How to Hire for a Family Office

Hiring for a family office is structurally different from hiring for a corporate executive role, a financial services firm or a private equity-backed business. The buyer is usually the principal, or someone acting for the principal; the candidate pool is almost entirely passive; the process places unusual weight on cultural fit, discretion and long-term commitment; and the package often includes elements, such as co-investment rights, accommodation or long-term loyalty arrangements, that have no close parallel in corporate pay. This guide sets out how UK family offices approach senior hiring, what makes the process distinctive, and how principals and family office leaders can run a search that attracts the right people without compromising privacy.

Exec Capital handles family office recruitment across the main senior roles: family office CEOs and directors, Chief Investment Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Investment Directors, Heads of Compliance, philanthropy and foundation leaders, and Chief of Staff to Principal positions. We work with single family offices, multi-family offices, family offices embedded in operating businesses, and families setting up an office for the first time. The guidance below is practical: what to decide before you start, how the stages run, and where searches tend to go wrong.

Understanding Family Office Structures and What They Hire For

The first step is being clear about which structure the office actually operates, because the hiring profile, governance, reporting lines, pay and candidate pool all follow from it. There are four main models in the UK.

Single family office (SFO). An entity set up to serve one family. The SFO gives the family full control over investment strategy, governance, staffing and operations. Senior hires report to the principal, to a family office CEO, or to a family council or chair. SFOs tend to be the most private of all employers, and their searches are run with the tightest confidentiality. The culture of an SFO is shaped heavily by the principal’s personality and the family’s history, which is why two offices of similar size can need quite different people.

Multi-family office (MFO). A firm serving several unrelated families, providing some combination of investment management, advice, reporting, accounting and lifestyle services. An MFO operates much more like a financial services business: it has clients rather than a single owner, and if it carries on regulated activities it needs FCA authorisation. The FCA’s Perimeter Guidance on authorisation and regulated activities (PERG 2) is the starting point for working out whether an office’s activities fall inside the regulatory perimeter. Senior hires in an MFO usually report to a managing partner or executive committee, and roles may carry Senior Managers and Certification Regime responsibilities.

Embedded family office. A family wealth function that sits within or alongside an operating business the family still owns. It is common where a family has kept control of a substantial trading company and uses its finance, legal and administrative infrastructure to look after family wealth. Senior hires often carry dual responsibilities across the business and the family’s private affairs, and the boundary between the two needs careful drawing at the brief stage.

Virtual or outsourced family office. The family uses external advisers, asset managers, accountants and trust companies to deliver family office services without a standalone entity. Hiring here usually focuses on one trusted family office manager or director who co-ordinates the external network. As wealth grows or becomes more complex, families often move from this model to an SFO, and the first internal hire is one of the most consequential they will make.

Before a search begins, write down which model you operate today, which you expect to operate in five years, and whether the new hire is expected to help make that transition. A candidate who thrives in a mature, well-staffed SFO may struggle in a two-person office being built from scratch, and the reverse is equally true.

The Core Roles in a Family Office

Family offices hire across a wider range of senior roles than most businesses of a similar headcount, because a small team is responsible for investment, finance, governance, operations and the family’s personal affairs. The positions most often hired are set out below.

• Family office CEO or director. The senior executive running the office on the principal’s behalf, overseeing investment strategy, governance, operations, professional advisers and the family relationship. A good search starts by defining how much authority the role really carries.
• Chief Investment Officer (CIO). Owns investment strategy across the family’s capital: listed markets, private equity, property, alternatives and direct holdings. Sets asset allocation policy, manages external managers and reports performance to the family. See family office CIO recruitment.
• Family office CFO. Owns financial reporting and consolidation across family entities, co-ordinates tax planning with external advisers, runs operational finance and is usually the main contact for auditors. Our family office CFO recruitment covers both first-time and replacement hires.
• Chief Operating Officer (COO). Runs staff, systems, processes, suppliers, IT, security and, where relevant, property. The role tends to appear once an office reaches a size where operational management becomes a full-time job.
• Investment Directors and senior investment staff. Reporting to the CIO, focused on specific asset classes or on direct investments, where they may sit on the boards of portfolio businesses.
• Compliance and risk. Required where the office is FCA-regulated, and increasingly useful even where it is not, given anti-money laundering, sanctions screening and beneficial ownership obligations. See family office compliance recruitment.
• Philanthropy and foundation leaders. Where the family runs a charitable foundation, a director or CEO manages grant-making, foundation governance and the relationship with the Charity Commission.
• Chief of Staff to the Principal. A senior generalist role whose remit ranges from co-ordinating the principal’s time to substantive business and investment work, depending on the principal’s preferences.

Many offices also make non-executive appointments to an investment committee or family board to bring outside challenge. Not every role needs to be full-time: a smaller office may be better served by a part-time CFO or CIO, an approach covered in our guide to the fractional C-suite for family offices.

