About KORE Venture
Kore Venture objectives and methodology
Why we created Kore Venture
Wealthy families have long struggled with the challenge of building character and retaining family values. Successive generations are typically far better educated than the founding generation, however, their track record of protecting and growing the wealth entrusted to them is poor. The hard work, risk-taking, sacrifice and perseverance of the founding generation is easily forgotten by successive generations. In the midst of the many benefits gained through wealth, the virtues which helped create it are often lost along with the wealth itself. This “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves” pattern is seen the world over.
We are in the midst of a global transition during which trillions in family wealth will be passed on to a new generation of leaders. While they may have attended the best schools and colleges, most feel unprepared for the responsibility of stewarding wealth and their family legacy. And many will suffer under a heavy weight of expectations and feel greatly isolated by their family circumstances.
Properly preparing NextGen members for responsibilities they did not choose and may not want is essential to ensure wealth is a blessing rather than a burden.
NextGen programs typically focus on developing competency in disciplines such as family governance, philanthropy, and business leadership. As important as these are, we believe the greatest need is helping young people find their identity and purpose before they must shoulder significant family responsibilities. Working on “who” before “do” is the essential and often neglected starting point.
Kore Venture addresses this significant need to prepare young inheritors by cultivating wisdom and character. It is a holistic program which launches participants on a life-long learning journey. It imparts wisdom, instills character virtues and provides tools which are required to succeed as leaders in society, business and as members of a wealthy family.
Why Kore Venture is transformative
Kore Venture is a learning journey like no other. We integrate the following elements to bring about deep personal transformation:
Culture
We create a culture blending professionalism, humour, humility and service which is expressed in loving care for each person based on who they and not the wealth they represent.
Multi-Disciplinary
We curate content, incorporating experts from many disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, business, social impact, wilderness survival, parenting and more to ensure a holistic approach.
Experiential
We use classroom learning, simulations, outdoor experiences and field trips to engage the whole person.
Peer-Learning and Immersive
We run 3 residentials to create an intimate and safe community environment and encourage authentic sharing and learning from one another. A maximum of 12 participants creates intimacy and a high trust environment.
Intensive Personal Coaching
Coaches are present throughout the journey and support participants every step of the way to make lasting life change. A coaching ratio of 1:3 ensures a highly personal and intensive approach.
Character drives success
In select organizations and educational institutions around the world, there is renewed interest in the cultivation of personal moral character. A recognition that success and flourishing does not depend on knowledge and skills alone but on acquiring wisdom and developing certain personal virtues. Kore Venture partner, The Oxford Character Project, is at the forefront of research to determine the virtues which drive success. They have developed initiatives which cultivate moral leadership, especially at university during the life stage of ‘emerging adulthood’. These insights are built into the Kore Venture curriculum.
Methodology
Kore Venture incorporates the best methods for emerging-adult development. The program has been shaped by program partners, leading families, academics and advisors and informed by character research undertaken by the Oxford Character Project. Character sessions are drawn from a longer curriculum developed and delivered among postgraduate students at the University of Oxford over the last four years.
Our approach to character formation is founded on the Western virtue tradition running from Aristotle through Thomas Aquinas and into the present, but it also draws upon other global character traditions as well as the insights of contemporary philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology and neuroscience. Readings are drawn from a wide range of sources and span genres, cultures, and centuries—contemporary opinion pieces and poems placed alongside excerpts from historical biographies and classical texts.
Participants (from diverse nationalities, leadership cultures, academic disciplines, and philosophical and religious commitments) are encouraged to engage critically and reflectively with material presented as well as to offer insights from their own cultural traditions and experience.
Learning objectives
Kore Venture is designed to help participants achieve:
Self-Development and Self-Awareness
Participants become more self-aware and others-aware, and thus better able to adapt their relational approach to bring out the best in others.
Purpose and Character Formation
Participants can articulate their identity, who they are and who they want to become individually rather than who they think others want them to be. They are well down the path of exploring why they exist and how they will express their unique purpose in the world.
Life Journey Planning and Way-Finding
Participants develop their life goals and acquire tools to live intentionally to get from where they are to where they want to be.
Understanding of Family Relationships
Participants come to understand their families of origin and can better navigate family dynamics and positively shape their family culture and future.
Preparation for Navigating the Complexities and Opportunities of Wealth
Participants become aware of and are equipped with the tools to address the unique relational challenges associated with wealth and influence.
Discernment Regarding the Purpose of Wealth
Participants understand the ultimate purpose and various forms of wealth. They develop a stewardship mindset and skills of discernment.
Peer Community
Participants develop a trusted peer community to support them through life and in so doing reduce the isolation of wealth.
Growth in focal virtues
Kore Venture helps participants cultivate virtues with a particular focus on:
Resilience
Involves grit, perseverance, determination and resourcefulness.
Humility and Gratitude
Involves recognition of a need to learn from and lean on others and also an appreciation for what has been received.
Generosity and Service
Involves a pro-social purpose, seeing success as serving others.
Creativity and Courage
Involves not resting on what has been given but applying creativity with courage to multiply the impact wealth in the world.
The power of community
The transformational power of Kore Venture is in the creation of small peer learning groups, where life, family and leadership are discussed, personal successes and struggles are recounted, and good character is modeled. This provides a safe space for open discussion, honest self-examination, and together with the support of personal coaches, facilitates the cultivation of the practices and habits that lead to virtue and good character.
Outside of the residential experiences, participants engage in extensive reading, home assignments and personal reflection.
Co-Founder
Andrew began working with wealthy families in his home country of Australia almost 25 years ago. Based in Dubai, he now advises families globally, preparing them for intergenerational success and helping them to break the cycle which often destroys families and their wealth. As co-founder of Kore Venture, he leads the development of transformative programs which prepare young inheritors to navigate the unique challenges and opportunities which come with wealth.
