Hire Talent for Private & Family Offices

We recruit executive and administrative support for Private and Family Offices. We hire for judgement, boundaries, and calm delivery under pressure. These are high-trust environments. A single misrouted email, a loose conversation, or unclear diary authority creates exposure. We run discreet, controlled searches. Often these are replacement hires, so confidentiality and staged disclosure are part of the process design, not marketing language.

Executive & Administrative Support Recruitment Agency

We place:

• Executive Assistants (EA)
• Personal Assistants (PA)
• Family Office Assistants
• Chiefs of Staff

We scope by decision flow and privacy exposure, not job titles.

EA vs PA vs Family Office Assistant vs Chief of Staff: which hire is right?

This is not a seniority ladder. It is a choice between four centres of gravity:

• executive workflow and stakeholder control
• lifestyle logistics and personal continuity
• office administration and follow-through
• cross-stakeholder delivery and decision cadence

A simple selection rule:

• Start with an Executive Assistant when the priority is executive workflow, diary control, senior stakeholders, and controlled communication.
• Start with a Personal Assistant when the priority is lifestyle logistics, travel, personal administration, household coordination, and privacy continuity.
• Start with a Family Office Assistant when the priority is admin cadence, documentation hygiene, meeting packs, renewals, and coordination across advisers and entities.
• Start with a Chief of Staff when the priority is cross-workstream delivery, decision hygiene, and an operating rhythm that closes decisions through others.

Splitting EA and PA responsibilities often improves boundaries, but adds handovers and increases the cost of coverage. In a family office, the diary often becomes the information gate, so scope is a privacy decision as much as an admin one.

Executive Assistant (EA)

We run family office executive assistant recruitment when a principal needs a gatekeeper who can triage priorities, manage diary and inbox, and handle advisers with pace and discretion. See: Executive Assistant

Personal Assistant (PA)

We support family office personal assistant recruitment when the work is lifestyle-first: travel, diaries across family members, residences, events, and personal administration that needs calm follow-through. See: Personal Assistant

Family Office Assistant

We place through family office assistant recruitment when the office needs dependable admin coverage: document control, expenses, supplier coordination, meeting support, and consistent follow-through. See: Family Office Assistant

Chief of Staff

We advise clients to hire a family office Chief of Staff when priorities, advisers, and workstreams need coordination through one operating lead, with real access and defined authority. See: Chief of Staff

Role scope in a family office: office, household, lifestyle

We scope these hires by separating:

• office execution
• household operations
• lifestyle support

Then we define authority, coverage, and confidentiality in each lane. Most mis-hires happen when coverage is implied rather than agreed, especially across travel, time zones, and out-of-hours requests.

What to include in your brief

• Responsibilities: diary and inbox, travel, expenses, meeting preparation, document handling, supplier coordination, project support.
• Coverage: locations and residences, travel cadence, time zones, weekend expectations, backup cover.
• Authority: who can instruct, what can be actioned without approval, spend limits, access to sensitive information.
• Reporting line: who sets weekly priorities, who reviews performance, who resolves conflicts.

If you cannot state who owns prioritisation, the role will inherit conflicting instructions and churn risk rises.

Stakeholder map and boundaries

• Office stakeholders: principal, COO, CFO/CIO, advisers, trustees, legal and tax counsel, private bankers.
• Household stakeholders: household manager, estate leads, security, drivers, childcare, contractors, yacht/aviation teams where relevant.
• Boundary rule: decide what is office-only, household-only, and shared, including how information moves between circles.

Agree systems too: where documents live, who has access, and what is private by default.

What great looks like: skills, judgement, discretion

We look for people who protect time, information, and decision quality without constant direction. In high-trust environments, baseline admin skills matter, but judgement keeps things safe and smooth. Screening priorities that predict longevity:

• Discretion under pressure: handling sensitive content without over-sharing.
• Triage instincts: what gets escalated, what gets solved quietly, what can wait.
• Stakeholder handling: calm with advisers and family matters, respectful with staff and vendors.
• Writing and clarity: concise emails, accurate notes, clean briefing documents.
• Process hygiene: reliable records, clean handovers, controlled access.

Common hiring mistakes

• Hiring an EA when the real need is lifestyle coverage.
• Blurring household and office support without authority or privacy rules.
• Over-indexing on brand names and under-testing judgement.
• Under-defining pace and availability (travel, time zones, what “urgent” means).
• Treating discretion as assumed rather than validated.

Interviewing and vetting: assessing fit beyond the CV

Titles do not prove discretion, pace, or authority handling. We assess behaviour in practical scenarios.

Scenario testing

• Diary and inbox triage: conflicting requests from principal, adviser, and family member.
• Travel disruption: last-minute changes and how options are communicated.
• Sensitive information: board packs, NDAs, personal and family context, and how notes are handled.
• Vendor pressure: maintaining standards without amplifying noise.

Listen for calm prioritisation, precise questions, and a bias for protecting confidentiality.

Referencing discipline in high-trust environments

• Reference for context, not flattery: judgement calls, boundaries, pressure, mistakes.
• Validate discretion: what access they were trusted with, not just tasks performed.
• Check stakeholder style: advisers, staff, family dynamics, escalation behaviour.