Why Family Office Recruitment Is Different from Corporate Hiring

The structural differences between family office hiring and corporate executive search shape every stage of the process. These are the ones that matter most.

The candidate pool is almost entirely passive. Senior family office professionals rarely respond to job boards or public advertising. The people worth hiring are usually in similar roles, are not looking to move, and are reached through direct, confidential approach by someone they trust.

Discretion is non-negotiable. Most families do not want their identity disclosed at the start of a search, and many do not want the search known beyond the principal and a small circle of advisers. Public adverts and LinkedIn announcements are generally not an option.

Personal fit carries more weight than in corporate hiring. Technical ability is necessary but not sufficient. The appointee will work closely with the principal and family, often for many years, and the family has to trust them personally. In practice, many searches are decided on fit once the shortlist has cleared a high technical bar.

Tenure expectations are longer. Families value continuity and dislike having to re-explain their affairs to a new adviser. A CV with frequent short moves will be read more critically than it would be in a fast-moving corporate setting.

The process is longer. Searches typically take several months from brief to start date, because of confidential approaches, multiple interview stages, family involvement late on and the principal’s limited time. Trying to compress this rarely works.

References run through relationships. Families rely heavily on informal verification through people they already know: private bankers, family lawyers, accountants and other principals. Formal references still matter but are only part of the picture.

Candidates notice these differences too. Executives moving from private equity or investment banking often find the pace, decision-making and reward structure unfamiliar, a point covered in more depth in our comparison of family office and private equity candidates.

The Principal Interview and Cultural Fit Assessment

Most family office searches culminate in one or more meetings with the principal. These meetings carry decisive weight and work quite differently from corporate interviews.

Several stages come first. The principal does not usually meet candidates until late. A typical sequence is screening by the search firm, a first interview with the family office CEO or COO, a technical interview with senior colleagues or advisers, a meeting with the principal, and in some cases a final meeting with other family members.

More than one family member may be involved. In multi-generational families, a spouse, adult children or other relatives may meet candidates separately. The older generation often focuses on stewardship and continuity; the next generation may care more about investment approach, transparency and modern governance. The candidate needs to work with both, and the family needs to agree in advance who has a say and who has the final decision.

Values alignment is assessed directly. The principal will want to know whether the candidate’s outlook fits the family’s views on wealth, philanthropy, public profile, succession and, where relevant, faith. A mismatch on values is rarely fixed by strong technical credentials.

Trust takes time. Some principals want several meetings before reaching a view, and some prefer informal settings, such as a lunch or a conversation at the family home, to a formal interview. How a candidate handles those settings is part of the assessment.

Prepare the principal as well as the candidate. A short briefing note before each meeting, covering what earlier stages found, what remains open and two or three questions only the principal can answer, makes far better use of limited time. Afterwards, capture the principal’s reaction promptly and in specific terms: “not quite right” is hard to act on, while “too focused on process, not enough on judgement” can sharpen the rest of the search.

The underlying question most principals are answering is whether this is someone they would be comfortable speaking to every week for years to come. That cannot be judged from a CV, and the process has to leave room for it.

Compensation Structures in Family Offices

Family office pay is put together differently from corporate or financial services pay. Most offices combine some of the elements below, and the mix varies a great deal between families. Rather than rely on generic salary tables, benchmark against comparable offices and adjacent markets such as private banks, boutique investment firms and private equity, and take advice on the specific role. Our family office executive hiring guide covers how to build the brief and package together.

• Base salary. Set by reference to the scale and complexity of the office, the breadth of the remit and the candidate’s current market.
• Discretionary bonus. Most offices use discretionary rather than formulaic bonuses, reflecting investment results, the principal’s view and contributions that are not purely financial.
• Co-investment or carried interest. Investment leaders may be offered the chance to invest alongside the family, or a share of returns on deals they lead. The terms need careful documentation and tax advice.
• Benefits and accommodation. Health cover, pension contributions and, for some roles based at a family estate, accommodation.
• Loyalty arrangements. Deferred bonuses, phantom equity or long-term plans that vest over several years, reflecting the family’s preference for continuity.

Tax and international considerations. Many families and executives have cross-border affairs. The UK abolished the remittance basis for non-domiciled individuals from 6 April 2025 and replaced it with a residence-based regime, including a 4-year foreign income and gains (FIG) regime for new arrivals who have not been UK tax resident in the previous 10 years, as set out in the government’s policy paper on tax changes for non-UK domiciled individuals. These changes can affect where a family chooses to base its office and how packages for internationally mobile executives are structured, so the family’s tax advisers should be involved before an offer is made.

Discretion, Confidentiality and the Search Process

Family office searches run under confidentiality protocols that go well beyond normal executive search practice.

