An Executive Assistant in a family office is not a corporate EA working for a wealthy person. The title overlaps, but the job is different. A family office EA sits inside a small, discreet team that supports a principal across their professional, personal, and often family life. The scope is broader. The access is closer. The stakes are higher. And the compensation reflects it.
This is a role frequently misunderstood by clients hiring for the first time and by candidates moving from corporate EA seats. Clients often under-scope the role and hire a corporate EA who is not equipped for the private dimension. Candidates often under-estimate the access and the hours, and leave within a year. Getting the fit right is specialist work.
This guide covers what a family office EA actually does, how the role is structured, what it pays, and what separates the EAs who last from those who do not. For current opportunities and the role profile Oplu uses with clients, see our Executive Assistant recruitment page.
The scope varies by office, but the core of the role is consistent. A family office EA owns five areas.
Diary and access. The EA controls what reaches the principal and when. A good EA does not just manage the diary. They decide what the principal sees, when they see it, and what never reaches them at all. This is not gatekeeping in the defensive sense. It is curation. The principal's time is the office's scarcest asset, and the EA protects it.
Correspondence and communication. The EA drafts, filters, and manages inbound correspondence across email, phone, and messaging. In a family office, the inbound includes advisers, bankers, lawyers, family members, household staff, charities, and personal contacts. The EA sorts them, handles what they can, and escalates the rest with context.
Travel and logistics. Flights, hotels, ground transport, visas, and the infrastructure of moving the principal between residences and meetings. For UHNW principals, travel is often a significant portion of the role: private aviation, security, advance coordination with household staff at each destination, and managing disruption calmly when plans change mid-flight.
Document and meeting preparation. The EA prepares briefings, agendas, background papers, and post-meeting summaries. The quality of the EA's written work shapes the quality of the principal's decisions. A strong EA arrives at a meeting with a one-page brief that compresses what the principal needs to know. A weak EA forwards attachments.
Personal and household coordination. In most family offices, the EA extends into personal life: medical appointments, school logistics, family events, household supplier coordination, and the small administrative load of the principal's domestic world. This is where the family office EA diverges most sharply from a corporate EA. Candidates who are uncomfortable with this cross-over rarely thrive.
The diary in a family office is not just a schedule. It is an information gate. Whoever controls it controls the flow of attention in the office. A good EA understands this and uses it well. A weak EA books meetings in order of arrival and wonders why the principal is exhausted.
The titles overlap. The roles do not. Understanding the difference matters both for clients hiring and candidates applying.
A corporate EA supports a senior executive within an organisation. The scope is professional: diary, travel, board preparation, stakeholder access, internal coordination. Hours are contained, even in demanding seats. Personal tasks are limited. The role sits within a broader office ecosystem with HR, IT, and support functions around it.
A family office EA supports a principal inside a small, private organisation or directly within the principal's household. The scope is broader, including personal and family matters alongside professional. Hours are longer and less predictable. There is no HR to escalate to. The EA is often one of three or four people in the office, and each person's work touches everything.
The skills overlap: diary management, written communication, judgement. The difference is context. A strong corporate EA who has never worked in private settings often struggles with the access, the ambiguity, and the personal scope. A strong private PA with no corporate exposure often struggles with the structural rigour of an office that has board-style reporting. The best family office EAs sit between the two, and there are not many of them.
Competent EAs are plentiful. Great family office EAs are rare. The difference is in a narrow set of qualities that are hard to assess on paper.
Judgement in real time. The EA makes dozens of small decisions every day on the principal's behalf. Which call to put through. Which email to answer. Which meeting to protect. Which invitation to decline. Getting these calls right requires experience, confidence, and an accurate read of the principal's priorities. A great EA is almost never wrong on these.
Discretion as default. In UHNW environments, trust is usually lost through process lapses, not dramatic breaches. A good EA does not need to be told what is confidential. Almost everything is. They default to silence and disclose only when required. Candidates who volunteer information about a previous principal during interview have already failed our discretion test.
Anticipation. Great EAs operate two steps ahead of the principal. They spot the scheduling conflict before it exists, prepare the briefing before it is asked for, flag the travel risk before it materialises. This anticipation is the quiet art of the role and it is what distinguishes the best.
