Managing a family’s wealth is something that often leads to conflict. Not having the right people at your side could harm your relationship with the family members you’re working with. Thankfully, you can get help from a reputable family office recruitment firm.
Family businesses need a proper team to ensure everything in the financial and legal department goes smoothly, but who specifically should you recruit? We’ll help you discover what the perfect organizational structure for a family office is, as well as all the benefits that come with these services.
Key Positions to Consider in Your Family Office Recruitment Process
Family office services have evolved as the decades have passed. Today, these businesses focus on sustainability, efficiency, and performance. The only way to achieve that goal is to get the right legal, organizational, and governance structure.
Usually, people go for a single-family office for a better experience, although it’s more expensive. This family office practice works with administrators, bookkeepers, accountants, and more. The bigger the team, the more roles you can expect.
On the other hand, we have multi-family offices. Even though they’re not as appealing because they cater to more clients at a time, they’re much more affordable. You can expect a similar organizational structure to single-family offices. Still, these family offices may need more people on the team to cover a bigger volume of clients.
Here’s an overview of departments you can expect in most family offices:
- Accounting
- Administration
- Management
- Legal
- Taxes
- Human Resources
- Finance
- Philanthropy
- Personal
Thanks to our family office executive search firm, you’ll find the perfect candidates for each of those departments. You won’t have to worry about not having the right people by your side anymore.
Family offices need the right executives to thrive. These people are responsible for managing the departments mentioned above. If you want to organize your family office correctly, here’s where you start.
CEO
The Chief Executive Officer evaluates the family’s needs and comes up with a plan to address everything in the best way possible.
In other words, the CEO is in charge of the family office and the following tasks:
- Creating strategies
- Designing the organization
- Hiring and managing talent
- Establishing roles
- Developing executive leadership skills
The CEO has the biggest responsibility among the other four roles, making it the most important piece in your family office. Not designing someone to lead the team will result in mistakes, frustration, and other problems for your business in the long run.
CFO
The Chief Financial Officer handles the financial aspect of the family office. CFOs also support IT, tax, real estate, accounting, and other investment projects.
A CFO deals with the following:
- Preparing financial packages
- Overseeing budgets and preparing tax reports
- Making finance audits
- And more
COO
A Chief Operations Officer (or operations manager) coordinates everything related to property management, security, and admin staff.
This role is often mixed with other executive positions. As your business grows, you’ll have to separate it from the other roles.
CIO
The Chief Investment Officer manages public and private investments. It’s sometimes better to have separate teams for public and private financial matters.
Legal Counsel
Even though this isn’t an “executive” position, most families need legal counsel to deal with certain issues. Your family office can have an in-house lawyer/paralegal or a “General Counsel” role.
To summarize, here’s what your family office needs to get a proper structure that delivers exceptional results to clients:
- Finance and Property Management – CEO, CFO, and COO
- Investments – CIO
- Legal – General Counsel or Paralegal
These executive positions are responsible for managing/supervising the following:
- Accountants
- Tax Specialists
- Investment Managers
- Portfolio Managers
- Wealth Planners
- Trust Officers
- Personal Assistants/Administrators
- And more
If you’re unsure of what your family business requires to succeed, talk to our recruitment firm. We guarantee we’ll get you top talent to fill the most important roles you need.
Why Is Organizational Structure Important in Family Offices?
Managing a family’s financial and personal matters isn’t easy, and it often involves hard decisions and emotions. If you want to ensure the best results possible, you must organize and prepare a proper team of professionals.
Not defining roles within your family office will only make things more confusing, which leads to poor results in managing a family’s wealth. Remember that family offices are meant to offer a dedicated service that goes beyond what a traditional wealth management firm offers, and you can only achieve that with a reasonable level of organization and commitment.
What Are Common Challenges Faced in Wealth Management for Families?
Wealth management can become overwhelming, which is why some wealthy families opt for family offices to deal with their issues. Typically, these families have issues with:
- Evaluating their risk tolerance
- Creating a proper investment plan
- Setting a reasonable time horizon for their plans
- Preserving their wealth
- Solving complex dynamics and relationships
- Dealing with emotional matters
Every family has special requirements and challenges. Your business should always have talent ready in every department to help these people sort everything out. A family office team always thrives with the right set of skills.
Bottom Line
Creating an effective family office team goes beyond hiring professionals. You must structure your business correctly to avoid getting frustrated.
You’ll get the best results by hiring the top family office recruiters in your area. A family office recruitment firm like The Quest Organization can help you find the perfect candidates for your team.
Our team has worked as talent advisors for over 35 years. If you want to make the most out of your family offices, you can start with our recruitment services.
As a family business, we know everything that can affect a family’s succession planning and other financial matters. We make everything easier by providing top candidates with exceptional human capital to businesses that need it.
If you don’t know where to start, contact us today to ask any questions you want. Our proven track record of happy family office clients ensures you’ll get an appropriate solution.
For a free consultation on your family office hiring strategy, contact us at info@questorg.com or 212-971-0033.
Leave a Reply