On the Character of an Advisory Office
Spring is upon us. A good moment to reflect on what a Private Advisory Office is for, and what distinguishes it from its more conventional cousins.
Over the preceding months, we have written on succession, household, hospitality, and the many private matters that occupy a distinguished family. It now seems appropriate to set down, plainly, what a Private Advisory Office is and what it does. We will also clarify how it differs from the institutions to which it is sometimes compared. The question is asked of us often. A proper answer takes longer than a single meeting permits.
We are not a family office in the conventional sense, by which is generally meant an institution principally concerned with the management of the family's investible wealth. Such institutions exist in considerable number, are often well run, and serve a function we do not seek to replicate. A family office, properly so called, employs investment professionals, accountants, tax counsel, and the supporting staff which substantial financial management requires. Its work is, in the main, financial.
Our work is not, in the main, financial. We do not manage money. We do not give investment advice. We do not prepare tax returns or maintain the trust accounts which those returns reflect. Where these matters arise in the course of advising a family, we work with the family's existing advisors or, where appropriate, help the family identify advisors of suitable quality. We do not seek to displace those professional relationships, which are properly long and deeply held.
We are an office attending to the practical and personal matters of a distinguished family’s daily life. Taken together, these matters determine the character of that life far more than any portfolio decision. We attend to the recruitment and retention of senior household staff. We assist in the establishment, refurbishment and discreet management of residences in jurisdictions the family wishes to inhabit. We coordinate the practical consequences of residency changes, of succession events, and of the introduction of new generations to the household. On the family's behalf, we undertake the private enquiries a principal would prefer not to make personally. This might concern schools, physicians, or the standing of advisors. It might also concern the suitability of new acquaintances and their proposals.
We do this work in confidence, on terms favouring long relationships over a volume of activity. We act in the belief that the family's life is its own. Our role is to ensure it proceeds with the discretion, continuity, and unobtrusive competence its standing demands.
We do not measure our success by what is observed of our work. We measure it by what is not observed, and by the private satisfaction of those whom we have the privilege to serve.
The character of the work is, in our view, the character of the office. We are deliberately small. We do not advertise. We accept new principals only by personal introduction, and only when we are satisfied that we can serve them as they ought to be served. We do not publish lists of our clients or seek public recognition for our work. Nor do we undertake assignments which would require us to act in conflict with the long term interests of the families we already serve. These dispositions place a ceiling on the size of the office which a more commercial sensibility might find difficult to accept. We have come to regard that ceiling as one of the office's principal virtues, and to take satisfaction in working below it.
It remains to thank those who read our Insights with so much enthusiasm. Further reflections will appear in the months and years to come. Comments, corrections, and observations of own experience are always welcome, and may be addressed to the office by the usual private means.
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