What Family Offices Look for in Financial Advisors and Investment Professionals

Family offices hire differently from banks, wealth managers and fund houses. The technical bar is high, but technical ability is rarely what decides an appointment. A family is choosing people it will trust with its capital, its private affairs and, often, the next generation’s inheritance — usually for many years and inside a very small team. That changes what matters at interview and what matters in due diligence.

This guide covers what single and multi-family offices look for when they hire investment professionals — a Chief Investment Officer, an investment director, analysts — and when they appoint external advisers such as wealth managers, private banks, consultants and specialist tax or legal firms. It covers discretion, alignment with the family’s values, the generalist-versus-specialist question, direct and co-investment experience, governance and conflicts, the regulatory status of advisers, and how families assess and onboard the people they bring in.

Single and multi-family offices hire for different things

A single family office serves one family. Its investment team answers to the principal or a family board, and its brief is shaped by that family’s wealth, time horizon and preferences. Hiring tends to be relationship-led: the principal often meets every senior candidate, and personal chemistry carries real weight. Teams are lean, so each hire covers more ground than the same job title would in an institution. Our single family office recruitment work reflects that — the brief starts with the family, not the job description.

A multi-family office serves several unconnected families and runs more like a professional services business. It needs people who can manage several client relationships at once, work within house investment processes and meet the regulatory obligations that come with advising or managing money for third parties. Commercial skills — retaining clients, explaining performance, winning new families — count for more. Multi-family office recruitment therefore puts more weight on client-facing ability and on regulatory credentials than a single family office search usually does.

Both types share the same underlying test, though: can this person be trusted with the family’s affairs, and will they still be the right person in ten years? Everything below flows from that question.

The investment roles: CIO, investment director and analysts

Chief Investment Officer

The CIO owns the investment strategy: asset allocation, manager selection, direct deals, risk and reporting to the family. Families look for someone who has run a multi-asset portfolio end to end, not just one sleeve of it, and who can explain decisions to people who are not investment professionals. The best family office CIOs combine an institutional process with the judgement to adapt it to a family’s particular goals. Our family office CIO recruitment practice covers the role in more depth.

Investment director

An investment director typically sits below or alongside the CIO and leads a part of the portfolio — often private equity, real estate or direct investments — or acts as the senior generalist in a smaller office that does not yet need a CIO. Families want people who can source and execute deals, sit on portfolio company boards and manage external managers with equal confidence. Many come from private equity, investment banking or institutional allocators. See our family office investment director recruitment page for how we approach these searches.

Analysts and associates

Junior investment staff in a family office do a wider range of work than in a bank or fund: modelling, due diligence, manager monitoring, consolidated reporting and sometimes administrative tasks that a larger organisation would hand to operations. Families look for strong technical grounding — accounting, valuation, financial modelling — plus discretion and a willingness to do whatever the office needs. Because teams are small, analysts are often hired with an eye to how they could grow into a senior role over time.

External advisers

Few family offices do everything in-house. Most appoint external wealth managers, private banks, investment consultants, custodians and tax and legal advisers. The selection criteria overlap heavily with internal hiring — trust, alignment, competence — but there is an extra layer of due diligence on regulatory status, conflicts and fees, covered later in this guide.

Discretion comes first

If one quality decides family office appointments, it is discretion. Investment staff and advisers see the family’s full balance sheet, its tax position, its family dynamics and sometimes its health, divorces and disputes. Many families have security concerns about their wealth becoming known. A single careless conversation can damage the relationship beyond repair.

Families test for discretion in practical ways:

• How candidates talk about past employers. A candidate who names clients, shares deal details or gossips about a previous principal at interview is unlikely to progress, however strong their record.
• Public profile. Families tend to prefer people who keep a low profile. Heavy self-promotion on social media or at conferences can count against a candidate.
• Referencing. References are taken carefully and usually from people the candidate did not choose as well as those they did, with specific questions about confidentiality.
• Contractual protection. Non-disclosure agreements are normal before a candidate even learns the family’s name, and confidentiality terms in the employment contract or adviser engagement letter are drafted with care.

