People & Talent
The people you hire must give the founder and the office the expertise and institutional knowledge that it needs to drive towards the office’s vision. Every hire must make a profound impact.
One common pitfall when building a Founder Office is that Principals often surround themselves with ‘yes’ people. To offset this, you must create a team culture and processes that foster real, candid and honest advice.
Consider the right combination of personalities, expertise, seniority, and value alignment when building your team. Depending on the size of the business, and the extent of the underlying wealth, key hires may include:
- Founder(s) / family members
- C-suite – CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, CTO, COS
- General Counsel
- Asset specialists
- Finance
- Tax and Legal
- Head of Talent/Headhunter
- Operations and Administration Manager
- M&A
- Risk Officer
Give some thought to:
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01
Insourcing v outsourcing
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02
Generalists v specialists
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03
Leadership
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04
Emotional intelligence
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05
Values alignment
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06
Trust and discretion
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07
Learning and education
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08
Long term incentive plans and compensation
a co-investment programme could help to align your team
Power-up
It’s easier to hire people you know rather than people you don’t. You’ve already built trust and this will be reflected in the culture of the office, however, in the long term, it’s highly unlikely that those early hires will be the right (and the best) hires. Make the best hires, not the easy hires. Hire slowly and with reference to the values of the Founder Office – unwinding a bad hire can be hard, and having the wrong people in the team can destroy culture and do long term damage to morale.