Why Every Family Office Needs a Values-Driven Brand Strategy with India Wooldridge
India Wooldridge
Contact:
india@catalystbrands.co
https://www.catalystwealth.co/
India founded Catalyst on the premise that a well-crafted brand is an untapped strategic asset for Private Clients and Family Offices. She brings a unique perspective on how to activate a family office brand to create clear competitive and reputational advantages today, while bridging the family’s wealth with their future legacy.
Working collaboratively, India crafts values-driven brands that builds on existing charters, ensuring consistency between internal governance and external identity. The brand creation process crystallises the family’s values, wealth story and desired impact. Crucially, it unifies all generations around a narrative that guides the family’s investments, philanthropic focus and external reputation.
India is a global strategic leader and consumer intelligence expert with nearly 20 years of experience across strategy, research and innovation leadership roles. She has lived and worked across four continents and her expertise has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Inc Magazine and SXSW.
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kirby Rosplock. Today, we have a really interesting discussion, and I'm so thrilled because we have India Wooldridge with me, and she is a rock star, literally. She is coming all the way from the UK. And we're talking about brand, which is such an interesting discussion because we're talking about curating your family office brand and how it can help you preserve your wealth and your legacy. So India has got a really fascinating background. She's the founder of Catalyst. It's a London-based consultancy that brings fortune 500 grade brand strategy and proprietary research to the family office world. So she's led global consumer intelligence units for household name brands like Nestlé, MasterCard, L'Oréal, and she's shifted her focus to values-driven branding for the ultra high net worth family space, including single family offices and philanthropies.
Kirby Rosplock
So her work helps families align around core principles, turbocharging next-gen engagement, and turning reputation into a strategic asset. India also contributes thought leadership with platforms like Simple, and co-authored a chapter in the rising role of Women and Family Offices and Family Businesses. So India, welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast.
India Wooldridge
Thank you so much for having me. It's a delight to be here. Super excited.
Kirby Rosplock
So I am so interested to understand more about this whole brand concept. So firstly, what is a value-driven brand and what makes it different and unique to families?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, I think that's the It's a quick starting point because whatever I do, whoever it is, I always like to align on what a brand is. I think there's an assumption that it really focuses on logos and advertising. And of course, branding, your visual identity, is part of your brand. But actually, brand is a much higher order piece. It's a strategic asset, as you referenced, and it really defines the essence of who you are, what makes you unique, the story that explains what you're doing, the impact you want to have in the world. That's why I describe family brand, family office brand as values-driven, not visuals-driven. It has to be embedded of the values of the family or the individual. It really helps to crystallize those values and that vision. Then through the wealth story that we co-create, it really illustrates the impact that they wish their wealth and legacy to have. And for me, it should really exist to, I guess, ensure consistency between that internal governance, so building on things like family charters and constitutions if they exist, but building consistency between that and your external identity. I really see, I guess, curating your brand as a proactive investment.
India Wooldridge
It's something that has the ability to create clear, competitive, and reputational advantages today. But crucially, the process, which I'm sure we'll come into, aligns family members around a cohesive vision for tomorrow. That, for me, is where I'm starting to see a lot more traction is because the landscape is changing. Family offices and private offices were built to protect and grow wealth. But increasingly, it's really family dynamics and reputational risks that are determining and impacting family future legacies. So for me, the way in which we approach it and by proactively aligning your brand is a key way to address these.
Kirby Rosplock
Wow. I'm a I'm imagining, and tell me if I'm wrong, but are there a lot of immediate benefits of defining your brand and around your wealth narrative, like your story?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, for sure. And I think it has lots of different benefits. Again, much like a brand in any sense of the word brand, it should work as hard internally as it does externally. Let's start internally, I guess. The first thing that I really talk about is the compounding results of a family office brand. It has this a high will effect. Once you create that brand, again, rooted in the family values, that process really drives family alignment. It creates a forum that everybody feels heard. You're co-creating a feature that you want to build in order to really crystallize that wealth narrative and wealth story. Once you have that wealth story, that then exists as a North Star for everybody within the family office, within the family office ecosystem. Suddenly, it's like, if we stand for this, these are the types of decisions that we need to be making. It strengthens governance, it creates that decision-making framework, and really, I think, starts to importantly ensure that everybody is operating off the same sheet. Once you think about everybody moving at the same pace in the same way, the operational efficiencies that come from that, the momentum, is really important.
