Resources

8 min

What Makes a Great Founder PA

Founders hire differently from inherited principals. The pace is faster, the priorities shift more often, the work bleeds across personal and professional life, and the decision rhythm is rarely struc
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8 min

Building the First Hire in a Single Family Office

Most principals approach their first family office hire as if they were filling a job. They write a description, list the responsibilities, set a budget, and start interviewing. The first hire in a si
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7 min

Family Office Recruitment: Roles and Process

Family office recruitment is a different discipline from corporate executive search. The candidate pool is smaller. The brief is rarely written down. The principal is often the decision-maker, not an
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8 min

Travelling Positions in Private Households

A travelling position is a private staff role where the candidate moves with the principal or family between residences, yachts, seasonal locations, and international trips. The job is not a standard
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8 min

Private Office Team Structures at Different Stages

A family office is not a static organisation. It evolves with the family's wealth, the complexity of the mandate, and the principal's appetite for structure. The team that serves a family wi
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9 min

What to Expect When You Engage a Private Recruitment Firm

Engaging a specialist recruitment firm is different from engaging a corporate recruiter. The process is closer, slower at the front end, faster at the back end, and more demanding of the client than m
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8 min

Why Published Salary Data Is Misleading

Every conversation about salaries for private staff at some point encounters a published range. A recruitment aggregator, a trade association, a salary guide, an HR platform. The numbers look authorit
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8 min

House Manager vs Estate Manager vs Head of Household

The three titles describe different roles, used interchangeably in conversation and in job adverts. This creates confusion during hiring, friction inside households after placement, and a candidate po
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8 min

How Oplu Selects Candidates

Most recruitment agencies present CVs. We present candidates. The distinction matters. A CV is a document. A candidate is a person whose personality, judgement, and behaviour under pressure have been
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9 min

Chief of Staff in a Family Office: What the Role Actually Is

A Chief of Staff in a family office is the principal's operational right hand. Not an assistant. Not a secretary. A CoS is the person who decides what reaches the principal, owns cross-adviser co
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6 min

From Yacht to Land: Transitioning to Private Households

Yacht crew leave yachts. Most do, eventually. The average career on yachts is shorter than people expect: three to seven years for many crew, longer for some, but few make a full career at sea. The qu
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9 min

Hiring for Royal and Sovereign Households

Royal and sovereign households operate at the extreme edge of private staffing. The candidate pool is smaller, the process is slower, and the bar for discretion is higher than in any other private con
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9 min

Private Staff Salary Guide 2026

Public salary data for private household staff is misleading. The figures on job boards reflect the mid-market, not the UHNW segment. A housekeeper at a three-bedroom home in the suburbs and a houseke
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8 min

Confidentiality, NDAs and Background Checks

Private hiring operates on trust and verification. The two are not the same. Trust is built over time, through observed behaviour and track record. Verification is done up front, through structured ba
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7 min

Why UHNW Principals Do Not Use Their Company's HR

Principals who have built successful companies often have large, well-resourced HR functions. Dedicated teams, executive search partners, internal talent pipelines, and sophisticated hiring processes.
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7 min

How to Hire for Trust, Not Just Competence

Most hiring in the corporate world is built around competence. Can this person do the job? Have they done it before? Do they have the right qualifications, the right track record, the right references
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7 min

Contingent vs Exclusive vs Retained Search

The three ways to engage a recruitment firm look similar on paper and produce very different outcomes in practice. Clients who understand the distinction get better hires, faster, with less disruption
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8 min

The Definitive Guide to Executive Assistants in Family Offices

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 s
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