The importance of having the right people in the right roles for your office.
Hiring talent for a family office environment can be challenging, says Manish Tibrewal of Maitri Asset Management, but multi-family offices are becoming more attractive.
In 2016, when Tibrewal became the non-family CEO of Maitri, the Tolaram Group’s family office, he set about hiring talent to help fulfil his vision for the office. Today, he leads 16 people that includes a seven-member strong investment team, with a dedicated ESG team in the mix. “Initially I was struggling to hire people because there was not much concept of a family office [in Singapore]. People didn't understand what one was, or how working for one could advance their career. Even now, when I speak to my peers, they tell me they’re struggling to find people,” says Tibrewal. He anticipates family offices becoming more attractive to high calibre recruits in Singapore, as the profile and understanding of family offices grow. He draws parallels with the regard held for working for the likes of the Rockefeller Global Family Office and suggests that multi-family offices can present more excitement and opportunities for recruits than single-family offices.
For his part, Tibrewal says working for a sustainability and responsible investment-focused family office is immensely rewarding.
When the Tsao family closed its original family office in Hong Kong and opened its successor in Singapore, the first non-family person it appointed was a HR professional to help with the recruitment of the family office’s team.
That was back in 2017; today, the family employs approximately 15 people—most of them spread throughout its investments, operations, and
finance divisions. An impact investment specialist has recently been brought on board.
As is often the case in an investment-focused family office, the Tsao family’s CEO is also its CIO: Bryan Goh.
“[Part of] his job is to make sure that there's some liquidity, that the returns or the cash management is there to meet our grant-making requirements. Most family offices primarily focus on investments, so the CEO needs to be a well-experienced investment professional. But it can be hard to find an investment person who also does a good job managing everything else. A family has to really think about the kind of talent it needs within its team,” says Dr Mary Ann Tsao. Dr Tsao thinks the family will probably appoint independent directors in the future, but that the position of chair will remain with a family member. A separate CEO will be appointed to oversee the family’s philanthropical activities, which are in the planning stages.
HT Capital employs 30 staff across its Hong Kong and Beijing offices: 25 in Beijing and five in Hong Kong. It anticipates growing its Hong Kong team as the new multi-family office focus grows.
“In the front office we have investment managers who review and report on opportunities that come to us, and they seek opportunities as well. Then we have our partners from other funds and offices who are onsite with us. And then in the back office we have an in-house legal team and accountants,” says second-generation family member Margaret Zhao. The office’s 30 or so staff, including general partners, meet every Tuesday to discuss investments. Zhao says that the cost of hiring talent is higher in Hong Kong (than in Beijing), but that the caliber of people is generally higher too. “In Hong Kong, the cost of human resources is a lot higher, but the talent is trained in the big banks, and we’re finding it easier to recruit quality people. In Beijing it can be challenging to find the right fit.”
Single-family office Applerigg has always partially outsourced aspects of its investment management and other key advisory services. But in recent years it’s taken that even further, and now has one external company overseeing all its functionalities, particularly its wealth management and liquidity. Founder Alexander Scott thinks this makes good business sense, as it gives the family greater autonomy and ultimately, security.
“Our CIO has always been a non-family member. My expertise has not been in investment, and I've purposely not made it so. I want to hire people who are good at that,” says Scott. Its multi-family office Sandaire employed approximately 40 staff. But since divesting Sandaire, the family’s residual family office, Applerigg, has restructured itself under a new ‘binary’ model, where the organizations involved are simply the family office and a single external manager. Applerigg now employs just four people in-house and saves significantly on overheads. “We think we can put governance in place that oversees the simplified functions. And we're significant enough as a client to be able to have influence on the outcomes and behaviors of the outsourced manager. We decided that we could completely outsource the management of our liquid assets and not have the cost and distraction of a directly employed workforce.
