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GENERATION

THINKING

Crow Box Partners helps families of means activate the promise and purpose of their next generation. Our expert team of educators, change makers, and innovators boldly combine new knowledge in neuropsychology, education, social responsibility, business, and organizational systems to prepare individual family members to lead their most enterprising lives.

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SIMON HOLZAPFEL

Founder & Executive Director

Simon@crowboxpartners.com

LEADership

Founder and Executive Director of Crow Box Partners, Simon Holzapfel is an award-winning educator, thought leader, innovator, scrum master, writer, and competitive amateur athlete. He has dedicated his adult life to equipping people of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skills, value, and purpose they require to work and live well. In addition…

  • … to his recent and successful tenure as Head of School and President at The Darrow School, and international boarding school, Simon has serviced as a trustee for varied educational institutions and organizations. He has earned undergraduate and advanced degrees from Carleton College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Simon and his family reside in Massachusetts. Whenever he’s not reading, cooking, or eating, he can often be found on skis on his bike.

BEN SANDRI

Managing Director

Email@gmail.com

Ben Sandri is the managing director at Crow Box Partners. He has been an educator in many capacities for nearly twenty years, teaching subjects including math, science, history, acting, and stonework at a variety of educational organizations throughout the Northeast. His undergraduate work was in history and mathematical ecology at the University of Vermont…

  • … and his graduate work focused on science education through the University of New Hampshire. He is also a certified stone wall instructor through the Dry Stone Wallers Association, and works as a professional stoneworker during his vacations, building walls and training other wallers. He resides with his family by the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts.

MAKE YOUR MARK

APproach

Reflecting the circumstances of each Crow Box Partners Family and Next Generation Family Member, our philosophy is fundamentally 'one-size-fits-one'. Individualizing tiered engagements with durations spanning multiple days to multiple months, our consultants work alongside each client in a variety of settings.

Engagements begin with in-person Discovery sessions to clearly define each Crow Box Partners Family stakeholder's goals and design outcome-based road maps for each Next Generation Family Member that detail the distinct competencies we will develop with them each quarter.

The basic work of life can be likened to trail building. No matter where we might travel, we all need a trail. But from where or from whom will that trail come? And how much will we walk our own trail, or will we follow someone else's?

Embracing this metaphor, we leverage our expertise to facilitate three highly individualized engagement models we call 'Trailblazers'.

Background

We know that families seek long, healthy, productive, and fulfilled lives for their children. Families of means are no different. But the complex and sometimes overwhelming burden of stewarding their legacy assets, contributing meaningfully to their family’s legacy, and honoring the enterprising spirit of their family’s founders can be challenging for children within these families.

The obstacles that exist within families often lie in relational challenges and communication breakdowns. Unspoken and unexplored conversations around topics such as values, emotions, expectations, and trauma often create blocks and resistance to healthy relationships and a strong family unit. We help untangle these conversational knots because we understand that a strong financial future depends on the well-being of its members and prioritize emotional health and resilience building as a key aspect of our work.

We equip Next Generation Family Members to find their unique voices, blaze their own paths, and make their mark on their own terms.

Designed around principles of Live Well, Think well, and Own Well, the primary objective of Trailblazer is to enable each Next Generation Family Member to begin their mastery of ‘anti-fragile’ living and financial literacy.

Benefits for The Next generation Family Member include:

  • Clarified purpose

  • Strengthened sibling, parental, and familial bonds (as desired of necessary)

  • Superior adaptive thinking

  • Improved judgement and decision-making

  • Focused reasoning

  • Enhanced determination and grit

  • Enriched connection with nature

  • reduced anxiety

  • Increased mastery of financial literacy

  • In addition to durther strengthening the actionable benefits of Trailblazer, Trailblazer Elevation develops of cohesive narrative for each Crow Box Partners Family, including the clear articulation of a family-specific Vision and a path to achieve it. trailblazer Elevation also extends and deepens each Next Generation Family Member’s understanding of complex business concepts, to include analyzing modern financial statements, risk modeling, and the basics of financial investment.

  • In addition to the benefits or Trailblazer and Trailblazer Elevation, Trailblazer SUmmit introduces each Next Generation Family Member to the fundamentals of trust and family governance. Crow Box Partners facilitates the creation or confirmation of a set of agreed-upon rules describing how decision-making within that Crow Box Partners Family will flow.

    As part of their ongoing one-on-one coaching with each Next Generation Family Member during Trailblazer Summit, our consultants will also design a ‘Triple Balance Sheet’ defining that individual’s unique human, intellectual, and available financial capital. This balance sheet will become an individualized and evolving roadmap for future growth and development.

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