Mack International President Invited to Speak on Family Office Executive Recruiting and Compensation at the 2018 AICPA Conference on June 13 in Las Vegas

Linda C. Mack of Mack International recently spoke during the 2018 AICPA Engage Conference on June 13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The presentation explored “Family Office Executive Recruiting and Compensation—Trends, Challenges and Best Practices.”

CHICAGO (PRWEB) JULY 29, 2018 – Linda C. Mack, Founder and President of Mack International, LLC, the premier retained executive search and family office strategic management/human capital consulting firm was invited to speak at the 2018 AICPA Engage Conference on June 13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Recognizing the increasingly competitive market and amplified access to information impacting Family Offices, the AICPA invited Linda to present trends, challenges and best practices families experience when recruiting and retaining executive talent to lead their family offices and investment firms. The audience included professionals from accounting firms that serve family offices as well as family office executives. “It was an honor to be invited to speak at the annual conference among such a prestigious and talented audience of CPAs from a broad spectrum of organizations including major global accounting firms to prestigious family offices, family investment firms and family enterprises,” said Linda.

Linda began by reviewing overall trends in the market and then highlighted specific developments, challenges and best practices she is seeing in the family office and family investment firm segments of the market. According to Linda, the use of employment agreements and well-defined performance management plans are accelerating. “Compensation plans including bonuses and long-term incentives should be strategically constructed to be in alignment with family objectives. It’s also imperative to carefully design and test plans to ensure that they incent behavior consistent with family objectives to avoid the risk of unintended outcomes.” Linda noted that her firm is seeing increased use of co-investing and carried interest as components of long term incentive plans.

In terms of recruiting, Linda cited challenges distinct to the Family Office environment. “Number one, family offices are looking to retain key leadership talent for the long term—15-20 years. Second, finding executives who are the right culture fit is paramount for success.” Experience, skills, qualifications as well as personal characteristics and attributes should all be considered. Linda shared the reasons why most family office recruiting efforts fail. “Either they hire someone they trust, but who is not qualified to do the job, or they hire someone with the technical skills who is not a ‘culture fit.’ Finding that ideal candidate can be a needle in a haystack.” Other reasons why Family Office searches fail are due to issues in the process. “Having a well-defined, comprehensive process to identify, recruit, assess and hire the ideal candidate is extremely important. In addition, an effective onboarding process combined with strategic compensation and retention strategies are necessary to insure the success and retention of the new leader.”

Linda explored the various drivers that affect Family Office compensation. These include size, complexity, family philosophy, the position, individual performance, and geography. One of the biggest compensation challenges is the lack of good benchmarking available as reference. In 2015 the first Family Office Executive Compensation Survey was published by Fidelity Family Office Services and Botoff Consulting. Linda cited excerpts from the subsequent 2017-2018 survey. She also referenced numerous statistics from the recently published 2017 Single Family Office Investment Professionals survey that was co-sponsored by Mack International, McNally Capital and Botoff Consulting. “This survey is the most robust of its kind specific to Family Offices and Family Investment firms. It was conducted to provide deeper insights and more robust competitive information to the community supporting their efforts in making better informed compensation decisions.”

Linda concluded her session by re-emphasizing the importance of recruiting executive talent that brings both requisite skill and a true culture fit; designing compensation plans that are aligned with family objectives and testing incentive plans to insure they drive behaviors that will lead to achieving family goals. “Successful Family Offices understand the critical role of developing a process before, during and after an executive search is embarked upon and the value of designing a compensation plan that drives behaviors leading to results aligned with family objectives.”

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 and investment 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.