This strategy sometimes leads families to recruits whose backgrounds seem, at first glance, to be off the mark, but who have skills and interests that make them appropriate possibilities. M.J. Rankin is president of the Rankin Group, a Lake Geneva, Wis., search firm specializing in wealth management services. She recalls a Chicago family with a vast art collection that needed someone to curate their holdings. In her search, Rankin tapped several contacts who had worked for regional art institutions, as well as private bankers. In the end, she found someone with more traditional investment banking experience coupled with a passionate interest in art history. “We need to look at what’s not on the resumé,” she says.Because executive positions in family offices are as unique as families themselves, the search usually requires an exhaustive—and sometimes unusual—interview process. Rankin, for example, asks each family member to undergo a behavioral assessment in order to ascertain each individual’s style and how the group interacts. She does the same for family office staff. From these, she produces a profile of the characteristics the candidate needs to have. The profiling process can take up to two weeks. “We get a sense of the kind of people who will best complement the individual styles of family members and employees,” she explains. While she interviews candidates, Rankin uses the profiles to match a candidate’s style and values with those of the family. Finally, the family interviews two or three finalists and makes a decision. Galvanic Guides
Unconventional family office executives are also charged with being more dynamic than their more traditional counterparts. Families require these professionals to evolve over time, as Remmer Ryzewic and her family discovered. While her brood initially sought help on how to make decisions collaboratively, their needs have changed in ensuing years. More recently, they have focused on educating their children, who range in age from 10 to 21, in how to manage wealth. They have engaged in role-playing exercises, for example, involving board members, shareholders and other associates. They have also taken personality tests to help them better understand how to interact with each other. Last summer, they discussed the values central to their family mission statement and, two weeks before Remmer Ryzewic’s mother died, created a family legacy video, which they showed at her funeral. “In the beginning, we were worried about how we work together,” she says. “Now we’re more focused on trying to pass along values to the next generation.”
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