India Wooldridge
Then I'm doing this because it's a flywheel effect, but you can't see it's a circular effect. But once you have already operating and thinking in the same way, ideally, what we're starting to see is that actions then are all aligned. It starts to really think, well, if our family values are this, do our investments reflect this? Do our philanthropic focus? Does it reflect this? Does the people we hire reflect this? The people we try to partner with? All of that really builds, I think, a cohesive reputation, which is really important. Again, it may not be something you publicize. We'll come onto that. It doesn't have to be a public profile. But actually, by having these actions that are all aligned, it really helps you have the impact that you want to have. I always talk about today's reputation is tomorrow's legacy. Well, actually, ensuring that you are acting consistently with your values is the most important way of starting that today. That's going to inform your desired legacy, which is a living, breathing thing we need to be thinking about from the offset. For me, there's so many different aspects it can tangibly touch, and it really can have a focus both internally galvanizing the family and the family office, but also externally ensuring that you're driving that right profile and reputation to achieve your goals, whatever they may be.
Kirby Rosplock
So companies have logos. They have an actual signature, a mark that distinguishes their brand. Do families have a similar branding mark? Or is this values-driven brand more of an internal distinguishing characteristic? And do you see families sort of, think of their brand more internally, more values-driven, more like, who are they? What are they all about? Because you're making this distinguishment that some have an internal proclivity versus some have an external proclivity. Talk to us about that difference between that external mark of brand, which we oftentimes hear much more about versus what you're really talking about, right?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, definitely. And the answer is it depends in terms of what the family's goals are, what the family office goals are. If it is internally focused, often there may be a brand because everybody, everybody has a, there may be a logo, everybody has a brand, right? You have a term sheet, you have hiring papers, you have all the things that you know exist in the world that form your reputation. So, while there may be a logo, it may not be externalized. But importantly, when we're thinking about internally making a difference, it's much more probably rooted in the value proposition of what is it that we are trying to achieve as the family office, through the family, the impact we want to have. That may be a simple, not necessarily simple, but it could be a multi-generational family that you're trying to align and create and ensure that we're communicating what it is that the value that we we are trying to build, the impact we're trying to have, and ensure that everybody's aware of that and how they can contribute to it and how they can engage with it. Of course, that doesn't necessarily need a logo, but it's really much more about that strategic value proposition that we then cascade throughout the family and throughout the family office ecosystem.
India Wooldridge
On the flip side, I guess another way in which we're starting to see people think about brand is more in public profiles, and that can be philanthropic endeavors. If they have foundations, then it definitely is to have a more visual identity to have out in the world that you can kind of use it as a beacon to attract other partners, other kind of funds. Similarly, we're seeing, again, people are starting to think about this more and more in the direct investing space. So thinking about curating a profile and identity in order to be able to have a competitive advantage when it goes out to thinking about how they can get access to the best deals or get the best co-investments, the best partnership syndicates. Again, that's what we're where having a visual identity and having a more public-facing elevation of the brand is really helpful. So both equally valid. It just depends on what the end goal is for the family or private office, and then how we tailor it.
Kirby Rosplock
That's interesting. So it sounds like that external brand can really help you maybe attract... In the investment side, you're talking about the co-investors that you want to have or attract the deal flow that you're seeking based on your values, your criteria. So that makes a lot of sense. Talk to us a little bit how brand can act as a North Star when it comes to governance especially during tough multigenerational decisions.
India Wooldridge
Yeah, I think for me, that goes way before you get to that decision, right? And it's really the very act of going through the process of creating brand that is critical to, I think, really helping that. And certainly the way I approach it is incredibly collaborative. It's about ensuring that everybody within the family, as far as we can, and within the family office ecosystem, as it's appropriate, has the opportunity to feel heard, has the opportunity to have their perspective made, and really contributes to the solution. Why that's important? It's not only important to get those different diverse perspectives and ultimately make stronger solutions and outcomes, but psychologically, it's really important because everybody then is invested in the outcome. Everybody essentially has skin in the game because they've been part of co-creating the solution when it comes to what are our values, what is the impact we want to have, how are we representing ourselves in the world? So by the time you get to that point where you're having tough decisions, it's a no-brainer. People are like, Well, we've gone through that process. We know that we stand for this. This is what we've agreed and aligned on.