Calm under pressure. Plans change. Flights cancel. Principals change their mind. A great EA absorbs the disruption, re-plans without drama, and keeps the principal's week intact. The principal should never feel the turbulence of the logistics. That absorption is the EA's job.
Written clarity. Everything the EA writes carries the principal's name. The quality of their emails, briefings, and summaries shapes the principal's relationships. Candidates who cannot write a one-paragraph summary of a one-hour meeting will not last.
Family office EA compensation sits above most corporate EA benchmarks. The ranges below reflect permanent, full-time placements.
United Kingdom:
EA to family office principal (mid-size SFO): £60,000-£85,000
Senior EA to UHNW principal: £75,000-£120,000
Senior EA with CoS-adjacent scope: £100,000-£150,000+
United States:
EA in a family office (New York, San Francisco): $120,000-$180,000
Senior EA to UHNW principal: $160,000-$280,000
Middle East, Switzerland, Singapore:
Senior EA packages typically sit at or above US ranges, often net of local tax.
Packages often include a discretionary bonus, private health insurance, pension or equivalent, and in some cases accommodation or commuting support. At the very senior end, bonuses can be substantial. We have placed EAs whose discretionary bonus in a single year exceeded several times their annual base salary, tied to a specific transaction, project, or travel season.
Generic EA salary data significantly understates family office compensation because it aggregates corporate and mid-market roles. The family office market pays a premium for discretion, broader scope, and longer hours.
There is no useful way to talk about a family office EA role without addressing the hours.
Family office EA seats are not 9-to-6 roles. The salary is designed as an all-inclusive package: no overtime, no time-and-a-half, no hourly adjustments. Candidates need to know that before they accept, not after they start. The EAs who last are the ones who built their personal lives around the reality of the role.
The hours are not uniform. Most weeks settle into a defined rhythm: a long Monday-to-Friday with a moderate weekend footprint. Some weeks, particularly around travel, entertaining, or family events, expand significantly. The best EAs build sustainable routines around this pattern. The EAs who burn out are usually the ones who either expected a 9-to-6 and accepted something else, or who accepted without building the personal structure to sustain the role.
If the candidate has a significant caring responsibility, an inflexible personal commitment, or a partner who will not tolerate the schedule, the role will fail no matter how strong the CV. This is a common failure point, and it is worth discussing openly during interview.
Clients hiring a family office EA for the first time make predictable mistakes.
Hiring a corporate EA for a private role. The CV looks right. The skills seem transferable. The reality is that the transition is hard. Corporate EAs used to defined scope and HR support often struggle in a small, informal, always-on family office. Some adapt. Many do not.
Under-scoping the role. Clients describe the role as pure diary and inbox, then add household coordination, personal admin, family scheduling, and travel advance within the first month. The EA feels the bait and switch. Write down the real scope before interviewing.
Paying at corporate benchmarks. Family office EAs command a premium. Offering a corporate EA salary attracts corporate candidates, who then struggle with the scope and leave.
Accepting a candidate taking a significant pay cut. If a candidate is taking a significant pay cut, we ask why. If the answer is necessity, the placement rarely lasts. Salary alignment is a retention decision, not just a budget line. A candidate who accepts below their market rate will leave when a better offer arrives, usually within twelve months.
Skipping a trial or structured onboarding. Even strong EAs need two to three months to learn the principal's patterns, the adviser web, and the household. Structured onboarding and a defined 90-day review protect the placement and catch issues early.
Oplu places Executive Assistants into single family offices, multi family offices, and principal offices across the UK, US, Switzerland, and the Middle East. EA searches sit across retained and contingent models depending on seniority. Senior EAs to UHNW principals are usually retained because the candidate pool is small and the best EAs are not actively looking.
Our process focuses on fit as much as on capability. We scope the office, the principal's working style, the adviser environment, and the specific blend of professional and personal scope the role requires. We then approach candidates directly and present a shortlist of three to five, each with a written profile covering operating style, private work experience, and salary expectations.
We interview every candidate we present in depth. We check discretion, judgement, and composure before we present a CV. Clients receive fewer profiles, but each one is genuinely matched.
For current opportunities, see our job board. To discuss an EA search, get in touch.
A family office EA supports a principal across professional, personal, and family matters. The core responsibilities include diary and access, correspondence, travel, meeting preparation, and household or personal coordination. The scope is broader than a corporate EA role and demands greater discretion.
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