Look After the Goose, Not Just the Golden Eggs: What Private Wealth Advisers Need to Understand About the Enterprise Behind the Wealth

3:45pm – 5:00pm AEST, 4 November 2026 ‐ 1 hour 15 mins

Rod Douglas

Private wealth advisers are very good at looking after the eggs: investments, structures, tax, risk and returns. But in many wealthy families, the greatest concentration of both value and risk still sits somewhere else.

It sits in the goose.

The family enterprise created the wealth. Its governance, leadership, culture and capacity to survive succession will often determine whether substantially more wealth is created, preserved or destroyed than anything occurring inside the investment portfolio.

Drawing on more than three decades working with founders, boards and family enterprises, Rod Douglas explores what advisers should be looking for before the transaction, before succession and certainly before the crisis.

He will examine the questions that rarely appear on a wealth report: Who really makes the decisions? Can anyone challenge the founder? Is the board governing or merely observing? Is the next generation being prepared for ownership as well as leadership? What happens when the founder’s identity and the enterprise have become inseparable? And does the family actually know what it wants the wealth to achieve?

The challenge for advisers is not to become governance consultants. It is to learn to see the goose.

Because preserving family wealth starts long before there is a portfolio to preserve.

Speakers

Rod Douglas

Founder, Legacy Private Capital

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Georgia Barkell

Peer Group Chair, PWN

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Rod Douglas

Founder, Legacy Private Capital

After retiring from his purpose-built property development business at just 30, Rod Douglas dedicated his career to serving entrepreneurial families and their enterprises.

For more than three decades, Rod has worked at the intersection of family wealth, operating businesses and professional advice, helping founders and families navigate the complexities of ownership, leadership, succession and enduring value creation.

As founder of Legacy Private Capital, Rod brings a distinctive perspective to the advisory community. While professional advisers focus on protecting and growing financial wealth, Rod works with the businesses, people and relationships that create and sustain it.

An experienced company director and independent chair across listed and private businesses, Rod specialises in culture, strategy, governance and shareholder value. He works collaboratively with professional advisers to strengthen family enterprises, navigate generational transitions and build lasting prosperity.

Rod holds an MBA from Bond University, is a Foundation Fellow of the AICD and a Vincent Fairfax Fellow in Ethical Leadership.

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Georgia Barkell

Peer Group Chair, PWN

Georgia Barkell is a finance and investment professional with a strong grounding in financial strategy, complemented by a deep interest in people, relationships and the dynamics that shape outcomes over time.

She is the founder of Kinexis, where she works alongside families as a consigliere, helping to develop and implement right-sized strategy and governance. Her approach brings a risk management lens to the skilful stewardship of family values and wealth across generations.

Georgia brings 25 years of experience across Chartered Accounting, Investment Banking, Technology, Fund Management and Family Office, with a career spanning Australia and the UK and experience with organisations including Deloitte, Westpac and General Electric. She is an experienced Director, Executive and Investor.

A mother of three, Georgia’s deep connection to family is reflected in Anthony Brandt’s words: “Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.” Outside of work, she enjoys travel and languages, snow skiing, music and reading — interests that continue to shape her perspective and curiosity.