Ola Adeosun

Spear’s Review

Ola Adeosun works with private clients and families to help them make decisions that optimise their wealth structures. Adeosun leads LGT’s family governance and wealth planning service, which is an important offering to the firm’s entrepreneurial families. 

Adeosun believes that each entrepreneurial family is unique in its own way. ‘However, regardless of whether the business is in its third generation or still in the control of the founders, having a shared purpose of why the family wishes to remain in business together provides a platform that enables the family to continue moving forward during good times as well as times of adversity,’ he has said. 

He has established a new initiative involving a series of workshops designed to address common concerns among clients. Topics include reputation management, strategic philanthropy and family business succession. 

Adviser Profile

A senior wealth planner who also leads LGT’s specialist service to family-owned businesses, Ola Adeosun looks at an individual or family’s portfolio and structuring in a truly holistic manner, considering their retirement, estate and succession planning, capital requirements and non-domicile issues. 

‘What makes my role so rewarding is that the issues facing UHNW families are quite often interconnected. Addressing a single area without fully understanding other aspects will only provide part of the resolution,’ Ola explains. This thinking guides Ola’s personal principles, too. He believes it’s important to understand what clients want to achieve and ‘what is driving that ambition’. Objectives can be as much about maintaining family harmony as the more technical issues, such as tax planning and wealth succession. ‘Listening to clients and showing empathy are essential to providing the necessary technical solutions and top-level client service.’

Ola adds that often the challenges family businesses face centre around ‘a lack of recognition and understanding of the structural differences between how family and business institutions are governed’. While families are built on the principle ‘of looking after one another’, a business is ‘largely judged on its innovation, productivity and profitability’. As a result, there is a strong focus within the service to enable wealthy families to put in place a robust wealth governance framework, which takes into account issues such as family values, ownership of the family business and the need for a comprehensive succession plan of family wealth to future generations.

Ola is a chartered financial planner and fellow of the personal financial society. He is also a full member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.