Chief Investment Officer — Family Office
Overview
Remote (Evergreen career profile)
This role is a remote, evergreen career profile for investment leadership opportunities within family offices. It invites experienced investment leaders to register for consideration for future CIO responsibilities. Registration does not apply you to a specific opening and does not confer membership or guarantee introductions, interviews, appointments, or placement.
A family-office Chief Investment Officer (CIO) translates a family’s objectives, obligations, and values into investment decisions that hold up over time—combining total-portfolio judgment with independent analysis for the people who own the capital and maintain final decision authority.
Responsibilities
- Recommend and implement investment policy, asset allocation, manager selection, and monitoring within the authority delegated by the family or firm.
- When direct investing is part of the mandate:
- Assess direct investment opportunities, or ensure the appropriate expertise is in place to do so.
- Manage liquidity needs at the centre of the mandate, including:
- Distributions, fund commitments, taxes, and operating needs when due.
- Provide clear, accountable communication, including:
- Risks and exceptions, with timely escalation as needed.
- Deliver reporting to principals, committees, or clients, including risks and exceptions.
- Coordinate tax, legal, and other specialist advisers as required.
- Lead an in-house investment team or oversee outsourced managers.
Single-family vs. multi-family office expectations
- Single-family office: key decisions are typically reserved by principals (or a delegated body). The CIO’s contribution depends on clear analysis, candid challenge, and a documented route for exceptions.
- Multi-family office: the CIO serves multiple unrelated families, balancing shared research and implementation with each client’s mandate, and handling conflicts openly.
Accountability within the mandate
- Accountable work (within delegated authority and provided information): analysis, recommendations, monitoring, and timely escalation.
- Shared decisions: policy, exceptions, and major commitments approved by principals, clients, or an investment committee.
- Intended influence on outcomes:
- Long-term portfolio results and the family’s ability to meet its obligations (also dependent on managers, markets, and spending decisions).
Representative challenges
- Supporting a direct investment that would breach agreed concentration limits as fund calls and family distributions approach.
- Aligning an investment mandate with differing family views on growth, income, and preserving capital.
- Evaluating trade-offs such as:
- An attractive headline fund record versus lower apparent fees in direct co-investment that may require specialist diligence and could delay liquidity.
What the organization is asking
The core question is not whether you can hold a CIO title, but whether you have demonstrated capability—or assessed potential—to lead investment judgment for a family or multiple families, and what professional development may be needed to reach that responsibility.
Requirements
- Demonstrated responsibility for investment decision-making (the CIO title is welcome but not essential).
- Ability to plan liquidity across distributions, commitments, taxes, and operating needs.
- Experience selecting and monitoring managers.
- Experience assessing direct or co-investments where relevant.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate risk and uncertainty to principals, committees, or clients.
- Evidence of accountability for decisions, including what you decided jointly and what you influenced.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in single-family and/or multi-family offices.
- Experience drawing from private markets, endowments, foundations, pensions, or wealth management, particularly in roles preparing for investment leadership.
- Recorded professional designations are considered alongside demonstrated capability.
Compensation & Benefits
- Not specified.
Location
- Remote