Anonymous first approach. Candidates are approached without the family being named. The first conversation covers the role, scale, asset mix and culture in general terms, and interest is established before anything identifying is shared.

NDA before disclosure. Candidates who want to progress sign a non-disclosure agreement before the principal’s identity is revealed. Serious candidates expect this and are wary of offices that do not ask.

No public footprint. The role is not advertised, posted on social media or described in a way that would let an outsider identify the family.

Controlled information release. Detailed information, such as the family structure, asset list and the reasons for the hire, is released in stages as a candidate progresses, and only to the extent needed at that stage.

Confidentiality works both ways. The candidate’s current employer must not learn of the search, and many family office professionals are bound by confidentiality duties to their current principal. Those duties should be respected in interviews: a candidate who discloses too much about a current family is showing you how they would treat yours.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Principals hiring senior staff for the first time, and offices making an unfamiliar appointment, tend to run into the same problems.

Treating it like a corporate process. Public adverts, generalist agencies, standard interview formats and off-the-shelf packages rarely attract the candidates the family wants.

Under-weighting fit. A strong CV does not make up for a mismatch on values, working style or chemistry. Searches that rank on CV strength alone tend to produce short tenures.

Using a recruiter without family office access. Generalist firms can find capable people but often lack access to the passive family office pool and the confidentiality habits that families expect.

Rushing the timeline. Compressing the process leaves too little time for confidential approaches, trust-building and proper assessment of fit.

Too little principal involvement. The principal’s time is usually the constraint. Delegating the principal meeting, or treating it as a formality, removes the most important part of the assessment.

An uncompetitive package. Offering a corporate-style package without the elements senior family office candidates expect, or structuring it without tax advice, loses candidates at the final stage.

Unclear reporting lines. A senior hire reporting to a junior family member, to an adviser without authority, or to several principals with different views will struggle. Settle the reporting line before the search starts.

Hiring only for today. Families change as generations succeed one another and wealth grows or is distributed. Think about how the role is likely to evolve over the appointee’s tenure and test candidates against that.

When to Use Specialist Family Office Recruitment

For most senior family office hires, a specialist search is the right route. The main advantages are:

• Access to passive candidates already working in other family offices, MFOs, private banks and adjacent firms, who are not reachable through advertising.
• Confidentiality protocols that protect the family’s identity early on and the candidate’s identity throughout.
• Assessment of fit and discretion, drawing on experience of what works in family settings rather than relying on CV review alone.
• Process management over several months: keeping candidates engaged, using the principal’s time efficiently and co-ordinating family members.
• Relationships with the adviser ecosystem of private banks, law firms, trust companies and accountants, which helps with sourcing, referencing and onboarding.

If you are setting up a new office, replacing a long-serving incumbent or building out investment leadership, our family office search team can talk through the brief, the likely candidate market and the right engagement model before you commit.

Making the Offer and Bringing the Appointee On Board

The offer stage is where many family office searches are won or lost, because the strongest candidates usually have the most to give up.

Agree the package internally first. Before the final meeting, the principal and advisers should agree the range for each element, who has authority to approve it and what flexibility exists. A slow or inconsistent offer undoes months of trust-building.

Put the hard parts in writing. Co-investment terms, deferred awards, accommodation, confidentiality obligations, notice periods and any restrictive covenants should be documented clearly. Ambiguity here is a common source of later disputes.

Choose the right engagement model. If the role is part-time, interim or engaged through the individual’s own company, check whether the off-payroll working rules apply. HMRC’s guidance on understanding off-payroll working (IR35) explains who is responsible for deciding employment status, which depends in part on the size of the client entity.

Plan the counter-offer. A valued family office executive is likely to be asked to stay by their current principal. Discuss this openly with the candidate before the offer goes in.

Introduce the appointee properly. A structured first few months, covering introductions to each family member, the key advisers and the main entities, plus an agreed set of early priorities, helps the new hire build trust quickly. Arrange a review with the principal after the first few months so that any misunderstanding about the remit is raised early.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a senior family office search take?

Usually several months from brief to start date. Confidential approaches, multiple interview stages, family involvement and notice periods all add time, and senior candidates often have long notice periods.

Should we advertise a family office role?

Generally not for senior roles. Most families want their identity protected, and the best candidates are not reading job boards. A confidential direct search is the usual route.

Does a family office need FCA authorisation?

A single family office managing only its own family’s wealth is often outside the regulatory perimeter, while an MFO serving unrelated families usually needs authorisation. The position depends on the activities and structure, so take specific legal advice.

Can a small family office use a part-time CFO or CIO?

Yes. Many smaller or newly formed offices start with a part-time or fractional appointment and move to a full-time hire as the office grows.

Who should be involved in the final decision?

Agree this before the search starts. Usually the principal decides, with input from the family office CEO and, in multi-generational families, other family members.