Becoming A Family Officer

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“Hey Jan, I’ve decided that I want to work for a family office. What do I need to know? Who should I talk to?”

It’s a question that I’ve heard more often in the last months. It’s not surprising: 

First, family offices have received significant publicity in recent years. Especially as fundraising has become more challenging after the ZIRP days, many publications highlighted family offices as alleged holy grail of fundraising. (I don’t quite agree with that.)

Second, other investing jobs have gotten much, much harder. Performance charts aren’t just ‘up and to the right’ anymore. Funds don’t raise themselves. More than one person has reached out to me after losing their job because their fund didn’t manage to raise a (successor) fund.

Third and last, the perks of the family office job. In a sense, family offices really are a permanent pool of capital: While that capital might at some point be fully invested, there’s no ongoing hunt for new investors as is the case with a traditional fund. If the owner(s) trust their investment team, there’s few jobs that offer such a degree of independence in what investment opportunities to explore. In a phase like the current market turmoil, once all fires are extinguished, there might simply be fewer new investments - but rarely a downsizing.

Of course, working for a family office isn’t always just straightforward. You might have to deal with intra-familial fights and power struggles. You might spend time executing investments that you aggressively advised your owner against. Worst case, you might get fired not because you did something wrong, but because the owners don’t like you anymore.

So today, let’s tackle that aforementioned question: How do you find a job at a family office? And even more importantly, how do you know if it’s the right job for you?

Three paths into the family office

While there are many paths to a family office job, there are three paths that I’ve most commonly encountered.

Path #1: The Investor

It is the path that I took, and that many other family officers in my network have taken.

The Investor began their career in some sort of finance job. They might have worked in a private wealth management (like me) or asset management role. They might have worked on a trading desk. Or in venture-savvy Berlin, they might have worked for a venture capital firm.

It is clear what qualifies the Investor for such a role: Almost every family office is tasked at managing their owner’s wealth, even if it is not managed in-house but outsourced to external parties. Hence, hiring someone with investing experience makes a lot of sense, and can typically pay off quickly, for example by insourcing simple, liquid asset portfolios from old-fashioned and often aggressively priced wealth managers.

However, owners (and aspiring family officers) must be mindful that a family office job might not just be investing. There’s also a fair share of less glorious work, ranging from accounting to private matters, as we’ll explore later in this article.

Path #2: The Confidant

The Confidant typically worked closely with the owner(s) before they decided to set up their family office. Whether they were a trusted ‘right hand’, their Head of Finance, their banker, or their lawyer, they showed the owner(s) that they are a reliable and trustworthy partner in prior projects, and thus a good fit as their family officer.

The skillset of a Confidant can vary significantly. From what I’ve seen, they tend to come from a variety of business-related backgrounds (as the ones that I mentioned) that also have value in a family office context: A former Head of Finance is skillful in keeping track of the owner’s wealth. A former lawyer might make deal-related legal support obsolete. But most importantly, they have the owner’s trust, even on tasks where they might not initially have the required skills.

Trust is the key ‘skill’ that any family officer should bring: Without trust of the owner, even the most skilled individual is a bad fit for their job. But trust isn’t everything, and the Confidant should be mindful of what they know, and where to maybe use their position of trust to also convey where they might not be the best fit for a task or project.

Path #3: The Relative

The Relative, as the name suggests, is personally connected to the owner(s). Especially in multi-generational families, it is not unusual for a son or daughter to be tasked with managing and protecting the wealth that prior generations have built - whether that is through a role in the operating company, and/or a role in the family office. 

In my experience, such families are typically highly skilled in making sure that the right person within the family ends up in such a role: The selected individuals might’ve built prior experience in a professional setting (i.e. consulting, banking, or an investing role), they might have a mentor or ‘board’ to guide them, and/or they might’ve even received formal training on taking up this responsibility. And most importantly, as a member of the owner’s family, they typically share the same level of trust, if not stronger, as the Confidant.

However, as many of us know, family matters can be challenging. There’s arguments among family members. There might be interference from an older generation unwilling to let go. And in cases where the wealthy owner might know little about investing (i.e. athletes or artists), I’ve seen unfortunate cases of an advising ‘brother’ enriching themselves at the cost of their sibling.

Should I work for a family office?

So if you see your own profile in one of those personas - does that mean that a family office job might be right for you?

Perhaps. As I’ve pointed out, all of the three profiles might bring key skills required in a typical family office job. The Investor brings the first-hand financial experience required to manage a complex fortune. The Confidant might have another business-related skill set, and has the trust of the owner(s) from prior time in which they worked together. And the Relative might share this same level of trust, paired with a significant sense of responsibility as part of the owner family. Someone lacking all of those skills is unlikely to be chosen for a family office role.

But there is more to it.

First of all, each family office is different, requiring a family office(r) fitting their needs. There’s a famous saying, “if you know one family office, you know one family office”, which I personally start to find less relevant with more family offices that I meet. But to a degree, it is still correct: Each owner is unique in their preferences, their way of working, and their Investment Objectives - thus requiring a family office(r) specifically fitting each of those criteria. You might be the savviest investor, but if there is no personal fit with the family office you are interviewing with, you’ll likely not be their first choice. 

(This is typically also further complicated by the need of most family offices to stay out of the spotlight, meaning also that they’d look for employees through their network and/or recruiters - so you need to find a family office that fits your personality and skills, in the exact moment when that family office is hiring.)

Second, and in my view most importantly: Just because you have an investment-oriented family office role does not mean that you will only work on investments. More often, it’s quite the opposite.

To best explain this, an example from one of my family office roles: As some of our portfolio companies matured from start-up to actual business, we were looking to hire someone with private equity experience. One candidate that we interviewed seemed to be perfect, showing extreme drive, international experience, and a great sense for investments.

But when we spoke to him, that impression rapidly turned. He outright told us that he wouldn’t work on anything except investment work, that he wanted us to hire an analyst for him as he didn’t want to work on financial models, and that he wouldn’t even go near any of the family office’s bookkeeping and finance topics. 

So after that one round, we kicked him out of the process. We ended up hiring someone with slightly less deal experience, but an absolute willingness to go above and beyond in all matters required by the owner - including the private equity deal experience we hired them for, but also the readiness to help our accountant dig through old minibar invoices of the owner’s many international trips. 

Such stories happen more frequently than you would think - and it is why many people looking for a family office role don’t actually end up in one, or worse, get hired and are quickly fired again. When they look for the role, they only see the investing-related parts (and benefits) of a family office job, but don’t see (or want) the countless other things they will be tasked with: It might be a financial, non-investing task like bookkeeping or taxes. It might be a ‘passion project’ of their bosses like a holiday home or a (typically failing) start-up of a friend. Or it might be something completely unrelated, like finding a gift for their spouse. I can tell you from personal experience that you’ll be dealing with tasks that couldn’t be further from an investment-related job description.

It is also for that reason why I think that people from wealth management backgrounds tend to excel in family office roles, despite the fact that many investing professionals see them as overpriced ‘wine and dine’ salespeople: They tend to be capable (but not outstanding) investors, but have an unparalleled desire to make their clients happy. And in the end, that is the main indicator that decides whether you are a good long-term fit for an owner and their family office: That you can secure, keep and continuously build their trust that you are best at representing their long-term interests.

Yes, investment returns are important - you shouldn’t be underperforming significantly. Having a few exciting investments also might help so that the owner has a good story to tell at the next dinner party with their affluent friends. But in the end, they want to know that their problems are taken care of - and if you can show them that you are the one to solve those problems, your background doesn’t matter. 

Once again, it’s the key factor of trust.

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