When Jeff Bezos’ father quietly hired a chief executive to manage his fortune in September, the move made headlines.
Mike Bezos tapped Valeria Alberola — a former executive for Walmart heir Ben Walton — to lead his Miami-based family office, Aurora Borealis Nezos.
The hire is part of a major expansion to manage an estimated $40 billion fortune and support multiple generations of the Bezos family, The Wall Street Journal reported.
But to those inside the rarefied world of family offices, the move was anything but surprising.
“This has been going on for years,” Michael Kosnitzky, co-leader of Pillsbury’s Private Client & Family Office practice, who advises some of the world’s wealthiest families, told Business Insider.
“Everyone’s making a big deal of it now, but we’ve been parachuted into these situations for a long time,” he said, not just to help hire these people, but to design the executive comp programs that keep them.
Bezos’ father isn’t an outlier.
Across the globe, the ultra-rich are turning their family offices — once discreet administrative hubs for accountants and lawyers — into sophisticated investment engines.
And they’re hiring seasoned financiers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and private equity firms to run them.
The family office goes corporate
Family offices — the private firms that manage a family’s investments, philanthropy, and legacy — used to be sleepy operations run by tax lawyers and estate planners.
“When I started, family offices were run by retired estate lawyers,” said Kosnitzky, who has focused on family offices for more than 20 years. “That was ridiculous — lawyers aren’t businesspeople, and trusts-and-estates lawyers are the worst.”
“They thought what a family office needs is someone who knows about wealth. It’s not,” he added.
“What they need are people who understand investments, who can manage platform and club investing, and manage the personnel. These are not lawyers.”
Now, many family offices look more like boutique hedge funds or private-equity firms.
They make direct investments, co-invest with other families, and set up their own venture and real-estate vehicles.
“They’re snapping up investment bankers and fund managers,” Kosnitzky said. “They want to be compensated like fund managers.”
The data backs him up.
According to JPMorgan’s 2024 Global Family Office Report, 50% of family offices globally have non-family members serving as CEOs or presidents, while that figure rises to 63% among family offices managing $1 billion or more in assets.
The report describes this shift as part of a “broader professionalization” sweeping through the sector.
The new reasons for hiring outsiders
Kosnitzky said the shift reflects a fundamental change in how the rich think about risk.
He identified three forces accelerating the trend.
First, a wave of liquidity events — from IPOs to business sales — has flooded ultrawealthy families with cash to manage.
Second, a younger generation of billionaires, often self-made and tech-savvy, prefers to invest directly rather than hand their money to banks.
And third, many families are teaming up to invest in startups and private ventures — a model known as “club investing.”
“They don’t want to pay the carried interest to some third party,” Kosnitzky said. “They don’t want to deal with conflicts of interest. They say, ‘I can do this myself.'”
Indeed, 73% of family offices say they have now implemented formal governance structures, such as boards of directors or investment committees, to manage their growing complexity, according to JPMorgan’s report.
Why CEOs from Wall Street fit the job
Running a family office, however, requires more than financial savvy.
It’s part CEO, part advisor, and part therapist. The job often blends asset management with philanthropy, art curation, and navigating intergenerational politics.
“You might have a 50-year personal assistant who isn’t the most efficient person, certainly not technologically, but they’re trusted and hold all the family secrets,” Kosnitzky said.
“You can’t just fire her and bring in your own people,” he added. “You have to play the cards you’ve been dealt. It’s more personalized, more touchy-feely stuff.”
That makes family office leadership one of the most complex roles in the finance industry.
Successful CEOs must strike a balance between hard-nosed investment judgment and emotional intelligence.
“You’re not running a business in the traditional sense,” Kosnitzky said. “You’re running a family. The right person understands that money isn’t the only metric — legacy, art, philanthropy, and continuity matter just as much.”
Billionaires want control — and value
The ultra-rich, Kosnitzky said, are professionalizing their empires — but on their own terms. They want institutional discipline without the red tape.
“It’s not new to us,” he said. “The trend’s been there probably at least three years, maybe five. What’s new is how you compensate those people and how you align their interests.”
JPMorgan’s report shows that most family offices remain deliberately lean, with 82% having just one to three senior executives, often “expert generalists” who can juggle investment oversight, succession planning, and governance.
For many on Wall Street, joining a family office means trading quarterly pressure for long-term influence — and, in many cases, a slice of the upside.
“They’re being compensated with a piece of the action,” Kosnitzky said.
And that, for the best and brightest in finance, might be the ultimate promotion.
