Linda Mack of Mack International was a featured speaker at the Keiretsu Capital Family Office Forum held August 21 in Redmond, Washington

Linda Mack of Mack International was a featured speaker at the Keiretsu Capital Family Office Forum event held August 21 in Redmond, Washington. Her topic was “Building Your Family Office Team for Success and Sustainability.”

CHICAGO (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 07, 2019 Linda C. Mack of Mack International was invited to be a guest speaker at the Keiretsu Capital Family Office Forum event held August 21 in Redmond, Washington. Keiretsu Forum is a global angel investor network supporting its portfolio companies with equity and resources worldwide. Keiretsu Capital is the exclusive worldwide fund partner of Keiretsu Forum and manages angel co-investment, blockchain, and real estate funds for its investors. Keiretsu Forum and Keiretsu Capital are ranked as the most active venture investors in the world by Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association. Speakers were chosen for their expertise on topics offering solutions for key “pain points” that forum members experience. Linda Mack presented a session entitled, “Building Your Family Office Team for Success and Sustainability” focusing on trends, challenges and best practices concerning the overall market, highlighting the direct investment segment of the market.

Linda began her presentation emphasizing the importance of choosing the right model for the Family Office. “The key foundation for success is choosing a model that aligns with the mission, vision, values and long-term objectives of the family,” said Linda. “Defining the family clients to be served, the scope of services to be offered and which services are to be outsourced versus insourced are also important decisions to be made.” Linda shared stories from her firm’s experience that stressed the importance and impact of making these decisions prior to designing the family office organizational structure and determining human capital requirements.

According to Linda, an increasingly competitive market is requiring family offices to keep pace. Overall trends in the market point to a more sophisticated, deliberate approach in recruiting, retention and compensation. “We are seeing successful Family Offices establish clearly defined performance management and compensation plans prior to making any hiring decisions. More formalized governance is also key to successful recruiting and retention.”

There are some challenges unique to Family Offices when recruiting for key executive leadership roles. The expectations for longevity are high and “culture fit” is critical for success. “When you consider the personal characteristics and attributes required to be the right culture fit and requisite skills and experience to do the job, you are looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack,” said Linda. “And most people are looking for a 15 year or longer tenure which makes finding the right candidate even more difficult unless you have clearly defined what you are looking for and have the tools and experience to assess them.” Linda shared stories that underscored the top two reasons family office searches fail. “The family either hires someone they trust, but who is not qualified to do the job, or they hire someone with technical skills and who might have been very successful elsewhere, but is not a culture fit. Culture fit trumps technical skills every time.” Linda reviewed best practices to avoid pitfalls in recruiting and retention and to succeed on a consistent basis.

Drivers, challenges and best practices associated with compensation are always a topic of interest. Linda talked about the elements important to designing an effective compensation plan. “Family philosophy regarding compensation has a huge impact on recruiting strategy and compensation plan design and structure.” One of the compensation challenges facing family offices is the lack of benchmarks and limited data available from which to make informed decisions. Linda cited two recent Family Office Executive Compensation Surveys, one of which Mack International co-sponsored, as good resources. “Compensation best practices must include defining roles, determining strategy, developing performance management processes and designing and testing your structures and plans,” noted Linda. “Compensation drives performance and it is critical that plans drive performance that is aligned with family values, goals and objecitves”. 
Linda concluded the session by offering to share a white paper she authored published by the Family Office Association’s Best Practice Series entitled, “Recruiting and Retaining Top Leadership Talent.”

About Mack International LLC 
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.