From Growth to Legacy: The CFO’s Role in Australia’s New Wealth Landscape

By Sarah Bush

Australia is undergoing one of the most profound financial shifts in its modern history. According to KPMG, Treasury Minister for Financial Services and various other sources, over the next 30 years, an estimated $3.5 trillion will move from baby boomers to the next generation (KPMG, 2025). This intergenerational wealth transfer is reshaping how families think about legacy, succession, and the structures needed to preserve and grow wealth.
From the lens and position as an external CFO, working alongside wealth advisors, accountants and lawyers, three powerful trends keep becoming apparent:

  • Not every family is equipped to run a traditional family office
  • Families are transitioning from DIY wealth oversight to curated multi-advisor models, often anchored by their CFO.
  • Clients without generational wealth are building their own “proto-family offices”—often without even realising it—through trading businesses and investment portfolios.

Let’s unpack what this means.

The New Generation of Wealth Holders: More Complex, More Diverse

We’re not just talking about trust fund inheritors or passive landlords anymore. The new generation of Family Office clients are:

  • Founders of commercially active businesses with rapid scaling needs.
  • Tech-savvy professionals who hold equity, property portfolios, and private investments.
  • Value-driven individuals exploring impact investing, philanthropy, and ESG alignment.
  • Families navigating blended dynamics—with multiple jurisdictions, new relationships, and cross-generational wealth philosophies.

What they all share is complexity—and ambition. Which is why they are choosing the Collaborative Approach – bring the best in their fields together, with depth of knowledge and experience, without the costly overhead. As The Australian (2025) noted, “Wealth creators are choosing agility over empire. Outsourced expertise is more valuable than in-house empire-building.”

Your CFO should also be helping you create a pathway to Wealth-Building.

For non-traditional families, those who didn’t inherit wealth but are creating it, CFOs play an even more essential role in providing the platform for both personal and commercial financial wealth, however the way we go about it might not always be so dissimilar than how we work with an existing Family Office;

For trading businesses:

  • We build performance KPIs, margin dashboards, and exit prep.
  • We make the financial picture visible:
    • We consolidate reporting across trading businesses, investments, trusts, SMSFs, and philanthropic vehicles.
    • We build dashboards for cash flow, performance, and scenario planning—all in one view.
    • We facilitate budget and investment conversations across generations with neutrality and clarity.

For investors:

  • We oversee deal flow, due diligence processes, and capital allocation models.
  • We create frameworks, not just files:
    • We help document and operationalise governance.
    • Help structure processes with strong controls put in place.
    • Make relevant data available to enable decisions with formal framework and member contributions, moving away from a ‘gut feel’ methodology.
  • We construct a Panel of advisors, tailored to the Groups specific needs, creating a collaborative approach, bring varying skills to the table.
Wealth Doesn’t Manage Itself—It Evolves with You

The $3.5 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer won’t be solved with old models. The next generation is global, diversified, tech-enabled, and values-driven.

Whether you’re inheriting wealth, building it, or transitioning a business into capital, it’s clear that it is imperative for financial clarity and strategic scaffolding to go from success to legacy.