Spear’s Review

Following roles at KPMG and BDO, Catherine Grum set up her own firm, Catherine Grum Consultancy, in 2023.

She tells Spear’s that the firm’s goal is ‘to advise wealthy individuals and families who are starting with quite a purposeful approach to their wealth – helping them to think through what it’s actually for, what their goals and dreams are, and then how that wealth supports them’.

One commonality among her clients is the need to plan for ‘succession in action’, including long-term wealth transfers and greater awareness across all family members of ‘what family governance means to them’.  For Grum, one part of this is advising the next generation and acting as their counterpart rather than ‘their parents’ adviser’. 

‘I enjoy working with next-gens, and I think it’s a mistaken notion that they have different priorities than the old guy at the head of the table with the silver hair,’ she says. ‘The older generations care about the same issues; they just articulate it differently. Of course, if something like sustainability isn’t on the family’s agenda, there’s absolutely no chance that someone in the younger generation won’t mention it.’