When Angela De Giacomo stepped away from her role as an international tax specialist at KPMG to work directly with a wealthy family, she entered a world of nuanced capital decisions, personal relationships, and long-term vision. Over the past 12 years, she has advised two families—one Indian-American, the other German—on how to manage, grow, and preserve their wealth through structured family office setups.

Today, as Chief Investment Officer at Evalue Family Office, she oversees the wealth of Thomas Falk, a German serial tech entrepreneur who sold his first adtech company to Google via DoubleClick and has since become an active investor. The experience has given her a front-row seat to the evolving strategies of first-generation wealth holders—and the increasing relevance of venture capital in their portfolios.

Her insights also appear in Money in Motion, our latest report on High-Net-Worth Individuals in CEE.

Despite rising wealth across the continent, family offices remain less common in Europe than in the US. The reason, De Giacomo says, is mostly structural. “It often comes down to scale. In our industry, setting up a professional family office only makes sense when you manage at least €100M. Below that, the cost of a full team—a CIO, a tax specialist, maybe a private banker—can be prohibitive.”

That helps explain the gap between Europe’s growing number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (defined by banks as greater than $ 30M) and the relatively smaller number of institutionalized family offices. For those who do make the leap, though, the payoff is greater control, privacy, customization, and the ability to invest with conviction.

First-generation wealth, first-principles thinking

Those who make that leap often share a key trait: they built their own wealth. “One thing that one needs to understand,” De Giacomo explains, “is that both families I’ve worked with are first-generation wealth creators. They acquired their wealth during their own lifetime, which influences how they think and act.”

This background brings an entrepreneurial mindset to the table—one that is often driven by the goal of increasing wealth rather than merely preserving it. It’s a mindset that shows up clearly in how they allocate