This seminar aims to provide participants with a practical and legal framework for designing and implementing effective family governance structures, with a particular focus on preparing the next generation for ownership, stewardship and leadership roles within family businesses, trusts and wealth structures.

The course seeks to bridge legal theory with real-world family dynamics, equipping advisers and families with tools to mitigate succession risk, inter-generational conflict, governance failure and regulatory exposure.

Upon completion of the seminar, participants will be able to:

• Understand the concept and purpose of family governance and how it differs from corporate governance.
• Identify common governance and succession risks faced by family-owned structures.
• Advise on appropriate governance instruments (e.g. family constitutions, councils, charters and policies).
• Understand the role of trusts, foundations and corporate vehicles in next-generation planning.
• Recognise the legal, fiduciary and behavioural challenges of involving the next generation.
• Apply best practices for education, engagement and gradual empowerment of successors.
• Assess when and how governance failures may result in legal disputes or regulatory issues.

The seminar will refer to, inter alia:

• Principles of trust and fiduciary law (common law & Cyprus law perspective)
• Cyprus International Trusts Law
• Company law principles relevant to family-owned companies
• Directors’ duties and conflicts of interest
• Succession planning and estate-planning principles
• Confidentiality and disclosure in family structures
• Governance best practices as developed through international trust and estate practice (STEP guidance)

• Lawyers and legal advisers
• Trust and estate practitioners
• Fiduciary service providers
• Family office professionals
• Accountants and tax advisers
• Trustees, protectors and private clients
• Family business owners and next-generation members

Participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance for 2. CPD units subject to full atttendance of the webinar.

Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She obtained her LLB and LLM (EU law) from the University of Leicester. Nicky is a certified Trusts & Estates Practitioner (TEP - STEP Chairwoman of the STEP Cyprus Branch, a certified AML Compliance Officer from the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission, licensed Insolvency Practitioner, and Vice President of the Trusts Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association appointed in 2023.

In 2019, Nicky established the law firm N. Xenofontos LLC, of which she is the Managing Partner. The firm is a boutique, business centric law firm, specialising in corporate, commercial law, intellectual property, insolvency and restricting, trusts and estates, compliance, regulatory, privacy law and fiduciary appointments.

Major areas of expertise and practice include the setting up and administration of trusts, general legal advice and opinions, estate and inheritance planning, intellectual property corporate insolvency / restructuring, general corporate and commercial law. Another major area of practice and expertise is compliance, anti-money laundering and regulatory matters having advised major corporations and governmental authorities as well as private clients and firms on their AML, compliance and regulatory matters.

Apart from the above, Nicky is a legal trainer-lecturer on her areas of expertise and regularly holds seminars through the firm's legal training centre - NextStep Legal Training Centre accredited by the Cyprus Bar Association for Continuous Professional Development and also provides in-house training to law firms, accounting and audit firms.

In November 2022, Nicky was appointed by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Cyprus to serve as a non-executive member of the Board of Directors of the semi-governmental owned House Financing Corporation.