Patricia Saputo, a third-generation member of the family that founded Canadian company Saputo Inc., has been working with her family’s family office since 1998. Today, she is CEO of that family office, and she works to help other families with family education through Crysalia, the advisory firm she co-founded. She is also chair of Tiger 21 Montreal, an ultra-high-net-worth peer group. She talks about her role in promoting family education:
You are your family’s chief learning and development officer. What do you do in that capacity?
I look at the family as an asset. And like any resource, it could get depleted if you don’t pay attention to it. To me family members are exactly that asset: If you don’t reinvest in them and don’t continue the learning and the development, they will be depleted. So the human capital is an asset that needs to be developed — that’s part of the learning and development process.
I don’t just call it the chief learning officer. I’m calling it the chief learning and development officer, because learning without developing goes nowhere. We can all go to school and learn. But if you don’t practice what you’ve learned, you lose it. So, the “D” in CLDO is the development of your human capital — more important than just the learning.
What does your family education program cover, and what are its goals?
We tried to structure it in a way that it made family members want to go to the meetings. It wasn’t something that we were forcing the family members to go to.
We started with, ‘What are our values?’ Then we had a meeting where my father spoke about his past, so the grandchildren could understand him and my mom, and where they came from. Then we had a meeting where my father gave each of the grandchildren some money, and he said, ‘The only condition is at the next meeting you let us know what you did with it.’ At the next meeting they presented what they did — so we were teaching presentation skills as well. Then they were given another sum of money, and the directive was, it has to be invested. But the word “investment” means more than just investment in the market: It could be an investment in themselves, like a course or a book.
Our family was in the cheese business, so at another meeting, my father taught the kids how to make cheese in my kitchen. Another meeting was baking with Grandma.
It’s a lot more than just financial literacy. It’s how the family functions. And then, if you’re doing philanthropy, we ask: “Philanthropy, for whom? Where? Who decides?” I call that “baby tracks.” You get them started on the philanthropic giving so that they know what it’s like to be making decisions on things that are not theirs. And they understand and see that there’s a bigger good for the wealth.
It’s important for people to know the different roles and responsibilities and the different hats we wear: owner, family member, operator. Do people think you’re talking to them as the operator when really you’re talking as a family member? There’s a difference between having a voice and being heard, and having a vote and deciding. Are you bringing other voices to the table when you’re voting? Part of the CLDO role is to educate the family members to fully comprehend all the hats in the room.
What do you see as the future of your learning and development program?
When COVID hit, we stopped our family meetings. Now the grandchildren are asking for us to get started again. Many of the grandchildren have been taking courses and going to networking events for family businesses as well. Now that they are older, we are asking them what they want these meetings to be about. We are listening to their voice.