India Wooldridge
This is how we need to act. I think for me, that's where we start to see a lot of benefits of the brand creation process as having a key turn in driving that alignment. And one of the best pieces of feedback I've had is certainly from a client who said, I know, I knew we get a lot out of this. I was really excited to see the future direction, but I had no idea we'd be this aligned as a team. And that's amazing, right? And that's what we're aiming for, and a brand should be delivering that. A great example is Google. Employees are encouraged to ask Does it feel googly? I. E, does this decision that I'm about to make feel aligned with how we should be behaving as a brand? That's exactly what we want to try and to be, not trying, we want to achieve when we're doing the same process for families and family offices, is allowing everybody within that ecosystem to have a really true sense of what it is that we stand for so that they can make decisions in a way that's cohesive with what we've agreed. Practically speaking, obviously codify that in a brand blueprint document, which is a really tight strategic document which outlines all the elements that we've discussed in the process we've been through.
India Wooldridge
They have that as a reference point. But ultimately, we want to get to the point where when it comes to those tough decisions, because we've gone through that process, we're able to really think through and use the brand as a guide to help make them, hopefully, in a far more cohesive way.
Kirby Rosplock
So fascinating. I want to go back to that investment discussion that you brought up a little bit earlier. And you keep saying, I love this quote, Today's reputation is tomorrow's legacy. How have you watched a family's brand directly influence its investment thesis or vice versa? Can you give us some more stories about how you're seeing, you know, the brand process, whether it's investments or how it's maybe impacted engaging family members in the investment process? I mean tell us more about how you see that also shaping you know, a family office's engagement?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, I love that question. I mean, certainly it sharpens the focus on the investment thesis. As soon as you have the lens of, does this investment align with our values and the impact we want to have in the world? It's pretty edifying. It becomes pretty, it becomes pretty clear in terms of business-aligned. Certainly, I think it's more about sharpening the focus and helping guide future decisions as opposed to a radical shift. Most families have a good sense of what the direction they want to head. This is really shepherding that through. The values typically lead that impact and legacy that you want to create. This, again, just ensures that the capital is following that. If you really, truly want to commit to that impact, then we need to ensure that everything we're doing is focused on that endeavor. And I think where we're seeing that come to life most is enterprises in direct investing, which I mentioned earlier. And I think that's something where we're seeing 50% of family private offices are looking to increase their activity here, and they're starting to realize the real power of having a brand in their profile. I like it much like the venture space 10 to 15 years ago, where they were thinking, How do we have a really tight profile that represents our values, our perspective on the world, our investment focus, and therefore, the types of deals and partnerships that we're looking for.
India Wooldridge
For me, that's where a brand is starting to get a really powerful competitive advantage in an increasingly cluttered landscape. It starts to drive that deal flow with increased inbound opportunities to the right opportunities as well and ensures you're attracting more investments that are already aligned with the family's values because a brand is a signal of intent for the impact you want to have and where you want to focus. And crucially, and I think this is getting, and we're seeing this more and more, certainly within the sector, it's so important in helping to engage top-tier talent and really attract the right talent and the partnerships who have the shared ambitions and values. For me, that's going to become increasingly more competitive as well. So brand, again, it's the duality of it. It can not only help shape and guide where you focus it, but it also acts as an external beacon to ensure that what you're bringing into the sphere is really turbocharging your efforts as well. I think the reality is, and we're going to see this again more and more, it is going to be more competitive as we start to see 50% of family offices trying to focus more on this space.
India Wooldridge
It becomes not just nice to have, it's a necessity. If if you want to stand out and if you want to be accessing the best deals and be aware of the best deals that are happening.
Kirby Rosplock
So, India, I don't know anyone who does this work but you. So can you walk us through how this brand creation process happens? And how do you also pull in next-gen family members into the fold and spark their ingenuity and their ideas to be part of this process, too?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, I love it. And I'm really passionate about that area as well. The brand creation process, and my background very much, as you mentioned up front, is rooted in research and intelligence. We always start with that insights, immerse and peace. I say your outputs are only as ever as good as your inputs. We take real time and real care and energy to ensure that we're interviewing the right people, we're speaking to every members of the family, including next Gen, we'll come on to that, and different partners, different people of the ecosystem, to ensure we're getting as rich a perspective as possible to understand what are the family values, what is the impact? Sorry, it's the same questions we come back to. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it really is. We need to get very, very granular in terms of what is it, that central core that the brand is built on. Who are we? What do we believe in? What is our perspective on the world? What is the impact we want to have? That insight, submersion is absolutely critical to them moving forward into the brand creation where we really crystallize that value proposition.
