"University" to provide the basis for FO relationship-manager designation. The Family Wealth Alliance
(FWA), a Wheaton, Ill-based consultancy to ultra-high-net-worth families, has founded an organization -- Alliance University -- initially to train relationship managers for private and commercial family offices and eventually to provide a professional designation for family-office relationship managers.

No alternative

"Our research shows that recruiting and developing specialized personnel such as relationship managers are among the top challenges of private single-family offices and commercial multifamily offices alike," says the FWA's founder and CEO Thomas Livergood.

Marianne Wilder Young, president of Corning, N.Y.-based Market Street Trust Company
, agrees. "Finding experienced relationship managers is a challenge for us who operate a family office," she says. "Because family offices uniquely serve their client families by providing integrated financial services in a high-touch manner, many offices end up hiring raw talent and training these individuals internally."

Though the role of relationship manager -- whatever title it might have at individual family offices -- is vital to the smooth running of family offices, there's no typical career path or training program available to aspirants, according to the FWA's education and consulting chief Teddie Ussery.

"There isn't even agreement as to the skill sets and personal attributes required for the relationship manager to deliver a high-level client experience in the family office environment," says Ussery. "A formal training program will help the industry identify the right people and provide them with the appropriate skills to serve their family clients."

Two years

Alliance University is getting off the ground late this year and early in 2010 with four two-and-a-half-day residential sessions that will be followed by an in-depth, multi-disciplinary program that lasts about two years. At the end, successful candidates receive professional designations in family office relationship management. Would-be enrollees have to apply for acceptance to the program, and class size is limited to two dozen per session.

Michael Zeuner is head of strategy for Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based GenSpring Family Offices
. He thinks the time is ripe for an initiative like the FWA's Alliance University. "As the family office industry responds to the ever-growing requirement from families for objective, un-conflicted advice, the need for talented professionals who can appropriately serve sophisticated families for generations grows simultaneously," he says. "We look forward to working with the [FWA] as it develops Alliance University to meet this critical demand."

Natasha Pearl, CEO of New York-based "lifestyle-management" firm Aston Pearl
likes the FWA's idea as well. "As a provider to family offices, we have seen that well-managed, strategic family offices can provide extraordinary benefits to families of wealth, and we applaud this effort to provide university-level education in this field." -FWR

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