Campden European Family Office Forum

The European Family Office Forum is Campden Wealth's flagship European meeting, held in London over two days. It has run for more than twenty-seven editions, which makes it one of the oldest recurring family office events in Europe. Recent editions have taken place in Mayfair, and the forum appears on both the Campden Wealth calendar and the Campden Club member calendar each year.

Who attends

Campden limits places to qualifying family principals, next-generation family members, family offices, family businesses and private investors. In practice the room is made up of family members who take an active part in their office's investment decisions, along with the chief executives and chief investment officers who run those offices.

The qualification rule is the same across Campden's calendar. You must be a family member or principal, an executive of a family or patrimonial business, an executive of a family foundation, or an executive of a family-controlled investment office, whether single family or a private multi-family office. Family offices affiliated with a bank, a financial services firm or a corporation do not qualify. Campden states plainly that access is restricted in order to protect the privacy its meetings are known for.

How access works

Campden Club members book through the events team. Everyone else uses the qualify form on the Campden site, or asks for a call, and is assessed before a place is confirmed. Members of the Institute for Private Investors bypass the form.

No registration fee is published for this forum. Campden gives terms to each qualifying applicant rather than listing them, so ask the events team for the current figure. Corporate partners sponsor the forum, and sponsorship is handled separately from attendance.

What attendees get

The agenda covers the full working life of a family office rather than investment alone: how families structure their offices, their enterprises, their trusts and their charitable foundations. Recent editions have looked at judging whether an investment approach still fits current conditions, preserving wealth through less predictable markets, the part the next generation plays in securing the family's future, and responsible ownership.

Campden schedules private peer-to-peer networking as a distinct part of the programme rather than leaving it to chance around the sessions. For families that already belong to the Campden Club, the forum works as the European anchor point of a year-round membership. For those who do not, it is one of the few ways to see whether that membership would be worth having.