Five Operating Practices for Multi-Family Offices
Richard C. Wilson speaks from Zurich, Switzerland, sharing practices drawn from his work with family offices and interviews with family office professionals.
Richard C. Wilson shares five operating practices for multi-family offices. He draws on his work with family offices and lessons from professionals he interviewed, presenting these as fundamentals that need daily execution. The focus is how an office can serve clients well while keeping its people and operations effective.
In this video: Richard C. Wilson (Family office professional)
What they said
- Richard on putting client service first. Richard says a family office should put client service ahead of greater profit. He says a team member who fails to deliver the service the brand promises may need to leave. (at 1:21)
- Richard on talent before growth. Richard says talent should come before growth. He describes the challenge of finding people who understand wealthy families' needs, explain them in plain language and bring strong relationship skills. (at 2:14)
- Charles Grace on listening to clients. Richard says Charles Grace named listening as his top advice to family offices. Richard recommends taking notes, using client feedback to shape service and responding to what clients say. (at 3:08)
- Richard on due diligence. Richard says protecting and informing clients requires thorough due diligence. He recommends checking every detail and using either a thorough person or thorough processes. (at 4:59)
- Richard on documented checklists. Richard says each person should have 10, 15 or 20 step-by-step documented processes. He says about 80% of someone's job should be boiled down to checklists, while allowing for exceptions. (at 5:26)
In their words
"but i think that all great truths are very simple and usually aren't something new"
"we interviewed several of the top 30 and top 50 family offices in the world"
Why it matters if you are building or preserving great wealth
Richard says checklists help the office stay sane when work gets busy. That ties consistent processes to staff workload, as well as client service.
From Richard's exclusive Billionaires.com interviews
Lessons from Richard C. Wilson's one-on-one interviews, as published on each interview page.
- Anu Aga: Focus on one main cause. Her family found its giving more satisfying and impactful once it chose primary education for the underprivileged in India.
- Binod K. Chaudhary: Never chase a deal out of desperation. Stay cool and look at every part of the deal. Have your advisers and your finance team review it critically. Your counsel should review it too.
- Larry Connor: Learn from every mistake. Larry's team owns its failures and makes no excuses. They learn, change quickly, and keep getting better.
See the data
Frequently asked questions
Which regions did the interviews cover?
Richard mentions the United States, Canada, Australia, Dubai, Israel, Singapore, Monaco and locations across Europe.
What work does Richard suggest documenting?
He gives examples such as what to do at a first client meeting, how to measure risk and performance each month, and how to prepare quarterly reporting.
Sources
Quotes are copied from the video captions and checked against the transcript. Timestamps link to the moment in the video. General information only, not legal, tax or investment advice.