Jun 10, 2026 · 33 min · 10 segments
Susan R. Schoenfeld, JD, LLM, CPA, MBA, CEO and founder of Wealth Legacy Advisors, joins R. Adam Smith to explore the human dimensions of multigenerational wealth. Drawing on a career that spans tax…
Susan R. SchoenfeldGuest
R. Adam SmithHostNo entities detected.
Okay, moving into your professional journey, you did start in law and accounting and then into family office leadership.
Of course, human capital and external advice is really essential in this exploding and fragmented and huge industry, so it'd be interesting to talk about that a bit, how you came from a practitioner role into family office leadership and now as a super consultant, and just love to talk about your personal narrative for a bit.
As I said, it's really been three chapters of my career, and what I do now is what I describe as being a thought partner to these families and helping them navigate the difficult rocks and shoals of being a family of wealth and all that comes with that, which isOften, as I said, it's not their investment portfolio that's keeping them up at nights unless there's been a particularly volatile week in the markets, which we've had, and it's generally not their taxes unless they just got a letter from Uncle Sam, and it's not even their estate plan unless their golf buddy at the country club just had a heart attack.
What's keeping them up at night is, "How do I preserve my legacy? How do I think about my legacy, about who my family is, what we stand for, and how do I build that and craft that in a thoughtful and intentional way?"
And further into the, the philosophical side of how you approach the relationship and this thought leadership with your families, of course, the families are super varied, and there's a lot of psychology and ego and hesitation and the psychological balancing, of course, working with families.
Today, we'll talk mostly about culture and collaboration and trust and the softer power, but of course, as I focus mostly on the hard power and doing M&A and transactions and wealth creation, wealth investing, wealth expansion, wealth catalyst, but in, in that catalyst of large transactions, there's a lot of the soft power and psychology that goes on in general and also in the next gen and also imposter syndrome and fear and greed and all those things.
Let's talk about this, your approach to the intergenerational collaboration and building trust within the families, and talk about some of these actionable lessons that are the most important around the philosophy of collaboration.
It is about building in the f- family's philosophy, and for me, the important thing is to start with the big picture first.
So before we get into details with a family, I like to start, as I said, with the broader questions.
What do we stand for as a family? What are our guiding principles? What does it mean to carry our name and our legacy forward into the next generation and beyond? And all importantly, what will hold us together when the chips are down? And these foundational ideas becomes the compass that guides more specific discussions and decisions later on.
So as I often say, little kids love bedtime stories, and part of what I do is help families craft their family story in a way that it can be told and retold consistently from generation to generation, to even very young children, as well as to incoming members of the family through marriage.
For example, shaping that story of, say, how Grandma and Grandpa started a small corner store that's now a nationally known retail chain, and the family's values that went into creating the family's success becomes part of the family lore.
I worked with a family during the heart of the pandemic who had created their wealth, as many do, through sacrifice and hard work, as well as vision and risk-taking, of course.
Okay, moving into your professional journey, you did start in law and accounting and then into family office leadership.
Of course, human capital and external advice is really essential in this exploding and fragmented and huge industry, so it'd be interesting to talk about that a bit, how you came from a practitioner role into family office leadership and now as a super consultant, and just love to talk about your personal narrative for a bit.
As I said, it's really been three chapters of my career, and what I do now is what I describe as being a thought partner to these families and helping them navigate the difficult rocks and shoals of being a family of wealth and all that comes with that, which isOften, as I said, it's not their investment portfolio that's keeping them up at nights unless there's been a particularly volatile week in the markets, which we've had, and it's generally not their taxes unless they just got a letter from Uncle Sam, and it's not even their estate plan unless their golf buddy at the country club just had a heart attack.
What's keeping them up at night is, "How do I preserve my legacy? How do I think about my legacy, about who my family is, what we stand for, and how do I build that and craft that in a thoughtful and intentional way?"
And further into the, the philosophical side of how you approach the relationship and this thought leadership with your families, of course, the families are super varied, and there's a lot of psychology and ego and hesitation and the psychological balancing, of course, working with families.
Today, we'll talk mostly about culture and collaboration and trust and the softer power, but of course, as I focus mostly on the hard power and doing M&A and transactions and wealth creation, wealth investing, wealth expansion, wealth catalyst, but in, in that catalyst of large transactions, there's a lot of the soft power and psychology that goes on in general and also in the next gen and also imposter syndrome and fear and greed and all those things.
Let's talk about this, your approach to the intergenerational collaboration and building trust within the families, and talk about some of these actionable lessons that are the most important around the philosophy of collaboration.
It is about building in the f- family's philosophy, and for me, the important thing is to start with the big picture first.
So before we get into details with a family, I like to start, as I said, with the broader questions.
What do we stand for as a family? What are our guiding principles? What does it mean to carry our name and our legacy forward into the next generation and beyond? And all importantly, what will hold us together when the chips are down? And these foundational ideas becomes the compass that guides more specific discussions and decisions later on.
So as I often say, little kids love bedtime stories, and part of what I do is help families craft their family story in a way that it can be told and retold consistently from generation to generation, to even very young children, as well as to incoming members of the family through marriage.
For example, shaping that story of, say, how Grandma and Grandpa started a small corner store that's now a nationally known retail chain, and the family's values that went into creating the family's success becomes part of the family lore.
I worked with a family during the heart of the pandemic who had created their wealth, as many do, through sacrifice and hard work, as well as vision and risk-taking, of course.
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