Case study · Private Client & Family Office
Chief of Staff for a Mayfair-based single family office.
Following a generational governance restructure, the principal required a Chief of Staff to sit alongside them and translate strategic direction into operational execution across the family office and adjacent private investment platform.
Client type: Single family office, Mayfair-based, multi-generational
Role: Chief of Staff to the principal
Search type: Retained, confidential
Timeline: 12 weeks brief to accepted offer
Outcome: Appointee in role at time of publication; 30/90/180-day follow-up completed
The brief
The office had operated principal-led for two decades, with an established CFO and a small investment team. A generational transition required a role that had not previously existed: a senior operator who could hold the principal’s calendar, act as the single point of coordination between the family office, the private investment platform and a philanthropic vehicle, and travel with the principal across three time zones without missing a beat on any of the standing commitments.
The brief made clear that this was not a substitute for the CFO or the Investment Director. It was a role built around personal judgement, discretion and the temperament to operate in an environment where the principal remained the decision-maker on every material question.
What we did
We began with a two-week context phase — direct time with the principal, the CFO and the family’s legal counsel — to establish which family office governance archetype the office actually operated under (see the accompanying insight piece on this framework). The archetype was clear: principal-led, with a mature functional team. The search was built around that.
We ran a market map across three overlapping candidate pools: former Chiefs of Staff to UHNW principals; senior military officers who had transitioned into private-office roles; and a small number of senior operators from single-mandate corporate development or private-office adjacent roles. The longlist ran to twenty-four; the shortlist to four. Every candidate was met by the same senior partner throughout, and every reference was taken with the candidate’s written consent.
The outcome
The appointee was one of two candidates the principal had not previously considered — a former Chief of Staff to a major European family whose office had wound down after a generational transition. The appointment was made twelve weeks after brief, and at the 180-day follow-up the appointee had assumed responsibility for two additional workstreams beyond the original brief. Both the appointee and the principal have consented to this case being described in the format above; the client family and the appointee remain anonymous.
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