WHERE WE'RE COMING FROM
Vestry started at our kitchen table, in Canberra, with a drawer.
You know the drawer — every house has one. Spare keys, old chargers, and somewhere near the bottom, a folder with the paperwork you did properly, years ago, and haven't looked at since. Ours held a family's whole working life: the house, the super, the business, the forms we signed when the kids were born and the world suddenly felt fragile.
For thirty-three years I ran our family's affairs myself — like you do. And I learned the hard way what nobody tells you: doing it right once isn't enough. Forms have use-by dates nothing announces. Wills go stale the year the second child arrives. And the questions I paid our accountant to answer were mostly questions about my own drawer — an expert's hour, spent on my disorganisation.
Very wealthy families don't have this problem. Not because they're smarter — because they pay a whole office of people to keep one honest picture of everything, write down every decision and why, and watch the quiet dates so nothing expires in silence. That costs millions a year. The rest of us have a drawer, good intentions, and hope.
So I built that office for my own family — slowly, properly, over years. Not for a business plan. For my wife and my kids, so that if anything ever happened to me, they'd inherit more than assets. They'd inherit reasons — what we held, what we decided, and why, in my own words — instead of a mystery and a mess on the worst week of their lives.
Then I realised something that wouldn't leave me alone: every mum and dad I know carries the same weight, alone, at their own kitchen table. Same forms. Same quiet dates. Same 3am worry — "if something happened to me, would they be able to find anything?" The only difference between our families and the very wealthy ones was never wisdom. It was staff.
Vestry is that staff, as a system — built for one family first, shared with every family like it. And because we're parents before we're a platform, three promises are built into it, not just written here: it will never tell you what to do with your money — the big decisions belong to you and professionals who sign their advice; your record is yours alone — you choose who sees what, and you can leave with it any time; and you start free — we only ask to be paid when the first five briefings have shown you whether this earns a place in your family's life.
We're in no hurry, and we'll be here for years. Because this was never really about money. It's about the people the money is for.
— Fazil Pineda, founder · a dad from Canberra who wrote everything down
IT WAS NEVER JUST ONE FORM
Every one of these protects someone you love. Every one can go quiet without a sound. Vestry keeps them on one checklist — watched, current, and yours — and when something needs deciding, it sends you to your own professional, never a recommendation.
Goes stale the year life changes — the second child, the new house, the business. Vestry keeps the current version, its history, and a review date that actually gets reviewed.
The form that decides who gets your super — and it can expire in silence. Vestry watches the date and reminds you before it lapses, not after.
If you lose capacity without one, no one can act for you — at the exact moment someone must. Vestry records whether yours exists, where it is, and who holds it.
Required by law, reviewed less often than birthdays. Vestry monitors the review date and builds the template from your own answers — for your accountant to review and adopt.
The agreement most families never write: how decisions get made, one question at a time, in your own words. Nothing is suggested for you; anything left blank stays "not yet decided" — honestly.
The parent you help each month. The children you sponsor. Fifteen years of quiet generosity — undocumented, it can be disputed on the worst week of all. On the record, it's honoured.
The deed is at the solicitor's. The will is in the safe. The policy is... somewhere. The Vault records where each original is kept and who holds it — copies only, never the original.
The reasoning behind every big call, written down with what would change your mind — so your family inherits reasons, not riddles.
Your governance checklist puts all of it on one screen — what's current, what's missing, what needs attention — and every item ends the same way: with your decision, and your professional's advice. Vestry just makes sure nothing waits in a drawer, hoping.
ABOUT VESTRY
Vestry is the Family Governance Operating System — the structure, records and discipline that ultra-wealthy families staff a whole office for, delivered as a system to families managing $1 million to $50 million. One current picture of everything the family holds. Decisions recorded with their reasoning. Review dates watched, so nothing lapses quietly. Advisers arriving prepared.
It began as one family's practice. Vestry was built inside the Pineda Family Office — first as the working governance discipline of one household, run for over a decade, then as a platform once it had proved itself worth sharing. Its founder remains its first user and hardest critic.
Two commitments define it. Vestry never advises — by architecture, not policy: it records, structures, retrieves, monitors, reminds and redirects, and every document it drafts is a labelled template that ends at your own professional's desk. And alignment stays clean — advisers pay nothing and are paid nothing, there is no directory and no referrals, and families start free, invited to pay only when their own record shows Vestry earned it.
MISSION
Give every family in the $1M–$50M tier the governance apparatus previously reserved for the ultra-wealthy — so they can protect their future generations.
METHOD
Education first — most of what Vestry publishes is free, because the real gap is that nobody ever showed families theirs. The platform is there if they need it.
HORIZON
Governance problems live on decade timescales — so does Vestry. Built patiently, in Australia first, for years to come.
Vestry is operated by Vestry Technology Pty Ltd (ABN 15 699 575 034), Canberra, Australia. The VESTRY trade mark is owned by Vestry Holdings Pty Ltd and registered in Australia and internationally (Madrid Protocol No. 1 933 296). Platform infrastructure is hosted in Australia. Vestry provides general information and record-keeping tools only — it does not provide financial, legal or tax advice.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Anyone can publish beliefs. We build ours into the platform, so you never have to take them on trust — each one below ends with the mechanism that enforces it.
We believe your family's record belongs to your family — not to a platform, and not to anyone you haven't chosen.
Built in: advisers see only what you grant, scoped to their role, revocable in one action — and every access is logged where only you can read it. Your record exports whenever you ask.
We believe the decisions that shape a family's future deserve a qualified, accountable human signature — not a probability.
Built in: Vestry records, structures, retrieves, monitors, reminds and redirects. The seventh verb — recommend — is permanently absent: advice language fails our software build, and every document ends at your own professional's desk.
We believe the moment a platform pays professionals to recommend it, every recommendation becomes an advertisement.
Built in: advisers pay nothing and are paid nothing. No referral fees, no commissions, no directory — your clients connect you; we introduce nobody. Participation, not remuneration.
We believe a subscription that bills silence is rent; one that bills a demonstrated record is a service.
Built in: you start free — no card. Five briefings, run whenever you like, before anything is asked of you (USD $199/month, GST itemised on every invoice). After that the account pauses until you subscribe — and because "your record is yours" has to survive that too, nothing is deleted, the export stays open, and paying restores everything immediately. A flat subscription — never a share of what you hold. Subscription fees may be tax-deductible depending on your structure and jurisdiction — ask your tax adviser.
We believe the most dangerous dates in a family's life are the quietest ones — the nomination, the deed review, the renewal that announces nothing when it expires.
Built in: the compliance calendar watches your dates and reminds you and, where granted, your adviser — before the deadline, not after. The Monday brief and Friday close run unattended: a prompt waits; a system acts.
We believe judgement is an asset — and it is inheritable only if it is written down.
Built in: the decision register holds every material decision in your own words — the reasoning, what would change your mind, and a date to review it. Continuity, with the reasoning intact.
We believe identity verification should cost you the minimum possible exposure.
Built in: identity documents are deleted the moment the check is decided. The platform is hosted in Australia, and personal data is scrubbed from our own error reports before they leave the system. For your records, Vestry holds a copy — never the original.
We believe the real gap isn't that families reject governance — it's that nobody ever showed them theirs. And we believe problems that live on decade timescales deserve a company built for decades.
Built in: the videos, the briefings and the guides are free, with no sign-up — and the platform eats its own cooking: it was run inside the founder's family office before it was offered to yours. First user, hardest critic.
Every claim above is verifiable in the product, our Terms, or our published documents — which is itself the first thing we stand for.