A crucial part of the process of course is having a panel of expert judges with the experience and knowledge to assess the entries. We will therefore be profiling the judges taking part in coming weeks.

Here is Jon Carroll, who founded as president and chief executive in 2001. Carroll spent the previous seven years as senior vice president and chief operating officer at Asset Management Advisors - now GenSpring Family Offices.

While at AMA, Carroll was the senior non-family member of management contributing to business strategy and operational control over the firm’s subsidiaries: Lighthouse Partners, Teton Trust Company and Abundance.

"Over the past decade, the industry has been shifting slowly from a transaction fee based (investment management) to an advisory fee based (wealth management) business.  This shift is especially clear in the segment of the industry where Family Office Metrics works – the ultra high net worth single family office – and is driven by the specific needs of enterprise families to comprehend and manage enterprise risk for the family and the family office just as they do in their operating businesses," Carroll said.

He added: "We see our clients increasingly spending more time and money on planning – and especially scenario planning – before making major decisions, especially decisions about capital allocation and wealth transfer.  Since 2008, our clients deepened their interest in understanding and measuring enterprise risk and want their advisors to have information and tools to help them make measured decisions.

"Transparency – into markets, relationships and how people are paid, asset management, and structures – is also a major issue of importance for our clients and is always taken into account during the planning process.  For instance, given the inexorable progress of technology and driven by client demand, over the next few years, buyers will begin to have access to data in the private markets just as they do today in the public markets.  This transformation of data availability will forever change the relationship between wealth management advisors and their clients, weakening the relationship for some and strengthening it for others, just like the transformation that has occurred over the last decade."