleagues,” he said.
For the extremely wealthy, who are inundated with spam the moment they reveal their identities, “there’s a value to remaining private,” says Angelo Robles, founder and CEO of the Family Office Association. But that presents a challenge when it comes to networking and seeking advice and information. “Even the super-rich can’t be in-the-know about everything,” he says.
Now, those serving the super-rich, or those hoping to, can at least be as in-the-know as they are.
