Financial Services Review Names Mack International – Top Financial Recruitment Service Providers 2023

Mack International, LLC – Executive Search Experts for Family Enterprises

Family Offices are built with the intention of growing and preserving wealth, preparing the next generation, and ensuring shared goals and vision are realized. However, the ways in which they seek to accomplish their objectives are highly customized. No two families are alike.  

Each family office focuses on serving the family it supports with a distinct scope of services that often include finance and accounting, investment management, tax, estate planning, philanthropy and family engagement and education. Managing significant wealth for family enterprises is a complex proposition. It requires the highest levels of expertise, confidentiality, customization, and a commitment to serving the family’s long term needs with no conflicts of interest.

While Family Offices are quite distinct and diverse, they share common challenges. Recent surveys show that several key concerns are meeting the needs and expectations of family members, adapting to changing market conditions, preparing the next generation to be responsible stewards and planning for smooth leadership succession.

Mack International has built a reputation as being uniquely qualified to address these challenges. They are widely considered the premier boutique top-tier firm specializing in executive search and strategic human capital consulting focusing on C-suite executive searches tailored for family offices, family investment firms, and family enterprises. The firm’s clients include first generation wealth creators, who may be establishing an office for the first time through seventh generation, and everything along that spectrum.

Linda Mack, founder, and president of Mack International explains. “We partner with our client families to successfully identify and recruit key leadership talent that will enable them to accomplish their goals and sustain themselves and their legacies into future generations.”

According to Linda, finding the right C-Suite talent for a family office is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. And the landscape of candidates has never been more competitive. “Finding someone with the requisite skills and experience is difficult enough, but that is just the first step. Ensuring that individual has the characteristics and attributes to be the right culture fit for the family is paramount for success.”

Mack International has developed a proprietary, comprehensive process which includes a ‘360 assessment’ that differentiates their approach from others in the industry. The objective is to gather insights and perspectives necessary to effectively define the role and ideal candidate profile. It has proven to be successful in enabling our clients to “get it right the first time, every time”.

Linda describes the three steps of the process which ensures consensus, alignment, and clarity:

It begins with defining the bull’s eye. “If you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, how will you know when and if you find it?” Mack International speaks with all individuals with whom the leader will need to work or collaborate to be effective and successful. All other “voices” that should or want to be heard are included to elicit the insights and perspectives needed to synthesize and create a customized position description and ideal candidate profile.

Only when consensus is reached on this deliverable, do we move forward, armed with a clear mandate on skills, experience, and characteristics the family is seeking. Once defined, criteria are developed around the position and characteristics of the individual who will be the right culture fit.

The second piece that is important is having access to the universe of potential candidates who are potentially the right leader. According to Linda, “Mack International has built tremendously broad and deep networks in the market. We are extremely well known because we are so specialized in this niche. Our reputation for confidentiality gives us exclusive access to people others cannot reach. The fact that we never reveal anything about any client or candidate without their explicit permission makes us highly trusted by all.”

Effectively assessing core competencies against the position and culture requirements of the family including those with whom the position will need to collaborate is key. There is a big difference between a strategic hire and a tactical hire. “Because families are looking at the long term, our 360 focuses on the next 10-15 years, not the position as it exists today,” says Linda. “Someone who is strategic and proactively looks out into the future, immediately adds tremendous value. Executive teams dedicated to thoughtfully determining how to reach the business and family goals and putting plans in place to accomplish them is paramount. This is crucial in helping family offices sustain their wealth and preserve their legacies over generations.”

Beyond a proven process for recruiting, Mack International stays deeply involved in plans for retention and successfully onboarding the new leader. “Our emphasis extends beyond hiring and includes advising families on developing a “plan for success” for the new leader that will foster high performance and long-term retention satisfying the needs of both parties,” says Linda. Mack is also often called upon as a consultant on overall business strategies, compensation, establishing performance metrics, governance, and succession planning.

Mack International’s advice to Family Offices? “Don’t get caught without a plan—and understand that the family and family office are perpetually evolving.” When advising families–whether they are considering building a family office for the first time, or are multi-generational and facing an important transition, Linda counsels the family to take a step back. What is the long-term objective? Who are the clients to be served? What is your scope of services to be provided, and which will be insourced or outsourced? The answers to these questions will determine the organizational structure.

Linda draws the analogy between building an office and building a house. “You don’t start by building room by room. First you create an overall architectural plan and budget and then begin by building a strong foundation. Then you can frame the organizational structure staffing, scope of services, governance, and other conditions. Following a proven process—in sequence–puts the odds of success firmly in your favor.”

“The distinctive value we bring our clients is that we offer so much more than a traditional “executive search.” We are consultants first, helping family offices strategize for the long-term. Mack International guides our clients in thinking through the totality of their organization—strategic planning, staffing, retention, compensation, insourcing/outsourcing, governance, succession, philanthropy, and family and rising generation engagement. There is extraordinary satisfaction in helping our clients overcome challenges and thrive. We genuinely cherish the close relationships we have built with our client families over the years.”