Legacy planning: considering your lasting impact

This summer, Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Kirill Karabits will be concluding his tenure there after an incredible and indelible 15 years. His creative influence will be remembered for a long time to come, and he’ll leave a legacy for leading extraordinary and surprising performances, and bringing international music, with a focus on works written in Ukraine and beyond, to a new audience.

As you may know, Investec Wealth & Investment (UK) has been sponsoring the BSO for almost as long as Karabits’ reign there. For us, as wealth managers, his departure has sparked thoughts  about personal and financial legacy – topics we think about more than most.

An important part of our role is to help clients navigate the process of planning their legacy, which can be difficult to talk about at first. Though this is very different from the legacy one leaves when moving on from a prestigious role, it’s interesting to note the similarities, and perhaps this makes the discussion a little easier.

The importance of legacy

The collective legacy left by Karabits’ predecessors influenced his decision to take on the role, as it chimed with his own values. He said, “When I joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, I was already inspired by its legacy. This orchestra has always been known as a pioneer in championing new music and creating very high-quality recordings – and I hope my time with the BSO resonates with this.”

As individuals, we all have a personal legacy. Though we don’t have a reputation on the scale of the BSO, each of us leaves a lasting impression on the people around us, and generally, we work to ensure that it is a positive one.  

The same is true if we consider legacy in its financial sense. We all leave our wealth behind at the end of life. If we plan carefully and document our wishes, we can ensure that the people in our lives benefit from it. If we don’t do this intentionally, we might lose control of the legacy we leave.

We often overlook our own legacy

When we asked Karabits how he hopes to be remembered, he told us, “I don’t really plan things like that. For me, music is a live process and I mostly think about our live performances, rather than for how I will be remembered.”

In conversations with new clients, we often find they take this same view on their own legacy, and to a degree, we agree. Life is for living, and spending too much of it considering what will happen after we’re gone could be a waste of the precious moments we have.

Still, it’s important to spend just a short time discussing the topic with a financial planner to ensure that our loved ones are provided for, and that the wealth we’ve spent a lifetime accumulating goes to people and causes we care about.

A starting point for thinking about your legacy

While Karabits is modest when it comes to his individual reputation, he’s rightfully proud of the Orchestra’s progress under his tenure and wishes it continued success. He says, “I believe we’ve taken it a little bit further, through adventures into other lands and interesting projects. I hope the Orchestra continues to do more and will take what we have achieved to a different level with the new artistic team.”

Perhaps this is also a useful way to think about our financial legacy – as the opportunity to help those we’ve left behind to flourish in the future. We can think about the doors we can open, the burdens we can ease, or the dreams we can make possible.

Financially planning conversations are rarely only about money. They’re about what that money means to you and your loved ones, and what it allows you to achieve. In this sense, financial legacy is inextricable from personal legacy.

If you’d like to discuss this topic further, the financial planning team here in Bournemouth would be happy to have a conversation. We know these issues can be difficult to broach at first, but rest assured, our planners will offer non-judgmental support throughout the process.