Roles and Responsibilities in the Family Office
An office without an org chart still has one — it is just undocumented and contested. Documentation is the cheapest governance lever a family has.
Key takeaways
- —Governance roles serve the family's voice (council, board, committees).
- —Leadership roles execute (CEO/COO of the office, CIO, GC).
- —Operations roles run the day-to-day (accounting, reporting, concierge, security).
- —Each layer needs an annual role review, not just an org chart.
Even small offices benefit from a written role map. The map separates governance from leadership from operations and makes the boundary between them explicit. Governance asks 'should we', leadership asks 'how will we', operations asks 'who is doing it'. Without that separation, the office defaults to its loudest voice — usually a family principal — making operational calls that should sit elsewhere.
The annual role review is the discipline that makes the map real. Once a year, the office walks through every role, asks whether the person in it is well-positioned, well-supported, and well-evaluated, and adjusts. Roles drift. People grow into and out of them. The review is what catches drift before it becomes friction.
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