The changing landscape for family offices came into focus at ALIGN 2025, a conference for family offices and the families they represent, that was held by FO Pro: The Family Office Professional earlier this month in Chicago.
Panelists and attendees discussed nuts-and-bolts topics, such as the growth of outsourcing, as well as technological advances that could both lead to investment opportunities and transform family offices’ internal operations. They also took bigger-picture looks at strategies to help family members stay connected through change.
“The future family office will look very different,” said Jennifer Proper, managing director of Wealth Strategies for Pitcairn. “What’s important to families today will change.”
(ALIGN is a confidential conference, but some speakers gave us permission to be quoted.)
Panel discussions covered topics, such as defining the scope of family office services, creating a family enterprise mindset and succession planning. A pre-conference workshop focused on designing and optimizing the modern family office, and breakout sessions covered topics such as estate planning and “fun” investments, like owning sports teams.
Engaging the family
Family education, engagement and communication was a recurring theme.
One of the keynote speakers, Mark Freeman, non-family president of the Clayton Family Office, described guiding a family office through a generational transition.
“Sometimes you need to step back, take the estate planning and business matters out of the equation, and work purely on family — relationships, communication and trust,” Freeman said.
That approach has enabled them to embrace a multigenerational legacy vision and find success by, for example, engaging the third generation of the family through a family bank that provides seed money for family members’ entrepreneurial ventures.
Chris Dickson, senior manager of Family Office for RSM US LLP, discussed ways for family offices to build affinity with future generations — such as a thoughtful governance structure that prioritizes rising gen engagement and education, or a client service model that fosters personalized relationships. The goal is to address the challenge of generational alignment and perceived value.
“Many family offices are not offering concierge services now, but sometimes in the absence of that personal touch, future generations don’t see the benefit of the family office,” Dickson said. He noted that a robust family education program could help answer these concerns.
Family education, a focus for many family offices, is a good way to make sure family members understand the family office and its functions.
When educating family members about trusts, for example, keynote speaker Tony Pritzker, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Pritzker Private Capital, recommended starting with general education on how trusts work, then moving to the specifics of the family’s trusts.
“Families shouldn’t be afraid of transparency,” he said.
It can be a challenge to educate an entire family, though.
“People come to these conversations in a very uneven way — some may be businesspeople who understand investments, and others may be artists who have little interest in financial topics,” said Michael Moran, CEO and managing partner of Walnut Ridge Family Office. “This can make it difficult to have these conversations, so we think hard about the preparation. In the early days, I spent a lot of pre-meeting time on phone calls answering questions, building trust with the family.”
Creating a flexible structure
One potentially thorny issue many family offices face, particularly as the family grows, is how to handle family members who don’t want to participate.
Katherine Dean, chief learning officer for Three Hills Family Office, suggested looking at roles in family governance as more of a continuum.
“I would invite you to eliminate the use of the phrase ‘opt out’ when it comes to family members participating in the operating or governing system or not,” Dean said. “Using that phrase creates a polarity — you are either in or out — which can lead to people not still feeling a ‘part of.’ What if instead we name a ‘supporting role’ that people can choose to play — acknowledging that they are delegating their decision-making authority to others and agreeing to support (and therefore not undermine) the decisions of those who do give their time to play roles?”
Pritzker addressed a similar question families face when not everyone wants to continue investing together. He recommended families create a path for family members who want to leave the family office, which he called “saving Thanksgiving”: “Make a fair way to opt out — don’t penalize everyone else or the person exiting.”
Envisioning the family office of the future
Family education and engagement strategies are helpful for navigating the changes family offices face at different times: A generational transition may lead to a new structure for the office, for example, or the sale of the family’s operating business may be the catalyst for creating more structure around the family office.
ALIGN attendees also discussed trends that are affecting family offices at all stages right now:
Outsourcing
Attendees generally expect to see more outsourcing of services, though the panel on outsourcing also discussed what should be kept in house.
“Our family office has very little that can’t be outsourced — but I can’t outsource the last 20% of me. That’s how I describe setting strategy, seeing the holistic picture: Who wakes up every day and thinks about what the Kanter family needs today?” said Josh Kanter, president of Chicago Financial and founder of Leafplanner.
Impact Investing
Impact investing can help families engage next-gen members who want to see how their capital is being used.
“The biggest misconception is that impact investing is inherently concessionary,” said Scott Saslow, founder and CEO of ONE WORLD Investments. “A portion of impact investing is designed to be concessionary, but the majority is seeking and getting market rate investments.”
Alternative Investments
Investment decisions for families are becoming more complex with the rise of options, like alternative investments.
“The landscape of investing is very much evolving, across the economy,” said Andrew Bluestein, co-managing partner of Bluestein Ventures.
Technology
Attendees had the opportunity to attend demos and Q&A sessions with a number of providers of technology for family offices. Using technology, particularly artificial intelligence, in family office operations also came up in several panel discussions: Many family offices are already using AI, either in their own operations or via their service providers. They are also considering doing more, while navigating concerns about privacy and data security.
