The University of Chicago Booth School of Business took steps this week toward its goal of becoming the preeminent academic institution for single-family offices.
On Monday, the Booth School appointed Robert A. Stover Jr. as the inaugural executive director of its Family Office Initiative, an effort started in 2024 to provide more education, research, and networking opportunities to current and future leaders at family offices.
Stover retired from Ernst & Young in 2025, where he co-led its global family enterprise group and led the Americas family enterprise and family office group. At EY, he helped create the accounting and consulting firm’s Family Enterprise DNA framework, its Family Enterprise Summit, and the advisory services he oversaw established EY's global reputation as a leader in working offices, the school said in a statement about his appointment.
“He's only been with us since the first of May, but already he's having a substantial impact,” John C. Heaton, the Myron S. Scholes Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Booth and faculty director of the FOI, told Modus.
Heaton teaches an M.B.A. course that helps students better understand the nuances of family offices, which can have dramatically different objectives, tax structures and social dynamics compared to those in corporate finance and management. About a third of students who enroll in the course come from exceptionally wealthy families, he said.
The Booth School, with the help of Stover, plans to expand the family-office curriculum and involve other parts of the university, according to Heaton, who couldn’t share more details at the time. Additionally, Heaton and some of his colleagues have either begun research or are exploring research ideas related to family offices. “That's kind of in its infancy,” he said.
In the meantime, the business school hosted its second annual family office summit this week. Over 150 people registered to attend the two-day gathering, representing a wide range of offices in terms of wealth and employee count.
“I know there are lots of private institutions that do this,” Heaton said about events and conferences for family offices. “How can we be different? I don't want to think of us as trying to be a competitor, per se. What can the Booth School bring to this community? Where can we bring the intellectual firepower of the university and the school to bear?”
The Booth School thinks it’s already accomplished that, or is well on its way. Stover described the summit as a place where family offices are “trying to take on the biggest ideas,” and said attendees loved it because they could ask questions and debate.
The FOI covers the expenses of the summit; neither family offices nor lecturers pays to attend. University fundraisers would probably love to be there, Heaton said, but they are barred. No longer working at EY, Stover said it was even freeing for him to participate in the summit. In the past, while working as a consultant, he said there was always some level of intent or hope that offices would become clients.
Chicago Booth “believes in this community they've built, and we're going to adhere to it,” Stover said. “That's why I think this is so special.”
The goal is to continue expanding the FOI curriculum, research, and the summit, and to create small gatherings for family offices. The ultimate goal is to create another interdisciplinary center or institute at the university for family offices, bringing together academics across disciplines and from around the world to conduct transformative research. There are already 120 of them at the university.
“I think everyone expects it to be a center eventually,” Heaton said.
Booth is among several business schools that now offer family-office courses and programs, including Harvard Business School, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia Business School. Oxford University's Saïd Business School and IMD in Switzerland also have them.
Family office technology is evolving quickly—but it’s still hard to see what actually works in practice.
On May 19, FOTechHub is hosting a live virtual Demo Day featuring 13 short, expert-moderated sessions focused on real operational workflows inside family offices.
Topics include:
• Multi-entity accounting & reporting
• Alternative investments, K-1s & document workflows
• Portfolio reporting & dashboards
• Property, lifestyle & family office operations
• AI-powered automation & querying workflows
What makes this different:
• Short, focused sessions — not long sales demos
• Real workflows, tradeoffs & implementation realities
• Multiple platforms shown side by side
• Operator-focused discussions and peer networking
More News
- In Modus last week: Two Skills That Could Land You That Family-Office Job.
- Stephan Roche, the former CEO of Walton Family Enterprises and chief operating officer of Cascade Asset Management, the investment office for Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation, was elected managing partner of Banyan Global Family Business Advisors.
“I’m honored by the partners’ confidence in asking me to step into the Managing Partner role. I believe deeply in this firm: in our team, in our clients, in our model, and most importantly in our future. I’m excited about where Banyan is headed and believe in our potential to keep building something truly distinctive—the most admired family enterprise advisory firm in the world,” Roche said in a statement. - Tamarind Learning, the online education platform affiliated with the family-office consultancy Tamarind Partners, and the Larry Kraus Family Office Tax & Tech-NEW-logy Institute have partnered to create the Family Office Rising Gen Leadership Institute, “a private, virtual forum designed exclusively for rising-generation leaders within family offices and family enterprises.” Its forums will not open to advisors or commercial entities, and there will be no fee for participants. It is supported by three founding sponsors, Axiom Trust, HUB Private Client, and Heidrick & