After this week, Sara Naison-Tarajano, the global head of both private wealth management capital markets and Apex at Goldman Sachs, and her team desperately need a restorative weekend.
On Wednesday, they hosted the eighth annual Apex Global Family Office Symposium, a one-day conference at Goldman’s headquarters in New York attended by almost 200 CEOs and CIOs of family offices managing at least $1 billion of wealth. Alongside them were sought-after speakers and bank leaders, including chairman and CEO David Solomon.
It's a hot ticket. More than 1,000 attendee “nominations” are made by bank employees and others (you can nominate yourself). But 200 West Street can only accommodate a fraction of them, and the bank likes to keep the symposium relatively intimate, making the gathering that much more exclusive. This year, the maximum number of R.S.V.P.s arrived just four days after invitations were sent.
The Apex group, a small unit of bankers that Naison-Tarajano formalized in 2018 to cater to family offices, is always working. It has relationships with over 600 offices globally, sending them deal flow, sharing expertise, and helping them navigate the bank’s other divisions.
But the week of the conference is “uniquely busy,” Naison-Tarajano told Modus.
After the full day of sessions on Wednesday, an agenda obtained by Modus showed, attendees were shuttled to dine and network at ZZ’s Club, the members-only establishment with an original Warhol, daily seafood delivered from Tokyo and “Medici opulence.” And Wednesday is bookended by days crammed with meetings. Clients and prospects from all over the world — Mexico, China, France and more than a dozen other nations — were in town and wanted to get face time with people at Goldman.
By Thursday afternoon, Naison-Tarajano and Anushka Gupta, the head of the Americas coverage group at Apex, were exhausted but already excitedly discussing the 2026 agenda.
It will be hard to top this year. Solomon interviewed Jens Grede, the co-founder and CEO of Skims, and the co-founder and chairman of FRAME. Tony Pasquariello, the global head of hedge-fund coverage at Goldman, talked with Steve Cohen, the chairman, CEO and president of Point72 Asset Management and owner of the New York Mets. John Waldron, president and COO of Goldman, was joined on stage with Dawn Fitzpatrick, the CEO and CIO of Soros Fund Management.
George Lee, co-head of the Goldman Sachs Global Institute, conversed with Renaissance man Josh Wolfe, co-founder of the venture capital firm Lux Capital. Marc Stad, founder and chairman of Dragoneer Investment Group, shared his thoughts about growth-oriented investing.
While interviews focused on different topics, U.S. policy and artificial intelligence were, unsurprisingly, part of many conversations, Naison-Tarajano and Gupta said.
Private equity allocations (which some family offices say they plan to shrink this year) remained a topic that offices perennially wanted to discuss. And many offices, especially those with operating companies generating fresh capital they need to invest, are exploring opportunities in the secondaries market, as price gaps between sellers and buyers begin to narrow somewhat. Attendees were also eager to hear the sports-related panels, Gupta added.
“I think the only thing that was missing, that we’ve done every year, in part because we just ran out of time, was real estate,” Naison-Tarajano said. “I think we’ll bring that back next year.”
The agenda, of course, matters. However, the connections fostered among clients and prospects, as well as with the bank, are why Goldman has refined and grown the symposium every year.
If you’re a billionaire, you can afford to be a member at ZZ’s Club. But can you easily gather over 100 people like yourself, or the executives who work for them, in one place without paying an annual fee? Maybe not. With the symposium, Goldman gets to showcase its ability to curate a family office gathering like the front row at a fashion show. And behind the most important guests, there's a metaphorical second row reserved for its bankers.
“The feedback was amazing,” Gupta said about this year’s symposium. “Lots of exciting follow-ups” from offices were already hitting her inbox.
Join a virtual presentation on June 17, by Julia Kosinski, J.D., LL.M., Head of Solutions at Luminary, for a virtual session on the powerful tax advantages of gifting, and how to guide client conversations toward long-term planning in today’s volatile markets.
Few understand the perils — and opportunities — of trust and estate planning during volatile markets as well as Kosinski, who previously held senior roles at the Dalio Family Office, and practiced law at Harris Beach Murtha Cullina PLLC, as well as a boutique law firm in Connecticut.
In just 30 minutes, she'll cover:
- How to ensure scale and consistency when discussing wealth transfer strategies for both up and down markets.
- Critical information every advisor needs to lead effective gift and giving discussions.
- How Luminary enables advisors to quickly model and illustrate transfer strategies during volatile times.
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- Shamrock Capital helped Taylor Swift shake off private equity.
- The feuding heirs to Sol Goldman’s New York property fortune are in court again with new accusations, including talk of hiring a hit man.
- He Created the Original Zombie. His Family Wants to Define What’s Next.
- The Perks of Being Harvey Weinstein’s Publicist.
Jobs
- Parkwood, the Cleveland-based single-family office of the Mandel families, as well as their associated trusts, partnerships, foundation, and other entities, is hiring a tax manager. The job posting doesn’t have comp details. But if you’re making about $150,000 in Northeast Ohio, you can live a very nice life. (The author of this newsletter is from NEO and knows this.)
- Schusterman Family Investments, a single-family office based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is hiring a vice president.
- Mack International is helping a Boston-based family office look for a CEO. This person will report directly to two first-generation principals: A chairman and CEO of a “highly successful U.S. operating business” and another who is actively involved in various real estate and philanthropic initiatives.
- UBS is searching for a family office design and governance strategist in San Francisco; basically, a Mark Tepsich of the West Coast.
- Morgan Stanley’s OCIO business is hiring a portfolio manager. Along with endowments and foundations, this person should expect to work with family offices (or at least the smaller ones).
Other Stuff
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I'll be in...
- NYC. All around Manhattan next week. Message me. Let’s get a coffee.
- Akron, Ohio, for the July 4 weekend.
