Linda C. Mack of Mack International, LLC, Invited to Speak at Citi Private Bank Family Office Leadership Program June 6-9, 2016 in Armonk, New York

CHICAGO, IL (PRWEB) JULY 03, 2016 – Linda C. Mack, founder and president of Mack International, the premier retained executive search and strategic consulting firm serving family office and wealth management clients, was a featured luncheon speaker at the Citi Private Bank Family Office Leadership Program. The program took place at the Sanford I. Weill Center June 6-9 in Armonk, New York. Family Office executives from North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Latin America attended the 3 day event. The agenda included a distinguished group of noted experts and thought leaders who participated on panel discussions and shared individual presentations. A wide variety of topics of interest to Family Offices were covered, including investment and capital markets strategies, portfolio construction, wealth preservation and creation, and cyber security. Best practices in family office leadership, collaboration, and change management were among other topics featured.

Linda’s presentation was entitled ‘Hiring & Compensation in the Family Office’ and explored current trends, common challenges facing Family Offices today and best practices to ensure success. According to Linda, Family Offices must keep pace in the recruiting, compensation and retention arena if they want to attract and engage key employees to perform at their highest level. “We are seeing an increasing trend toward sophisticated arrangements and agreements being made in terms of defining performance management and compensation plans. This is driving more formalized recruitment and retention strategies.” The challenge, explained Linda, is a combination of retention goals, culture fit and a limited candidate pool. “There are challenges unique to recruiting for family office leadership roles.” Linda cited the top two reasons why family office searches fail and referred to them as ‘two sides of the same coin.’ “First, families often hire someone they trust, but the individual is not qualified to perform the job. Conversely, families may hire an individual who is very qualified technically but is not a culture fit. Prior to embarking on any search, families need to carefully define the position and performance requirements for success as well as the culture fit in order to be effective,” said Linda.

Understanding and implementing best practices in recruiting and retaining leadership talent was of great interest to the audience. Linda described a methodology used by Mack International in their engagements with Family Offices. “Success is not just about identifying and recruiting the ideal candidate. It is also dependent on an effective onboarding process to ensure the individual will be successful in their new role.” Succession planning, sound governance and creative retention ideas were also discussed.

Family Office compensation programs and the challenges associated with benchmarking drew everyone’s attention. According to Linda, there are many different incentive plan alternatives and she illustrated various examples of specific best practice plans, designs and structures. “Compensation plans must be thoughtfully designed because they drive behavior. You need to be sure you are driving the behavior that will lead to the desired outcomes. They have to align with family values, goals and objectives.” Linda shared a 2015 SFO executive compensation survey led by Fidelity Family Office Services and Botoff Consulting. “Although there is no simple answer to the question of compensation, this is the most robust survey available unique to the Family Office with the best data on executive positions.”

A ‘Q and A’ session followed the presentation and subsequent polling confirmed the audience’s positive response to the subject matter.

About Mack International
Mack International is the premier, boutique retained executive search and strategic management/human capital consulting firm serving national and international clients in the family office, family business enterprise and the wealth management industries on national and international basis. Founded in 2002, the firm has achieved an exceptional track record of success as evidenced by its unmatched industry expertise, in-depth market knowledge and unparalleled track record of success. Founder and President, Linda C. Mack has established proprietary methodologies such as the Mack 360© and is credited for having coined the term “expert generalist” in the industry.