Compensation context

Compensation depends on scope, access, hours, travel, and complexity. As a practical guide, US often prices higher than UK and most of Europe, but role design can override geography. We share ranges and drivers discreetly once scope is clear.

Next steps

If you are hiring executive or administrative support for a Private or Family Office, we can help you define the lane, authority, and coverage model before we approach the market.
Contact us and we will respond discreetly. For wider context:

• Family Office Recruitment
• Hire Talent for Private & Family Offices
• Candidates: Family Office Jobs & Careers

Private & Family Office Management Recruitment Agency

We recruit private office operational leaders for UHNW families when the issue is governance, standards, and accountability, not capacity. This is where a mis-hire creates noise, delays, and privacy risk. Family office management recruitment is the right lever when you need one operator to run the rhythm, hold standards, and protect the principal’s time, without widening disclosure. This is often also a discreet replacement hire, so process control matters. You are usually ready to hire private family office management roles when:

• The principal becomes the default escalation point for routine decisions
• You are expanding across locations and standards start to drift
• There is friction between office and household on authority, access and boundaries
• Multiple stakeholders pull in different directions with no clear owner
• The office is scaling, restructuring, or inheriting complexity and needs tighter governance

In high-trust environments, hires fail less from capability and more from unclear mandate. If nobody can explain who owns what, even strong operators burn political capital quickly.

Roles we cover in this category

• Family Office Director / Manager
• Director of Operations
• Director of Administration

Role definitions and where each position fits

We separate roles by what they own: governance cadence, execution, or controls. This is how you prevent “senior” hires turning into expensive buffers.

Family Office Director/Manager

Family office director recruitment fits when you need one accountable owner for operating rhythm, stakeholder governance and cross-functional oversight. This is the top operating seat when delegated authority is real.

Director of Operations

Director of operations family office recruitment fits when delivery is slipping across projects, vendors, residences and multi-jurisdiction coordination. This role turns decisions into outcomes and enforces standards under time pressure.

Director of Administration

Director of administration family office recruitment fits when the office needs tighter documentation, controls and continuity across team changes. This role makes confidentiality workable at speed through clean workflows and disciplined access.

Director of Residences

Residential operations can sit close to the office, but if the centre of gravity is estates operations, household staffing and residential standards, it belongs under Private Estates coverage.

Private office structure: reporting lines, stakeholders and interfaces

We map reporting lines and interfaces before search so you hire for real accountability, not a title. Most structures keep the principal as ultimate authority, but day-to-day decisions should sit with one operator and a defined escalation path. We typically capture this as a one-page authority map: decision rights, spend thresholds, escalation rules, and who can instruct whom. Key interfaces to clarify upfront:

• Principal and family members, including access boundaries and cadence
• SFO or MFO boards and trusted advisers (legal, tax, fiduciary, banking)
• Finance and investment leadership (CFO/controller, CIO/investment director, external managers)
• Household and estate leadership (estate management, security, residences operations)
• External vendors and service providers with confidentiality requirements

What to include in your brief

Keep the brief practical:

• Outcomes for 90 and 180 days
• What the role can decide, approve, and escalate
• Boundaries between office and household
• Stakeholders and meeting rhythm
• What “good” looks like in approvals, documentation and service standards across locations

Operator truth: most privacy failures are process failures. Informal delegation and loose access habits create avoidable exposure.

Common hiring mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Common failure points:

• Hiring “senior EA energy” for a mandate that needs enforcement and standards
• Hiring a strong operator without clarifying reporting lines, creating conflict with advisers or household heads
• Over-indexing on corporate pedigree and under-testing discretion, taste and service standards
• Treating references as a formality rather than validation of judgement under pressure
• Hiring a standards leader without budget authority, then judging them on outcomes they cannot enforce

We avoid these outcomes by locking the mandate and interfaces early, then testing escalation, discretion and standards through realistic scenarios.

What great looks like: capability, character, discretion and cultural fit

Strong leadership looks like:

• A light governance cadence with real follow-through
• Stakeholder handling across principal, family and advisers without noise
• Consistent standards across locations, vendors and sensitive communications
• Tight information handling and clean access discipline
• Cultural alignment that fits your home and your reputation

The best operators are rarely the loudest. They hold standards quietly and do not need an audience.

Interviewing and assessment: what to test beyond the CV

We assess how candidates think, escalate and protect confidentiality, because profiles converge at this level.

Scenarios that test judgement, discretion, escalation, and standards

• A sensitive adviser request that conflicts with the principal’s preference
• A vendor issue with confidentiality implications
• A household interface dispute over access and authority
• Service standards drifting across locations during peak travel

Listen for calm prioritisation, clean escalation, and a bias for documenting decisions without creating bureaucracy.

Next steps

If you are hiring operational leadership for a private or family office, we can help you tighten the mandate and run a controlled search.