India Wooldridge
That should be very singular. For me, again, as I talked about earlier, it's a very collaborative process. It's never about coming to someone and being like, This is the answer. It's got to be something that everybody contributes to and everybody buys into because that is what's going to make it live and breathe and be successful if everybody's aligned from the beginning. Then what we think about is as a part of this process, so many different ideas come up, so many different ways in which this can impact both inside and outside of the office is what we think about how do we activate it. Crucially here is we think about prioritization. We really think through, okay, what is the low hanging fruit, the no-brauners that we can do today, which costs no money and absolutely should just get on with? Then think about, okay, well, next steps, what should we focus on in the next 6-12 months, which are really thinking through what is going to achieve our immediate goals. Of course, we want to be thinking longer term and dreaming big. For me, I have a really codified process in which we get to that.
India Wooldridge
I call it the family constellation. We're really thinking about how we think about the different impact we want to have and the different influence we want to have both inside and outside of the office. It's a really illuminating process. It's a lot of fun. To your point around next Gen, it's one where I am very passionate about ensuring that they are part of the process and they're co-authors with how we create and think about the values and impact. I think by including them, they're not only strengthening the inputs with diverse thinking and forward-thinking perspective, I think you're future-proofing your strategy, essentially. There's far more likely to be a continuity of family legacy and values if they co-created the part of the future that we're envisioning. I've even had a family ask me, Can you interview my teenage children? The answer is absolutely yes. Notwithstanding, I just ran youth research for a decade, so I'm very adept to working with kids. But I think it's so important that we hear from their perspective, it's so important their future isn't being handed to them, it's being built with them. Therefore, they're going to be far more excited about engaging with the family's future.
India Wooldridge
They're going to feel far more prepared. Again, they've got skin in the game. The likelihood is that this process sparks so many different ideas for where they can take ownership and contribute to the families. It's a stepping stone. It builds that bridge, again, bridging today's ambitions and values and desires into the future and the collaboration that comes from that is absolutely critical.
Kirby Rosplock
It's so inspiring. Well, it sounds like this also can lead to so much more in terms of maybe being a springboard for families' philanthropy, maybe the way they think about, as you said, the impact that they want to lead, maybe with their investments or how they want to show up in their communities. Talk to us a little bit more about how this inspires these these families to think bigger or think broader. I mean, how this whole brand process might open up doors that they didn't even think they were ready for. And then all of a sudden this process unlocks some new ideas.
India Wooldridge
Yeah. And I think that ultimately that's the goal, right? Is we're able to think through, how does this pull into the future in a big way? I think, not to... I don't want to make it sound overwhelming, right? There's always going to be this big ideas, but it's not like suddenly you're diving into the deep end. We think about very prioritized and approach that gets you to that. But I think often where it's really valuable is often there are different philanthropic endeavors or investments which I guess may not have a golden thread running through them. For me, what the brand piece should really do is to provide that center of gravity that starts to bring all of those elements together and give a really concrete foundation and a springboard for then how you build on it. That's, I think, definitely, as you alluded to, the ambition for that once you start to see how joining up all the dots in that way can lead to such a magnification of impact, especially when you start attracting partners who are also looking to do the similar thing, it's really the scale at which you can have that impact where I think it gets really exciting.
India Wooldridge
We see that in philanthropy, no one family can change the world. It's got partnership, it's got to be together. And again, as we've talked about, that if we do choose to have an external facing element of the brand, being a beacon for attracting partners to have that impact is absolutely paramount.
Kirby Rosplock
What's um, can you tell us a story about a ritual or practice that maybe someone listening or watching this podcast today might borrow to keep their brand and their values alive as their family tree is growing?
