Cameron Bell, Levantine & Co
If you had told me when I was sixteen years old that I would one day be working with wealthy families, discussing intergenerational wealth planning and helping clients navigate increasingly complex financial structures, I would have thought you were talking about somebody else.
At that stage, there was only one thing I wanted to do, and that was to become a professional tennis player.
Like many young athletes, I was completely consumed by the sport. Once I had finished school, I devoted myself to tennis and spent the next decade competing, travelling and trying to build a career around it. Looking back, I realise how fortunate I was to have had that experience because professional sport teaches lessons that are surprisingly transferable to almost every other area of life.
One of those lessons is that outcomes are rarely as straightforward as people imagine.
Tennis is an extraordinarily competitive profession. Unless you reach roughly the top hundred players in the world, there is very little money to be made. What makes that reality so striking is that someone ranked a thousandth in the world is still among the best players on the planet. You can be exceptional by almost any measure and still discover that the economics do not work in your favour.
That lesson stayed with me because, in many respects, wealth management is not so different.
People often assume success is simply a function of talent or effort. Those things matter, of course, but timing matters, structure matters, behaviour matters and, perhaps most importantly, avoiding mistakes matters. In tennis, matches are often lost through unforced errors rather than won through brilliance. The same principle applies surprisingly often to wealth. Over time, I have become convinced that long-term success is often less about getting everything right and more about avoiding the decisions that can cause lasting damage.
Eventually, I decided to pursue another interest that had been developing alongside tennis. I studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics, the classic PPE degree that has produced generations of politicians, economists and public thinkers in Britain. Politics had always been part of my world. My mother served as a local councillor for many years, and public affairs were a regular topic around the dinner table.
That interest eventually led me into a rather unexpected experience.
When Boris Johnson stepped down as Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a by-election was called. Having spent years studying politics, I decided there was no better way to understand it than to participate directly, so I stood as an independent candidate.
What I did not appreciate at the time was how profoundly that experience would influence the direction of my career.
One of the fascinating things about life is that opportunities rarely arrive in the neat, orderly way we imagine. We like to believe there is a clear sequence of events leading from one chapter to the next. Still, in reality, the most important opportunities often emerge through side conversations, unexpected introductions and relationships that initially appear insignificant.
During that campaign, I met someone who, years later, would introduce me to Levantine & Co when the business was expanding its presence in London. Had I not stood in that election, we probably would never have met.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve become increasingly convinced that relationships are often more important than plans. Looking back, many of the most significant opportunities in my life have arrived through people rather than strategy.
Today, I spend much of my time working with families whose lives, assets and interests span multiple countries and jurisdictions. On the surface, many of the discussions revolve around familiar themes such as estate planning, inheritance tax, investment management, residency considerations and preserving wealth across generations. Yet beneath those technical conversations lies something much more interesting.
Most families are not simply trying to grow wealth.
They are trying to manage complexity.
And that complexity is increasing.
Families are becoming more international. Children live in different countries. Businesses operate across multiple jurisdictions. Assets are held globally. At the same time, the political environment is becoming more fragmented and localised. We seem to be living through a period in which capital moves globally, but regulation increasingly does not.
That creates a fascinating tension.
Wealth is becoming more mobile while politics is becoming less so.
From my perspective, one of the biggest opportunities for family offices in the years ahead will be helping families navigate that growing complexity. Historically, much of the focus was placed on investment management. Investments remain important, of course, but I increasingly think the real challenge lies in understanding the interaction between tax systems, residency rules, political developments and regulatory change across multiple jurisdictions.
As wealth grows, complexity tends to grow alongside it.
There is a quote I often think about, which says there is little difference between extreme wealth and an overdose. It is deliberately provocative, but there is truth within it. The larger the pool of wealth becomes, the more moving parts emerge. More structures. More advisers. More jurisdictions. More regulations. More decisions.
Which is why managing wealth and managing complexity increasingly become the same task.
That is also why one of the greatest challenges facing family offices today has surprisingly little to do with investments themselves.
It is managing expectations.
Clients naturally compare their outcomes to those of others. They see a fund that achieved extraordinary returns and wonder why their own portfolio did not produce the same result. The difficulty is that exceptional returns often come with exceptional risk. Protecting wealth over decades requires a very different mindset from chasing the highest possible return over twelve months.
Comparison, as Theodore Roosevelt observed, is the thief of joy.
I suspect it is also one of the greatest enemies of long-term investing.
Much of our role involves helping clients understand that wealth preservation is often less about making spectacular decisions and more about avoiding damaging ones. The emotional temptation to react, chase trends or abandon discipline at precisely the wrong moment has destroyed more wealth than most market downturns ever will.
Perhaps that is one reason why I have always been drawn to Stoic philosophy.
The writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius have had a profound influence on how I think about leadership, decision-making and life generally. What I find particularly compelling about the Stoics is their understanding of human nature. They recognised that success carries risks of its own, particularly the risk of hubris.
The moment we begin believing our own success stories, we become vulnerable.
The moment we confuse status with wisdom, our judgment begins to deteriorate.
I think that lesson is as relevant in family offices as it is in politics, business or sport.
Leadership, at least from my perspective, is not about projecting certainty. It is about maintaining perspective, remaining curious, continuing to learn and recognising that no amount of success exempts any of us from making mistakes.
That curiosity probably explains why I enjoy reading such a wide range of books.
One week, I might be reading Seneca. The next one could be Stephen Hawking. Recently, I’ve found myself returning to fiction after years of reading almost exclusively non-fiction. To my surprise, I discovered that some of the most insightful observations about power, trust and leadership appear in novels rather than business books.
Game of Thrones is a perfect example.
Beneath the dragons and battles sits a remarkably sophisticated study of power, incentives, reputation and human behaviour. It is difficult to read it without drawing parallels to politics, organisations and even wealthy families.
The same curiosity influences how I travel.
Although I spent many years visiting Switzerland, where my father lives, I have realised that what attracts me to a place is rarely the scenery alone. I am fascinated by history, politics and culture. I enjoy understanding how societies work, why they developed the way they did and what stories shaped them.
One of the places that surprised me most was Kyiv.
I spent time there recently and found it extraordinary. There was an energy to the city that was difficult to describe. Despite everything the country has endured, there remains an unmistakable sense of optimism, resilience and determination. The architecture is beautiful, the history is fascinating, and the people possess a quiet confidence that leaves a lasting impression.
In a very different way, I also feel drawn toward Tanzania, where my mother’s family originates. Although I grew up in Britain, that East African heritage remains an important part of my identity and something I hope to explore more deeply in the years ahead.
Looking back, it strikes me that the subjects which have interested me most throughout my life—tennis, politics, philosophy, history and wealth management—are not actually as different as they appear.
Each of them is ultimately concerned with decision-making.
Each of them rewards patience over impulsiveness.
Each of them punishes hubris.
And each of them teaches, in its own way, that the long game matters more than the short one.
Whether we are building a career, preserving a family fortune, leading an organisation or simply trying to live well, the principles remain remarkably similar.
Stay curious.
Think long term.
Avoid unforced errors.
And never stop learning.
If you’d like to contact Camerson, please email him at cameron@uk.levantine-co.com.
Click HERE for his LinkedIn profile.