About Shawn T. Barberis, J.D.

For over two decades, Shawn has engagedmultiple generations of successful families in preparing for, and participating in, impactful family meetings focused on the foundational pillars of multi-generational success: communication, core values, family legacy, gratitude, financial education and governance.

Our proprietary technology, More Than Money® 360 (MTM360℠), is designed to prepare and empower families for their family meetings. Shawn’s success is built on the simplest of principles: if you are attending an important meeting, you prepare. This preparation is hosted in the MTM360℠ technology and supports geographically (or physically) distanced families.

Over the years, Shawn has guided numerous families to improve meaningful communication, develop shared stewardship and philanthropy while strengthening family unity.

Since 2007, MTM360℠ is the first, and currently the only, technology to prepare heirs, align core values and spark meaningful communication.

Shawn maintains the clients’ best interests under a business model of full-disclosure, transparency, and adherence to a fiduciary model.
Since 2012, Shawn has enjoyed a 100% client retention rate.
Shawn has written several articles for industry magazines, is an active public speaker with over one hundred presentations to his credit, and in 2020 released his first book, “The Endangered Family: How to defeat the greatest single risk confronting your family – your money.”

Law Career

Shawn attained his law degree from the University of Baltimore. While there, he joined a downtown law firm, and upon passing the Maryland Bar Exam in 2000, Shawn opened a private firm of his own serving successful families and businesses. During this time, he began drafting sophisticated business and estate documents.

Entrepreneur

Shawn expanded his offerings and co-founded Premier Planning Group in 2002. With several offices on the East Coast, the independent financial advisory firm grew to 76 registered representatives from Naples, FL to Baltimore, MD with over 200 insurance brokers. In 2007, Shawn divested his interest in Premier Planning Group.

MTM360℠

Equipped as an experienced entrepreneur, Shawn founded Aspida360® in 2007, naming this firm in honor of his Spartan-born grandfather. “Aspida” is the Greek word for “shield”, which the Spartan warriors deemed their most valuable weapon. Why? It protected them to fight for their family another day just as Aspida360® protects our clients to fight for, and thrive, another generation

Back to team ^

About Roey Diefendorf

A 50 year veteran, Roey is also the 4th generation of his family in the business and is currently the CEO of MTM360™.

Following his graduation from Deerfield Academy, Roey received a BA in Psychology from Bucknell University. He went on to obtain a Master’s Degree in Insurance from Georgia State University, with a major in Estate Planning and a minor in Pension Planning. In 1976 and 1983, he received the designations of Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), respectively, from the American College, Bryn Mawr, PA. In 1992, the designation of Certified Financial Planner (CFP) was granted from the College of Financial Planners in Denver, CO. In addition, Roey has been admitted as a “CFP Practitioner”. In March 2001, he was awarded the designation of Registered Financial Consultant (RFC). In 2003, he attended the Wharton School of Business and successfully attained the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) designation. After many years of insurance and investment advisory, Roey turned his focus on the “3 Dimensional Wealth” of his clients.

He has written over a dozen books, including “3 Dimensional Wealth: A Radically Sane Perspective On Wealth Management and “A Better Way: Using Purposeful Trusts To Preserve Values & Valuables In Perpetuity.” As an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois – Urbana, in 2020 Roey taught a 13 week long semester course on “More Than Money” Wealth Management, the first of its kind in America.

Roey has spoken at many venues on wealth management and philanthropy, including the Main Platform at the Million Dollar Round Table. He has won numerous awards including:
Finalist in The Fleet Bank Small Business Award for Substantial Revenue Growth, semi-finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the finalist in the NY Enterprise Small Business Award for Leadership, the LI Business News “50 Around 50” Award for Philanthropy, and the Gold Medal finalist in the Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Award in Efficiency for North, Central and South Americas. The International Association of Registered Financial Consultant (IARFC) named Roey the 2021 recipient of the Loren Dunton Lifetime Achievement Award as an industry visionary and leader over the past 50 years.

Roey is a man on a mission. A mission that embraces family values and philanthropy for the betterment of the giver and family, as well as the receiver.

Back to team ^

About Jennie Donovan

Jennie comes from family that embraces family values and has been personally part of annual family forums for over a decade. Her background in psychology from University of Virginia, coupled with Masters Degrees in Education from both Boston University and Cambridge College are the tools that she uses as a professional counselor. Having participated in the MTM360 process, Jennie is uniquely qualified to guide your younger rising generation members.

In addition to her 18 year professional background, Jennie has a broad scope of experiences from her travels to over 70 countries. This unique facet of her life helps her relate to many differing individuals and cultures. She loves singing and founded the women’s acapella group, “Hoo’s In Treble” at the University of Virginia. She was named the female acapella vocalist of the year during her senior year at UVA after performing at Carnegie Hall.

Jennie is married and has three children. She knows adversity, as her son was born with a degenerative heart condition and has had three major heart surgeries since birth. Yet, she remains grounded in her faith and optimism for the future. Gratitude is at the roots of Jennie’s existence. This daily focus on gratitude is what keeps her “centered” and effective in working with client’s family members.

Jennie also formed Donovan Strategic Learning, LLC to work with students to improve their effectiveness and efficiency in learning. She has a developed a unique analytic learning assessment to identify a student’s learning pattern using her Five-Step Learning Process model. Jennie specializes in working with students with disabilities, including ADHD, learning disabilities (including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia), anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorder and concussions.

