Director of Family Services

Role Purpose and Trajectory

This role will facilitate the current Vice President of Family Services’ retirement, with the ultimate opportunity to design, build, and lead the White Oak Family Services division as its demands change over the coming decades. For the first two years, as the Director of Family Services, the challenge will be to learn the tax, accounting, estate planning, wealth management, business and charitable organization management, and concierge services complexities required to support a multi-generational client base. You will spend this time working closely with the retiring VP and her team so that you can effectively assume the team’s leadership after two years. You will report to the CEO, who will collaborate with the VP of Family Services to help you acquire the knowledge, skills, and experience required for long-term success.

As Director (Years 1 & 2)

• You will spend your first year immersed in the Tax, Accounting, and Finance team, learning and executing the most crucial tasks related to holdings, fund flows, and back-office operations and devising methods to improve those operations.
• You will hire a Finance and Accounting Analyst to replace you at the end of year 1.
• You will spend your second year within the Estate Planning, Wealth Management, Concierge Services, and Client Enterprises functions and continue to develop relationships with the many family members to whom you will be responsible for delivering stellar service.
• During this second year, you will hire a Director of Concierge Services to serve as primary family contact and to support you in delivering concierge support to the extended family.
• Assuming successful completion of these two years, and upon the retirement of the current Vice President of Family Services, you will be promoted to Vice President of Family Services and assume leadership responsibility for the team and operation.

As Vice President

• You will continue reporting to the White Oak Family Office CEO. You must have the independence to evaluate and keep the best of what’s been done in the past and the confidence to invent the best methods to achieve our considerable future objectives.
  
• Your success in building, leading, and learning from a team of world-class experts in wealth management, tax strategy, and estate planning will enable more capital to be deployed in support of worthy causes.
• You will be exposed to, and eventually participate in, investing across all public and private asset classes.
• Over time, you will have the opportunity to co-invest in off-market investments.
• The VP of Family Services will be a senior executive and candidate for leadership roles both within the Family Office and across the family’s network of businesses and charitable endeavors.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

1. Focus intently for your first two years on learning the essential subject matter and tasks required to deliver world-class service to your clients.
2. Collaborate with the White Oak CEO and executive team on organizational mission, strategy, and tactics design.
3. Serve as leader of the Family Services Group, responsible for building the team and managing the achievement of group mission and objectives.
4. Manage the Director of Accounting, Tax, and Finance and collaborate with that team and outside advisors to optimize cash flow forecasting, tax strategy and preparation, and accounting and reporting.
5. Wealth Management: Collaborate with the CEO to design individual portfolios comprised of internally managed and externally sourced investments and exceed return objectives.
6. Concierge Services: Hire and manage the Concierge Service Director and collaborate to build the CS team to delight clients.
7. Estate Planning: Collaborate with outside counsel and the White Oak CEO to design and administer client estate plans.
8. Client Enterprise: Collaborate with the White Oak CEO and philanthropic or entrepreneurial clients to achieve their unique objectives, including potentially serving in officer or director roles for multiple charitable foundations and social welfare organizations.

Qualifications

We hire for attributes over experience. We seek individuals with a bias for action who are tenacious in overcoming obstacles and act with candor and kindness. We believe in empowering these individuals to do their best work. We encourage you to apply for this role even if you do not fit 100% of the points below. The right person can learn their way into great performance and use what they’ve learned to teach the team.

Must have behaviors:

• Connect with the team and our clients. Ultimately, we are a team of people providing service to other people. You must be interested in and able to build trusting relationships with those around you. You must also have the discretion to protect confidentiality within client relationships.
• Manage multiple people and priorities. You’re comfortable delegating and collaborating but happy to step in and crank when needed.
• Take the initiative. Don’t wait to be told what to do. Be collaborative, but without perfect information or direction, you’ll start pushing forward with your team.
• Lead the conversation. If it’s within your mandate, you’re comfortable facilitating the discovery and discussion process to find the path to achieve the client’s or organization’s objectives.
  
• Explore new frontiers. Don’t be restricted by what you know or what’s always been done. Learn and explore to find novel ways to solve client problems and better achieve our objectives.
• Growth Mindset. Must be committed to learning sufficient tax and estate strategy to anticipate transaction consequences, lead the groups executing them, and continue to expand knowledge to support client and organization objectives.

Must have skills or experience:

• Managing and developing a team of outstanding performers.
• Establishing influence without relying on organizational authority.
• Working in a client or customer-facing organization and responding to multiple customer needs in a timely manner.
• Leading or developing process design or innovation.
• Utilizing a working understanding of accounting, finance, tax, and investing.
• Comfort with standard office technology and cloud-based software applications (MS Office, Zoom, Teams, QuickBooks).

Nice to have:

• An MBA, equivalent degree, or comparable on-the-job-acquired knowledge.
• CPA or professional knowledge of accounting and accounting operations.
• Experience in investment or commercial banking, investment management, or wealth management.
• Experience evaluating and/or developing entrepreneurial business concepts.
• Experience attracting and developing high performers from diverse backgrounds.