Andrew previously served as Vice President of Strategy at Legatum, a private investment firm based in the Dubai International Finance Centre. There he played a lead role in building Legatum’s philanthropic portfolio including the development and launch of the Freedom Fund, a private philanthropic initiative to help end modern slavery, and the Luminos Fund, a global initiative to transform education and help millions of out-of-school children get back to school. He also co-created and facilitated the annual Legacy Roundtable for next generation wealth holders which attracts participants from around the world.
Andrew lives in Dubai with his wife and three children.
Endorsements
Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D., research associate at Wise Counsel Research, and author of Borrowed From Your Grandchildren: The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprise
Young people growing up in a wealthy, successful family have a lot going for them. But they also face some deep challenges—discovering who they are and what they want to do given the special life they lead. Families want their rising generation to succeed and be responsible, but they are not usually aware of how challenging and difficult that can be. Kore Venture is a learning journey that takes young people from family enterprises, that offers them an opportunity to define who they are, learn about themselves, and begin to chart their own path independent and alongside the family’s wealth and privilege. This is not something that can be done in a weekend. The depth of the Kore Venture offers a set of experiences and a supportive community to learn and grow together at a momentous and critical period of life. There is nothing like it to be found anywhere.
James Grubman, Ph.D., family wealth consultant, author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations, and co-author of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generation
Fostering the Rising Generation around the world is immensely worthwhile on many levels – the individual, the family, and society. We all benefit when fortunate young people learn to fulfill the complex roles and responsibilities they will have as adults. Kore Venture is a wonderful initiative to help lead these individuals to find their purpose and their place as influential global citizens.
Dave Evans, co-author of Designing Your Life, co-founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab and Lecturer, Stanford Design Program
We’ve helped thousands of young people build a well-lived joyful life. But only recently have I come to appreciate the unique challenges facing those who create or inherit substantial wealth. I’m delighted to be part of Kore Venture and to help young people from families with abundance the world over find purpose and meaning and to become wise stewards of resources, opportunity, and influence.
Kore Venture Participant Feedback
“I can say with full honesty that Kore Venture has been one of the best things I’ve done in my life.”
“It’s a journey that will give you meaning, friendship, love, identity, but most importantly, the confidence to face the future without fear in your heart.”
“… what I didn’t realize I truly needed was a community of like-minded people, from similar backgrounds… And we’ve become like a family.”
“The [program] so far has given us a sense of safety and vulnerability, just to be able to be ourselves and to be open and be candid with one another.”
Kore Venture Parent Feedback
“It stretches them like they’ve never been stretched before as far as having to understand their purpose in life.”
“The joy that we’re taking away from this, from seeing our adult children grow into womanhood and manhood, you can’t put a measure on that.”
“This was by far the most impacting and meaningful thing she’s done.”
“She’s moved from an insecurity to an ownership of who she is and why she’s here.”
Edward Brooks, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project
Stretching back to the ancient world, the questions of how to live a meaningful and satisfying life and how to live well with others in society have occupied the leading thinkers of each generation. The Oxford Character Project is delighted to partner with Kore Venture in helping an up-and-coming generation develop as the wise thinkers and good leaders our world desperately needs.
Todd DeKruyter, author of Navigating Life with More than Enough
The biggest struggle of my life has probably been understanding and accepting my identity as an inheritor. It still sounds odd for me to admit that out loud—but then that’s the very heart of this problem: there are so few people to talk to. It’s such a unique challenge. I wish a program like Kore Venture had existed in my 20s. The Kore Alliance team has come up with a thoughtful and comprehensive approach for helping inheritors grapple their unique struggles.
Mindy Kalinowski Earley, Family Office Exchange, Chief Learning Officer
Programs focused on educating rising generation members of wealthy families are becoming commonplace. What they lack is precisely what distinguishes Kore Venture from the rest: education of the whole person beyond the basics of financial literacy and family governance. Kore Venture addresses the realities of living with wealth, makes space to consider meaning and purpose in life and establishes peer cohorts and coaching relationships.
Mary Johnstone-Louis, Ph.D., Saїd Business School, University of Oxford
The times in which we live can leave us with a profound longing to live lives that are connected, coherent, and marked by sustained and meaningful community. For those making sense of their identity in light of family legacy, issues of authenticity, transparency, trust, and personal purpose can become burdensome; or can serve as a set of powerful orienting questions that guide one's life path. Kore Venture promises to be an incredibly valuable opportunity to thoughtfully and holistically consider these questions, a journey of discovery which I believe will deliver unexpected dividends for years to come. I’m looking forward to participating.
Marco Blankenburgh, International Director of KnowledgeWorkx
Young adults educated in a different culture to their parents often feel culturally isolated. A blend of family values from the past and those more recently absorbed as a global citizen living abroad often creates tension between conforming to family culture while allowing freedom for individual expression. Resolving this tension requires new skills and a different form of intelligence – intercultural intelligence. I am delighted to endorse and contribute to Kore Venture and to help participants and their families on this crucial journey to develop the intercultural intelligence they need to thrive as leaders in a complex and global world.
Mason, Kore Venture Participant
Connecting with a network of global families through Kore Alliance has already been a great help to me and my family. I'm looking forward to joining Kore Venture because as a recent college graduate, I'm facing a world of real-life decisions, pressures, and responsibilities. I'm asking big questions about my role within the family's business and philanthropic enterprises. Venture provides the structure to navigate the many positions that my family's wealth and influence finds me in. The support of experts and peers who share a similar background is exactly what I'm looking for in order to build a foundation for the next 20-30 years of my life.