Course Overview:

This course will give students a toolbox for how to begin a manage a family office (FO) from both the family and the family office managers’ perspectives throughout the office’s lifecycle. From the initial opening of a family office, through the ups and downs of overseeing its investments and governance, to the final days of a family office, this course will introduce students to all aspects of how to help a family office thrive. Students will be meet many case protagonists and discuss family office issues firsthand with those with deep experience in the space.

Career Focus:

Given their proliferation and increased influence across asset markets, policy agendas, and philanthropic initiatives, family offices are touching more and more of what you will be engaging with in your future careers. This course is intended for all students who are interested in managing their own family’s wealth – today or in the future – the toolbox to do so responsibly and reliably.

Educational Objectives:

1. Appreciate the growing importance of family businesses and family offices as a central actor in the investment, asset management, private equity, venture capital, philanthropic, search-fund, impact investing, and public policy worlds.
2. Know the various components of a family office and contrast family office business-, organizational-, and governance-models with other financial and business settings.
3. Recognize common managerial problems within the family office environment and applicable solutions.
4. Offer students the unique opportunity to meet – and interact with – global families and global family office key players
5. Expose students to professional opportunities and career paths within the explosively growing and dynamic family office sector worldwide.
6. Challenge students to use the course learnings and interactions with families and family offices to formulate action-plans and strategies to engage with families and family offices in the most powerful way possible in their future career settings.

Course Content (modules):

Module 1: Family Office Basics

Students will learn the nuts-and-bolts of why to choose a family office versus a private bank, optimal strategies for setting up a family office, how to separate operating assets from family office assets, and how to build institutionalized and digitized systems within a family office. This module will serve as the foundation for the rest of the course.

Module 2: Investments in the Family Office

Students will examine cases of various investments, old and new, from private deals, to impact investing, to cryptoassets in the context of family offices. They will learn the unique investing characteristics of and imperatives for family and private wealth investing.

Module 3: Governance, Staffing, & Relationship Management in the Family Office

Students will analyze best practices in building and maintaining a family office’s underlying infrastructure. From finding the right expertise for your family to considering personal family challenges, to defining your family’s values and legacy, this module will leave students with an understanding of the softer issues behind sustaining a family and its wealth over multiple generations.

Module 4: How to Wind Down a Family Office

When does a family office no longer address a family’s needs is as important as the question of setting one up in the first place. In this module, students will discuss various cases in which families questioned the value of maintaining a family office and associated ventures and how to wind those ventures down after their time had passed.

Enrollment:

Enrollment will be limited to 30 students.

Due to the nature of the content and confidential and private nature of certain course material, along with certain session visitors, protagonist interactions, and outside guest presentations given - students may be required to sign a legal non-disclosure agreement requested by project/business partner organizations. Additional requirements and documentation may also be asked of students by organizations.

Note For How to Not Bankrupt Your Family:

This course is one of two courses that comprise the newly established HBS Family Curriculum, which provides a foundation for understanding the nuanced dynamics of the increasingly important landscape of family organizations. The material in each course is self-contained, and they can be taken independently. However, they are complementary, and taking both will provide the best preparation for entering and succeeding in the space. For the Fall Course, please see the course description for “Demystifying Family Businesses” linked here.

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