I work for an early stage family office... if you want to call it that. The family owns a business that does $1 bil+ a year in revenue and has a RE portfolio that's also worth $1 bil+. I am technically employed by the family's primary operating company but my job entails a lot of family office style duties. A rough estimate of my daily activities is below.
35%: RE acquisitions and development for investment properties 35%: RE acquisitions and development for the family's primary operating company 10%: corporate development/corporate strategy for the family's primary operating company 10%: odd jobs that get assigned to me by members of the family 10%: administrative assistant
I'm kind of confused if I should be telling people I work for a family office or the operating company? Is this corporate real estate or am I an investment professional? I'm also curious to know if this is typical at smaller family offices? It seems like I have a very wide ranging job description that changes literally every single week.
Related resource: List of Family Offices
Bump. I don't usually do this but I posted this in Monkeying Around first and figured it'd be more relevant here.
At a family office, especially in the early stages, the family isn't use to being on display. At the office I work for they do not want anyone to know who they are. Discretion is everything, even in their charitable donations.
I would ask how they want you representing the family, it's an adult conversation, but if they want you out networking and sourcing deals they will need to give you something to work with. If they aren't ready for that yet, then just say you're employed by the operating company, but work directly for a family that runs it. If they don't want you running around town saying you work for them in a family office capacity, then you'll have to just stick to the operating company answer.
Agree with the above. If the investment real estate is a different entity though (assuming it must be), it must have a different name than the operating company. If they don't want their business all over the place, they probably wouldn't have their name on that LLC (or whatever). Either way I don't see why they wouldn't just allow you to have two separate business cards for your two roles, and maybe even two different titles - even if you're technically paid and employed by one entity. As mentioned above, this would definitely have some benefits when hunting deals.
Either way, if I were you I'd say I was an investment professional and avoid letting people know I'm an admin assistant 10% of the time
How does one go about finding a family office job? It's always been interesting to me as an alternative to corporate life. Could you comment on the positives and negatives?
Thanks in advance.
From my experience a family office analyst position is sometimes something undergrads may have access to via a private-listing internship / job posting in a specific finance honors club or something similar. When I was finishing up my undergrad I came across a few emails from my professor with such a position available. I would imagine most of it, other than a few undergrad openings, is word of mouth since the job seems like it would depend heavily on fit but I'm assuming. I'm sure OP can offer better insight.
My situation was very unique. There was no formal recruiting process or job posting. It was more of a "come work for me" type of thing.
Just a guess, but knowing the family might also be a good foot in the door.
I got the interview for my job at a family office via Select Leaders, but I really obtained the job because I ended up sharing personal friendships with the hiring manager and because I worked for family's primary bank. My boss got the job by meeting one of the owners in his real estate master's program.
Head Hunter positioned me through family connects. Usually since the family isn't a Trump name it's harder to come across fam office gigs, and even if you do see it on Select Leaders/GloCap/Joe's HH firm you're probably going to scroll over it regardless. See my other comment for + & - aspects of family office gig.
Your experience sounds pretty typical for an early stage family office.
I work at a very old family office and there are still some blurred lines between operating companies and the real estate department. I spend probably 90% of my time on our real estate investments but every now and then I still have to field a call or spend some time working on real estate matters for the operating companies (lease negotiation, market DD, selling old facilities, etc.). It can be annoying, but in the end I think it's beneficial to have both investment and corporate real estate experience.
Pokemon Master I'd agree with the sentiment below. Have a big boy talk with the fam and see how they want their last name thrown around town (or not mentioned at all). Will signal to them that you care about the brand (family name) and want to represent them accordingly.
I'm at a privately held family office >$1B AUM all MF RE & some CRE. Similar responsibilities: Acquisition deal flow, fund structure, valuations and random analyses/projects for Marketing/IR/Ops - which is annoying but there's no one else to do it.
My advise would be let everyone above you know what your favorite parts of the job are and what you're passionate about learning more of. The odd jobs and admin BS will fade away as the business grows and you begin to specialize (and CIO/CFO/Family Members notice what you're best at) in certain aspects of the business. They'll want to make sure that you're doing things that make you happy/keep you interested in day-to-day goings ons (hopefully).
Also, not sure if anyone else can add perspective to this but from my experience being an Analyst at a family office is a double edged sword. Good edge: you get to dip your toes in all aspects of the business and learn anything/everything you possibly want (to the limit that the firm is currently involved in, i.e. can't learn butterfly spreads, how to short the JPY, etc.). Bad edge: unless the family is well known (Crown/Zuckerberg/etc.) then exit ops are hard because coming from a seemingly nonexistent firm that is a tough up-sell.
Good shops..
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