Rising Gen - 2026 FOX Family Forum

AGENDA AT A GLANCE

Tuesday, October 20 | Welcome Reception

Networking and Passed Appetizers
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Start the experience by meeting fellow attendees, making connections, and enjoying time together before the presentation begins.
F**kup Nights Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
F**kup Nights is a storytelling event where speakers get real about failure: the pivots that didn't work, the leadership calls that backfired, the moments that felt like the end. The intent is to talk about the mistakes, missteps, and messy moments that don’t usually make it into highlight reels and how those moments often become the real turning points. F**kup Nights creates space for vulnerability, authenticity, and real connection. Failure shared is lighter. Lessons shared are stronger.
Networking and Heavy Appetizers
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Keep the conversation going after the program with time to network, connect, and enjoy food and drinks with fellow attendees.

Wednesday, October 21 | Forum Programming

Breakfast
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Arrive early to enjoy breakfast and chat with fellow attendees before programming gets underway.
Welcome to the Rising Gen Forum
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
From Understanding to Ownership: Building Your Investor Toolkit
9:15 AM - 9:45 AM
Understanding wealth is different from being prepared to make decisions about it. This interactive session is designed to meet next-generation family members wherever they are in their investing journey and help them build the knowledge, confidence, and judgment to become more engaged owners of capital. Participants will then choose from three learning tracks based on their current level of experience: Foundations, Analysis, Decision-Making.
Breakout Session: Foundations — Understanding the Investment Landscape
9:45 AM - 10:30 AM
Led by Sophia Pacifico Griffini, this session breaks down the fundamentals of investing in an approachable and practical way. How does the stock market actually work? What does it mean to own a stock or a bond? How do public markets, private equity, real estate, venture capital, and other asset classes fit together? Participants will build the vocabulary and foundational understanding needed to make sense of investing and participate confidently in conversations about family wealth.
Breakout Session: Analysis — Learning to Think Like an Investor
9:45 AM - 10:30 AM
Knowing what an investment is, is only the beginning. This track focuses on how investors evaluate opportunities: understanding risk and return, asking the right questions, interpreting investment materials, comparing opportunities, and beginning to develop an independent investment point of view.
Breakout Session: Decision-Making — Putting Capital to Work
9:45 AM - 10:30 AM
For participants already comfortable with investment fundamentals, this track moves from understanding investments to making decisions about them with the backdrop of macro and micro economic events. We’ll explore how sophisticated investors approach due diligence, evaluate private-market opportunities, assess managers and investment theses, think about portfolio construction, and determine where an opportunity fits within a broader allocation.
The Private Family Capital Blueprint
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Despite its powerful and flexible nature, PFC is commonly invested within isolated ecosystems that limit its full potential. Further, family offices, multigenerational families, and other stewards of Private Family Capital (“PFC Investors”) frequently adopt the strategies and approaches of institutional funds, pensions, endowments, and corporations, often without fully considering the unique advantages available to them.
Networking Break
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM
From Beneficiary to Stewardship: Understanding Your Role in the Family Enterprise
11:00 AM - 11:55 AM
Being a trust beneficiary is about more than receiving distributions. It means understanding the purpose of the trust, the rights and responsibilities that come with beneficial ownership, and your role within the family’s broader wealth structure. This session will help next-generation family members understand how trusts work from the beneficiary’s perspective, how to engage productively with trustees and advisors, and what changes when a beneficiary is also asked to serve as a trustee.
Wrap Up
11:55 AM - 12:00 PM

Heather Abramson
Managing Director, Global Membership, FOX

Heather works with business-owning family members to understand their objectives and provides guidance to help address their unique needs through the resources available at FOX. Heather also runs FOX’s Rising Gen Community, which is designed to provide next-generation family members an opportunity to learn, share experiences, and develop skills as future leaders. Heather has held multiple roles at FOX including membership development.

Nate Hamilton
Chairman, FOX

Nate is the Executive Chairman of Family Office Exchange (“FOX”) and Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Heritage Partners Group, a family of companies focused on acquiring, building and growing private business in the consumer, business services and technology sectors. Over the last 20 years Nate has worked with family offices who are focused on investing Private Family Capital in a manner consistent with their values and objectives. The range of investment strategies has spanned traditional endowment style portfolio allocation to direct private equity, including investment platforms adjacent to the family business or family office. Nate is a believer in the power of Private Family Capital to effectuate enhanced outcomes for all stakeholders.

Nick Rhoads
Vice Chairman, FOX

An accomplished entrepreneur, investor, and executive with deep experience investing Private Family Capital, Nick is the Vice Chairman of Family Office Exchange (“FOX”), the world’s premier network for multigenerational families, and Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Heritage Partners Group, a family of companies focused on acquiring, building, and growing businesses, assets, and platforms uniquely suited for Private Family Capital. Throughout Nick’s career, he has worked closely with family offices and high-net-worth individuals, and he understands the unique challenges and opportunities that families encounter.

Helene Jaron
Chief Executive Officer, HomeBase, The Family Office @ Cozen

Helene focuses her practice on sophisticated estate and tax planning for high net worth individuals and multi-generational families. Her practice includes advising family-owned businesses on all aspects of succession planning, including the development of tax strategies for liquidity events. Helene also works closely with family office clients to create tax-efficient structures and she provides strategic advice on the multitude of issues facing family offices on a day-to-day basis, including regulatory compliance and income tax planning.

Sophia Pacifico Griffini
Founder & CEO, FinanceTalks

Sophia Pacifico Griffini’s professional mission is to empower girls and women to get smart on money and investing skills with the goal of ensuring that they gain not only the knowledge, but also the confidence, to start owning their financial decisions. Inspired by her own experiences growing up with little to no guidance of how to manage personal finances, Sophia built InvestHer to teach the women regardless of age or experience how to be in control of their finances.

Lauren Basler
Founder, Conscious Ascent

Lauren Basler is a leadership coach and facilitator who helps founders, executives, and teams build clarity, trust, and connection as they grow. As founder of Conscious Ascent, she partners with fast-growing companies through executive coaching, team facilitation, and strategic planning. Lauren draws on nearly a decade of startup leadership, including serving as Chief of Staff at AirDNA through its acquisition by Alpine Investors and two later acquisitions. She is also Chapter Lead for Fuckup Nights Chicago, an event series that normalizes honest conversations about failure and resilience.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

PROGRAM DETAILS

AGENDA AT A GLANCE