Author: Markus LaFleur, Senior Manager

A Family Office seeks to provide wealth management services to both current and future generations—through services ranging from investment management and accounts payable to concierge solutions and project management. These services provide stability and security to meet the future needs of ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals and families, who are increasingly turning to family offices to address myriad financial and life needs.

With such high stakes, discretion and reliability are paramount. Office optimization and management principles require steadfast focus in four key areas to attain leaner, faster, and more secure family office environments.

1. Strategy, Finance & Operations

  • Focus finance and operations strategies to more effectively support family short- and long-term vision.
  • Develop key performance indicators (KPIs) and response processes to assist in daily management of finance and operations goals.
  • Develop action-oriented reporting mechanisms to provide faster, more relevant decision making.

2. Accounting & Transaction Services

  • Optimize and automate accounting processes to manage payables, purchases, and expenses in a faster, leaner, and more cost-effective manner.
  • Provide Controller oversight and guidance to yield greater alignment to accounting principles and policies.
  • Review and improve accounting mechanics (e.g., chart of accounts) to result in more effective period-end processing and reporting.

3. Information Management & Technology

  • Assess current technology architecture against future growth objectives and recommend/implement improvements.
  • Partner with leading technology providers to enable stable, secure, and mobile technology solutions.
  • Develop finance and process technology improvements yielding more effective and lower-cost transactions and operations.

4. Risk & Compliance

  • Develop and implement appropriate governance structure to assess effectiveness of internal controls.
  • Identify, assess, and respond to risk events seeking to reduce or eliminate risk to management and operations.
  • Recommend and implement corrective actions seeking to align ineffective processes and controls.