Jennie loves working with families and thrives on seeing the results that occur when individuals go from working independently to interdependently. Her goal; to help family members understand how their motivations and actions can create pathways to strategic change and growth.

Back to team ^

About Alan Kendall

Alan Kendall graduated from Baylor University in the mid-80’s with a BBA degree in Finance and Financial Planning. During the first 10 years of his practice, he focused on comprehensive financial planning, asset management and estate planning for high net worth clients.

However, following the early passing of his father in 1994 when Alan was only 30 years old, he began to recalibrate his life and practice to begin focusing on the non-financial and three-dimensional aspects of family wealth. Specifically, he shifted his practice to assisting families in passing on meaningful legacies to future generations. Alan was one of the earliest adopters and pioneers in the new (at that time) and growing field of “legacy planning.”

Alan ultimately sold his traditional asset and financial advisory practice and has been exclusively involved in the non-financial, legacy planning industry now for over 24 years. He has worked in a variety of capacities with both advisors and clients in helping to synchronize and integrate a family’s personal wealth of values with their social wealth of philanthropic passions and their financial wealth of assets in order to achieve a maximum family legacy impact. His specialty has been in strategic planned giving design and in facilitating active, “hands-on”, experiential philanthropy. Over the last two decades, he has counseled hundreds of families in area of perpetuating their own legacy.

As Chief Engagement Officer for MoreThanMoney360, Alan is now working with financial advisors and legacy consultants around the country empowering them with the language, tools and techniques necessary to integrate and enhance the non-financial aspects of a family’s wealth and legacy.

Back to team ^

About Jamie Forbes

Jamie comes from an old New England family imbued with a strong sense of belonging, good fortune and an understanding that with privilege comes responsibility. This experience taught him the importance of family culture, tradition, mentoring, stewardship and interdependence.

His professional background includes 20 years in Fortune 500 companies, combined with a mix of boutique consulting and nonprofit advising. He began his career in commercial banking and then spent nearly 17 years working in field marketing, brand management and communications roles for Dunkin’ Brands, the parent company for Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins.

Philanthropy has deep roots in his family history, and yet Jamie found there was limited training around how to give, what to give, and how to evaluate the societal impact of giving. He longed for coaching and mentoring, and today he gets great satisfaction from bringing this to his work.

Jamie recognizes that working with families requires trust and a willingness to be vulnerable. As a survivor of prostate cancer in his adult life and sexual assault in his youth, Jamie uses these and other life experiences to support building trust while also establishing a safe space for all family members to participate and be heard.

After forming Opus Advisors, a boutique consulting group focused on the nonprofit sector, Jamie created Forbes Legacy Advisors to help families who recognize that their most valuable asset is the human capital contained among the family members. His work focuses on sustaining and building deeper trust using regular communication, clear expectations and decision-making practices, engaged philanthropy, beneficiary education, and family land and enterprise succession planning.

His work is driven by his curiosity and is underpinned by his ability to help clients understand that sustaining a strong family fabric is critical to maintaining and building financial wealth over generations. A highly intuitive and a natural connector, Jamie grew up in a multi- generational New England family through which he gained a strong sense of connectedness and a commitment to nurturing future generations. His work with families is informed by his own upbringing and observing both what worked and didn’t work in other families.

Jamie has a BA in Economics from Connecticut College, with additional education from the Wharton School and Babson College. Jamie loves playing guitar, especially when his daughters sing and play along. He also loves cycling, hiking, skiing, fishing, and anything that includes exploring both near and far with his family. His favorite family trip was to Morocco. He lives in Portsmouth, NH with his wife, two daughters and the family dog, Cooper.

Back to team ^

About Steve Legler

Steve Legler is a Family Legacy Advisor in Montreal, Canada. He grew up in a business family, destined to take over the company his father had founded before he was born.
After an unexpected liquidity event that occurred while he was still in his 20’s, he ended up managing their family office instead. He also married into a business family, where he’s witnessed a number of other complex issues.

Early in Steve’s Family Office experience, he was managing financial assets owned by his family, so he obtained the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2002. In 2013 he stumbled upon the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) program in Canada, which turned into a career-changing calling for him. Since then, he’s been working with other business families as they face the challenges surrounding their intergenerational transitions. To do this, he launched himself into new areas of training, on the “softer side” of things, in the “family circle”. This included Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and the Third Party Neutral (TPN) certificate from the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution (CICR).

Courses from the Coach Training Institute (CTI) eventually lead to his Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) designation in 2019.
Family Systems Theory was also part of Steve’s training, including two years in the postgraduate program at the Bowen Center at Georgetown, studying Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST), resulting in Steve’s second book.

He works with family clients as a facilitator and a mediator. He also does individual coaching with family members and loves to coach sibling groups. He recognizes how complex the world of family wealth transitions can be.

He’s the author of SHIFT your Family Business (2014) and Interdependent Wealth: How Family Systems Theory Illuminates Successful Intergenerational Wealth Transitions (2019)

Steve loves working with families who realize that with great wealth comes great responsibility, and that means being proactive and intentional. Engaging an objective outside expert also goes a long way to any family staying on track and achieving its goals.

Once a family has begun their MTM work, they’re well on their way to success, and he’s passionate about being a valuable resource to these families as they progress through the various steps together.

He’s active in many associations for professionals who work with families; a member of the FEA Council of the Family Enterprise eXchange (FEX); a member of the Wisdom Expedition of the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI); and a member of the faculty of the Family Firm Institute (FFI) global education network (GEN) program.

Back to team ^