This is one reason many families run searches through a specialist adviser rather than advertising openly: the search itself has to be discreet.

Alignment with the family’s values and time horizon

A family office is not trying to beat a benchmark for its own sake. Its objectives usually include preserving capital across generations, funding the family’s lifestyle and commitments, supporting philanthropy, and sometimes investing in line with particular values — a sector the family knows well, a region it cares about, or exclusions it will not compromise on. Increasingly the next generation brings its own priorities, often around sustainability, impact or technology.

Families look for investment professionals who understand that the family defines success, not the market. In practice that means:

• A genuine long-term horizon. Comfort with illiquid, multi-decade holdings and with saying no to short-term opportunities that do not fit the plan.
• Respect for the family’s preferences. Willingness to work within exclusions or thematic priorities without treating them as a drag on returns.
• Ability to work across generations. Explaining strategy to a founder who built the wealth and to heirs who may have different views, without taking sides.
• Clear communication. Reporting that family members can actually follow, rather than material written for an investment committee of specialists.

Alignment is hard to judge from a CV. It shows up in how candidates answer open questions about past decisions they regret, how they handled a client who wanted something they disagreed with, and whether they ask the family thoughtful questions about its own goals.

Generalist or specialist?

One of the first decisions in any family office investment hire is whether the office needs breadth or depth. The answer depends on size and strategy.

Smaller offices, and those making their first senior investment hire, usually need a generalist: someone who can cover public markets, private funds, property and the occasional direct deal, select and monitor external managers, and build reporting from scratch. A narrow specialist in one asset class can struggle when asked to own the whole portfolio.

Larger offices with an established CIO often hire specialists to deepen particular areas — a private equity director, a real estate lead, a credit specialist. Here the family wants proven depth, a network in that market and a record of deals the candidate can genuinely claim.

The mistake to avoid is hiring a specialist into a generalist seat because their CV looks impressive. Families that get this wrong often end up with a portfolio skewed toward the hire’s comfort zone. Setting the brief properly before the search begins is where most of the value lies; our family office recruitment process starts with exactly that conversation.

Direct and co-investment experience

Many family offices invest directly in private companies and property, or co-invest alongside private equity funds and other families. That requires a different skill set from allocating to funds. Families look for candidates who have:

• Sourced and executed deals. Evidence of leading transactions, not only supporting them, including due diligence, structuring and negotiation.
• Managed assets after the deal. Board experience, working with management teams and handling underperformance — the part of direct investing that takes most of the time.
• Judgement on co-investment terms. Understanding of governance rights, information rights, fees and alignment with the lead sponsor, so the family is not simply taking whatever is offered.
• Capacity awareness. A realistic view of how many direct holdings a small team can monitor properly.

Families should test deal claims carefully. In a team-based environment it is easy for candidates to overstate their role; asking for a detailed walk-through of one or two transactions, including what went wrong, is usually more revealing than a long deal list.

Governance, conflicts of interest and how advisers are paid

As family offices grow, governance becomes a selection criterion in its own right. Families want investment professionals who are comfortable working within an investment committee, a written investment policy and clear delegated authorities, and who see these as protection for everyone rather than bureaucracy.

Conflicts of interest deserve particular attention, for internal hires and external advisers alike. Questions families commonly ask include:

• Does the candidate or adviser have personal investments, directorships or outside interests that could overlap with the family’s portfolio?
• Will they be allowed to co-invest personally, and on what terms?
• For external advisers, how are they paid — flat fee, percentage of assets, commissions or retrocessions — and are any in-house products recommended?
• Who else do they act for, and could another client’s interests compete with the family’s on a deal?

Remuneration design matters here too. Bonus and carry arrangements shape behaviour, so families are increasingly careful to reward long-term outcomes rather than short-term activity. Our family office executive compensation guide sets out the main structures used.

Regulatory status: check the FCA register

When a family appoints an external wealth manager, investment manager or financial adviser in the UK, checking regulatory status is a basic step that is too often skipped. Under section 19 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, carrying on a regulated activity in the UK requires authorisation or exemption. Whether a family office itself needs authorisation depends on its structure and who it acts for — an office managing only its own family’s assets may fall outside the regime, while a multi-family office advising or managing money for unconnected families will normally need permissions. That is a question for legal advice, but checking the firms you appoint is straightforward.