India Wooldridge
Yeah, for sure. Talk about it. Talk about your values and the impact you want to have in the world. It sounds so simple, but so many times people aren't talking about it. I guess in my practice, I have a really simple, very simple question. I'll share it as a values alignment audit. They really ask, sit down and think about where are we aligned in our values? Where are we different? And that's okay if we're different. What does this look like today? What does this look like in the future? What needs to change? What stays the same? If we stand for X values, do our investments reflect this? Does our philanthropic endeavors reflect this? I think for me, just asking these questions, it really invites the conversation. Because whether we're talking about family dynamics or legacy of brand, these aren't static things. They're living, breathing entities that need to be given the space to adapt and grow. For me, it requires conversation, it requires continual engagement, and it requires, I guess, an understanding that it may change and grow, and that's okay. It's when things stay very rigid, they start to break. Keep talking about it.
India Wooldridge
Keep it integral to your family operations, and you'll start to see, I think, it just opens the aperture for what's possible. Certainly, I think starts to open a way of thinking, as you can see, I'm very passionate about, about how a brand and how aligning your values as a part of that can really start to turbocharge all facets of the family office and beyond.
Kirby Rosplock
Indy, I hate this part of the podcast because I've gotten to the lightning round and I have five more questions for you. So in a short burst, I'm going to ask you them and just tell me what comes to mind. The first one is, give me one word that captures a thriving family brand.
India Wooldridge
I'm going to go with alignments, I think. Really thinking about how it drives family alignment, values alignment, alignment of decision making, alignment of actions, whether that's your investments, philanthropic endeavors, alignment of how you show up in the world. For me, that's when we know it's really doing its job when everyone's that golden thread running through.
Kirby Rosplock
Awesome. Okay. Favorite What's your favorite example of a family office using brand for good in or outside the public eye?
India Wooldridge
I'm going to go with, uh Albert's, which is a family in Sydney, and they, they sold their family business in 2016. It's a music business, and they very specifically pivoted to what impact they could have. And as a family, it was the next generation who made this decision, they realized very quickly that in order to have this impact, they needed to collaborate, they needed to have partnerships. They built a brand and a platform with the express idea that they are looking for collaborators. I think it's like pioneers, is how they frame it, pioneers of tomorrow. Then every aspect of what they do is really built around that. From their venture capital offering, from their impact investing, from their foundation, the other philanthropic, it really ties everything together. As a result, going back to it, it's a beacon for attracting the partnerships, and they've been able to really raise the profile of what they're passionate about, find the collaborators and the partnerships, and really, I think, maximize that impact, which for me is a brand at its best.
Kirby Rosplock
It's amazing. Biggest myth about branding in the family wealth space?
India Wooldridge
It's got to be... People think it's about promotion and advertising. It's not. It absolutely does not have to be public at all. A brand is about the value system that really turbocharges your impact, both inside and outside the family. For me, understanding the power of unleashing that strategic asset and how it can really help you and your goals is for me, I guess, the crusade that I want to talk about.
Kirby Rosplock
I love it. If there was one tool, book, or resource you could hand out most often, what would it be?
India Wooldridge
For me, my background is that I'm a researcher for many years, and I think one of the most underutilized tools is the one we all have at our disposal, and that's to listen. Just to listen, don't talk for a moment, to really hear what people are saying. I think if that was more common place, it's so simple, it would fundamentally change, I think, a lot of things in this world. So yes, I always use that as a reference point.
Kirby Rosplock
I love it. Last question. If you could embed one value in every family constitution, it would be...
India Wooldridge
Empathy. Empathy, for sure. I think I always use a motto, there's more that unites us than divides us. Having, again, run multi-generational research for many years, I think having an empathy and an ability to listen, again, to hear what other people's perspectives are, to really understand that you can learn from anyone. Older generations can learn from young, younger generations can for sure learn from older, and really have that empathy to see where people are coming from in order to unite, to move forward is, I think, one of the most powerful values, again, in and outside of working life.
Kirby Rosplock
Oh, my goodness. India, what an illuminating podcast. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all your incredible insights on values-driven branding and family wealth. I know you mentioned that you might have a leave behind for us. So everybody, please check out India's website at Catalyst, and there's a lot more there. There's also going to be links at our website at tamarindlearning.com. You can check out and get to her website and get in contact with India if you want to jump in and start the whole branding process with your family office. If you enjoyed the podcast today, please, please, please, like, subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon or YouTube or wherever you're listening to us today and share today's episode with your friends on social media. And until next time, thank you again so much, India, for being here today at the Tamarind Learning podcast.
India Wooldridge
Thank you.