• Contact us
• Wider context: Family Office Recruitment
• How we run searches: Hire Talent for Private & Family Offices
• Candidates: Family Office Jobs & Careers

We recruit investment talent for Private and Family Offices. We hire for mandate clarity, delegated authority, and decision discipline, not “more ideas”. In high-trust environments, investment decisions sit beside family dynamics, liquidity events, reputational risk, and adviser politics. If the mandate is vague, even strong candidates underperform. We pressure-test scope and decision rights before we speak to the market. This is also why many of these searches are discreet. Often the seat is already occupied. Replacement processes require staged disclosure and tight control of who knows what, when.

Private & Family Office Investment Recruitment Agency

We run controlled, private recruitment for families and trustees who need one accountable owner for investment decisions, implementation, or decision support. We keep shortlists deliberately tight to protect confidentiality and move decisions faster. You are usually ready for an investment hire when:

• Decisions recur across public markets, private markets, or direct deals and consistency matters.
• Delegated authority is needed to move at pace without constant principal involvement.
• Governance needs to mature: risk limits, a decision log, and a predictable cadence.
• Advisers provide inputs, but nobody internally owns the full picture end-to-end.

Which investment hire is right: CIO vs Portfolio Manager vs Analyst vs outsourced advisory

We separate options by accountability, not seniority. The right choice depends on whether you need:

• Mandate ownership and governance, or
• Day-to-day execution and monitoring, or
• Research, pack quality, and decision support.

A simple selection rule:

• Choose a CIO for mandate ownership, governance cadence, risk posture, and stakeholder alignment.
• Choose an Investment / Portfolio Manager for implementation rhythm, monitoring, liquidity planning, and decision-ready reporting.
• Add an Analyst when decision-makers exist but capacity is thin, and pack quality is becoming a risk.
• Use outsourced advisory when headcount is unrealistic, but be explicit about where accountability sits internally.

Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

A CIO owns the investment system end-to-end: mandate, portfolio construction, manager oversight, risk management, reporting cadence, and stakeholder alignment. See: Chief Investment Officer (CIO)

Investment / Portfolio Manager

This role owns the portfolio between meetings: implementation, monitoring, rebalancing, liquidity rhythm, and exception handling within delegated limits. See: Investment / Portfolio Manager

Investment Analyst

This role owns pack integrity and decision support: version discipline, reconciled numbers, evidence tracking, and clear written materials that make decisions easier. See: Family Office Investment Analyst

Outsourced advisory

Outsourced advisers can work well when the family wants input without building an internal function. The gap is accountability. Advisers advise, but the family still owns decisions, governance discipline, and internal handling of sensitive context. You gain breadth, but you often lose day-to-day control and internal memory unless governance is tightly designed.

What to include in the brief

Most families write a job description before they write the mandate. The mandate is what keeps stakeholders aligned when markets move. Include, at minimum:

• Objectives, time horizon, and liquidity needs, including known future cash calls.
• Current asset mix, concentration risks, and any legacy positions that are politically sensitive.
• Operating model: in-house, external managers, banks, OCIO, direct deals, or hybrid.
• Stakeholders and reporting: principal, trustees, board, CFO, and advisers.
• Delegated authority, sign-offs, escalation triggers, and any investment committee cadence.
• Constraints: jurisdictions, tax coordination points, and privacy boundaries.

Mandate checklist

• Who decides, and who can act without approval.
• What “risk” means for this family, including drawdown and liquidity tolerance.
• What stays in-house vs what is delegated to banks, managers, or advisers.
• How performance will be assessed, and over what time period.
• What information is private by default, and who is allowed access.
• What a “good week” looks like, including reporting rhythm and meeting cadence.

Common hiring mistakes

The failure modes are structural:

• Hiring a CIO when the real gap is execution, then judging them on day-to-day output.
• Hiring an Investment / Portfolio Manager without delegated authority, then blaming them for slow progress.
• Over-indexing on brand names and under-testing discretion and private office mindset.
• Widening the process before the mandate is settled, increasing privacy risk and stakeholder noise.
• Leaving decision style implicit (informal in practice, formal on paper), then watching friction build.

What “good” looks like

“Good” is judgement under ambiguity, disciplined governance, and a calm operating rhythm the family can live with. Signals that predict success:

• Mandate fit: evidence of working within clear objectives and constraints.
• Decision discipline: choices are documented and revisited when facts change.
• Risk judgement: comfort with drawdowns, liquidity stress, and concentration without over-reacting.
• Stakeholder handling: clean interface with principal, trustees, CFO, and advisers.
• Family office mindset: pragmatism, low ego, calm under scrutiny.

Compensation and structuring the package

Compensation depends on authority, proximity, scope, and jurisdiction. The only safe rule is to price for responsibility and confidentiality load, not job title. As a practical guide:

• US tends to price highest, then UK, then most of Europe, but seniority, access, and complexity can override geography.
• Clear delegated authority and clean governance often reduce “risk premium” demands.
• Incentives should reward mandate adherence, risk discipline, and reporting quality, not short-term risk-taking.

We handle compensation discussions discreetly. We share ranges and drivers, not unnecessary detail.

Next steps

If you are hiring for a Private or Family Office investment seat, we can help.
Contact us and we will respond discreetly. For wider context:

• Family Office Recruitment
• Hire Talent for Private & Family Offices
• Candidates: Family Office Jobs & Careers