After 25 years working with founders, investors and people who have built extraordinary things, one thing has become clear. The numbers tell you surprisingly little about the person sitting opposite you. What does tell you something? Whether they are interesting. Whether their word means something when keeping it becomes inconvenient. And whether they are still the same person when the waiter comes to the table as they were thirty seconds earlier. A reflection on how the definition of success changes when you have been in enough rooms.
70% of Wealthy Families Lose Everything by the Second Generation. Here Is Why.
$124 trillion is transferring between generations by 2048. In the UK alone, £5.5 trillion is changing hands. And yet a 20-year research project on 3,200 families found that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation – and 90% by the third. The reason is almost never technical. It is not about investment selection or tax planning. It is about the conversations most families are actively avoiding. Here is what the ones beating those odds are doing differently.
Ten Essentials for Every Founder’s Agenda in 2026
Most founders spend their days managing the urgent. The hire, the P&L, the decision that cannot wait. But the agenda that gets crowded out is usually the one that matters most. From AI strategy tied to the P&L to the peer group that challenges you, here are the ten things every founder needs to be deliberately thinking about in 2026 – not just reacting to.
Why Where You Holiday, Eat and Spend Time Determines Your Deal Flow
Nearly 80% of UHNW individuals prefer connections introduced through mutual relationships. Warm referrals produce a 75% higher response rate on cross-border opportunities. The most significant deals in private markets do not begin in meeting rooms. They begin in the spaces people choose with their discretionary time. Here is what the most intentional founders and investors are doing differently.
You Are Not Just Building a Business. You Are Building a Legacy. What’s the Real Difference?
Most founders do not spend much time thinking about the difference between building a business and building a legacy. They are too busy building. But the research is clear – 85% of family business executives say succession planning is critical, yet fewer than a quarter are actively doing anything about it. The decisions that shape your legacy are being made right now, not later. Here is what the founders who get this right are doing differently.
Why the Best Businesses of the Next Decade Will Be Built on Networks, Not Products
The businesses that will define the next decade of private market returns are not necessarily the ones with the best products. They are the ones that have built the most defensible networks around those products – and whose value compounds in ways that a traditional financial model will systematically underestimate. Here is what the mathematics of network effects means for how serious investors evaluate opportunity in 2026.
Why London in October Is the Room You Need to Be In
The Syndicate Global returns to London in October 2026. This is what the room looks like, who it is for, and how to apply for your space. In March, forty guests stayed until 11:30pm. Nineteen came back the following day. The conversations that started that afternoon are still going – and in a number of cases, closing deals.
What the World Cup Teaches Us About the One Thing Most Businesses Get Wrong
The World Cup brings six billion people together around one thing. Not just football – but the belief that preparation, trust, and the right people in the right roles determines everything. The teams that go deep are almost never the most talented. They are the most cohesive. And the same principle, backed by McKinsey and Gallup research, applies directly to the way the most successful founders and investors build their inner circle. This is what The Syndicate Global is built around.
Is Personal Brand The New Balance Sheet?
Ask a founder or investor whether their reputation belongs on the same list of assets as their cash, equity or portfolio, and most will hesitate.
It feels like the wrong category. Too soft. Too hard to measure.
But here is the harder question underneath it: if reputation already determines who gets the call, who gets the introduction, and who gets backed before the formal process even begins – at what point does it stop being a soft factor and start being something that should be managed as deliberately as everything else on the balance sheet?
What the World’s Best Leaders Have in Common
At The Syndicate Global’s March gathering at The Connaught, Nick Cunningham-Moorat of Malue said something that stopped the room: “The shop floor knows best.” It is a deceptively simple observation — but one that reframes the entire conversation around AI, value creation, and what investors should actually be asking about the businesses they back. The most valuable intelligence in any organisation rarely sits at the top. And in most businesses, it is going almost entirely to waste.