Campden Global Owners and Family Office Congress

The Global Owners and Family Office Congress is the largest meeting on Campden Wealth's calendar and the one it treats as a set piece. It runs over several days rather than the usual two, moves country from edition to edition, and is now in its fourth year. The most recent congress was held in Abu Dhabi under the heading of what family capital can change.

Who attends

Campden describes the congress as bringing together business-owning families, single family office principals and entrepreneurs who are deploying capital into new technology and frontier industries. It is aimed at owners rather than at the operational layer of a family office, though senior executives attend alongside the families they work for.

Attendance is limited to qualifying family principals, next-generation family members, family offices, family businesses and private investors. The test is Campden's standard one: applicants 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 that is not affiliated with a bank, a financial services firm or a corporation. Campden is explicit that it restricts access in order to keep its meetings private.

How access works

Campden Club members register through the events team. Others complete the qualify form on the Campden site or ask for a call with the events team, and are assessed before a place is confirmed. Members of the Institute for Private Investors do not need the form.

No attendance fee is published. Terms are given to each qualifying applicant, so ask directly rather than budgeting from another Campden event. Because the congress moves country each year, travel and accommodation are the larger part of the cost for most attendees in any case.

What attendees get

The congress covers ground that the more specialised forums split up: how families govern themselves, how the family office is run, how ownership passes to the next generation, and where capital is being put to work. Its distinguishing feature is the mix of generations in the room, since Campden invites the next generation alongside the current owners rather than putting them in a separate programme.

The longer format is the other difference. Several days in one place, in a location that is not most attendees' home market, produces more time for unhurried conversation than a two-day forum does. Corporate partners sponsor the congress, so it is not a closed peer meeting, but the qualification rules keep families in the majority.