• Check the firm. Search the FCA Financial Services Register to confirm the firm is authorised, what activities it has permission for, and whether it holds client money. The FCA’s own guide on how to check a firm or individual is authorised explains what to look for.
• Check the individuals. Senior managers appear on the Register, and the FCA Directory lists certified staff and directors at authorised firms. Confirm that the person advising the family is connected to the firm they claim to represent.
• Watch for clone firms. Use the contact details on the Register, not those in an email or brochure, to confirm you are dealing with the genuine firm.
• Ask about overseas arrangements. Where an adviser or manager is based outside the UK, establish which regulator supervises them and what protections apply.

For internal hires coming from regulated firms, families can also review a candidate’s regulatory history and, where the office is itself authorised, will need to follow the regulatory referencing and fitness and propriety steps that apply. Family offices operating within the regime frequently need dedicated compliance resource; our family office compliance recruitment service covers those roles.

Tax structuring advisers are worth particular care. Many families hold investments through vehicles such as family investment companies, and the advice behind them needs to come from qualified professionals who keep up to date with HMRC’s position. The ICAEW Tax Faculty’s overview of family investment companies is a useful starting point for understanding the issues an adviser should be able to discuss.

How families assess candidates and advisers

Family office selection processes are usually longer and more personal than in institutions. A typical process for a senior investment hire looks something like this:

• A clear brief. Agreeing scope, reporting line, decision rights, the generalist-or-specialist question and how success will be measured before anyone is approached.
• Confidential approach. Candidates are approached discreetly and sign a non-disclosure agreement before learning the family’s identity.
• Technical assessment. Interviews with the family’s existing investment staff, a non-executive or an external adviser, sometimes with a case study or portfolio review exercise.
• Meeting the family. Time with the principal and often other family members, in settings that allow personal chemistry to be judged — not only in a boardroom.
• Deep referencing. Detailed references covering integrity, discretion and decision-making as well as performance, plus appropriate background and regulatory checks.

For external advisers the process is similar in spirit: a written request for proposal, meetings with the people who will actually service the account (not only the pitch team), a review of fees and conflicts, regulatory checks and references from comparable clients where these can be given without breaching confidentiality.

Onboarding: the first months

Getting the hire right is only half the job. Family offices that onboard well tend to do a few things consistently:

• Share the history. Why the portfolio looks the way it does, which holdings are sentimental or strategic, and which decisions the family regards as closed.
• Set decision rights in writing. What the new hire can approve alone, what goes to the investment committee and what needs the principal.
• Introduce the wider circle. Existing advisers, trustees, the family’s lawyers and accountants, and key family members.
• Agree early priorities. A short list of goals for the first six to twelve months, such as a portfolio review, a reporting overhaul or an adviser review, rather than an open-ended mandate.

New external advisers benefit from the same approach: a clear mandate, agreed reporting, and a scheduled review point once they have had time to understand the family’s position.

Frequently asked questions

What do family offices value most in an investment professional?

Trust and discretion, followed closely by alignment with the family’s objectives. Technical ability is expected; it is character and fit that usually decide between strong candidates.

Should our first investment hire be a CIO or an investment director?

It depends on the size and complexity of the portfolio. Many offices start with a senior generalist investment director and appoint a CIO once the portfolio and governance need one. Setting the brief carefully before the search avoids hiring at the wrong level.

How do we check an external adviser is regulated?

Search the FCA Financial Services Register for the firm and its permissions, check the individual on the Register or the FCA Directory, and contact the firm using the details on the Register rather than those you were given.

Do family office candidates need private equity experience?

Only if the office invests directly or co-invests in private companies. For a fund-of-funds or largely liquid portfolio, manager selection and asset allocation experience matter more.

Why use a search firm for family office hires?

Mainly for confidentiality and reach. Many of the strongest candidates are not actively looking, and families rarely want to advertise. A specialist search lets the family approach them discreetly and assess fit before revealing its identity — the basis of our family office search work.