“Investment firms of the ultra-wealthy spend as much as 72% of their budgets on C-level staff, according to a new report. And yet, even family offices with massive portfolios face headcount problems, per a survey by wealth manager AlTi Tiedemann Global and research firm Campden Wealth.

Nearly eight out of 10 family offices reported difficulty hiring and 54% expressed concerns about retaining key staff. The survey, provided exclusively to CNBC, polled 146 family offices between November 2024 and March 2025.” – Inside Wealth, CNBC

Course Overview

Family Offices are the fastest growing organizational form in financial markets.

Managing Family Wealth is a field immersion course that situates students directly in the seat of making Family Office (FO) decisions. Students will be embedded in Family Offices to engage in live decision-making at the FO. The course will be highly career-centric, and it will apply to students going into careers in:

1. Private Equity
2. Hedge Funds
3. Start-ups
4. Family Offices
5. Wealth Management

Family Offices are taking leading roles in private and public market investing, early-stage venture investing, policymaking, impact investing, and philanthropic organizations. Thus, the field placement will also serve as an opportunity to harvest connections and create networks to better navigate a diverse set of careers moving ahead.

During their field placement, students are expected to take on a project that addresses one of the core pillars of a Family Office: Succession, Governance, Investments, Organizational Structure, Impact, etc. The partnering family will be responsible for guiding the student on the nature of the project, focused on existing or frontier-exploratory solutions. Examples might include: Outlining shareholder division in a succession plan, forming a philanthropic strategy, or exploring investment into crypto-assets.

A midterm networking event with global families will be part of the course. This will involve a diverse set of families and FO decision-makers that will be visiting campus for the flagship Executive Education Family Office Course.

Virtual or in-person meetings will depend on the family’s global location, as well as the shared preferences of the student and partnering family. There will be 9 classroom sessions throughout the semester, along with a number of touch-point office hours with Professor Cohen throughout.

Who Teaches This Course?

The course will be taught by Professor Cohen, a Top 25 Global Family Enterprise Academic, along with being the Faculty Co-Chair and Designer of the HBS Flagship Family Office Executive Education course ‘Building a Legacy: Family Office Wealth Management.’ Professor Cohen has a joint appointment in the FIN and EM units, specializing in innovation, behavioral finance, and empirical asset pricing. He was named Top 40 Under 40 Business School Professor in 2017 by Poets & Quants, and a top teacher at Harvard by CNBC.

Dr. Cohen frequently advises government organizations in the US and abroad, including the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, United States Patent & Trademark Office, testifying before the United States Congress, and advising governments, central banks, inter-governmental organizations, and sovereign ruling families throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia on matters of Innovation Policy, Impact Investing, Climate Change, Pension Structure, and Family Office Management.

Grading

Grading will be as follows:

• 10% Midterm Networking event (e.g., short write-up of families spoken to, what you learned)
• 20% In-class participation and check-ins
• 30% SWOT analysis of the assigned Family Office
• 40% Final presentation (e.g., learnings, solutions considered, personal reflections, etc.)

Enrollment

The course may be open for cross-registration; enrollment will be limited to 30 students.

There are no pre-requisite courses.

Short FAQ:

Q: Are Family Offices important in capital markets?

A: Yes, as a comparison: the most recent statistics have AUM (assets under management) of the global hedge fund industry at roughly 4.5 trillion dollars. Family Offices, by comparison, have AUM of 3.1 trillion dollars – over 2/3 the size - and growing quickly.

Q: Can I take Managing Family Wealth if I don’t have experience with family offices?

A: Yes, Managing Family Wealth is designed to be broadly applicable across many career paths for which the familiarity and connections with family offices (e.g., raising funding from and partnering with family offices) will be valuable.

Q: How is the class structured?

A: You will be centrally working alongside the partnering family office. In-class sessions will be a mix of debriefing (common challenges, project progress, next steps, etc.), along with discussion of best-practices.

Q: What if the family office entity hasn’t officially been created?

A: That is ideal in certain ways: in this case, your project will likely entail ground-up thinking through optimal structuring, governance, and asset allocation with the principals of the newly-to-be-formed family office.

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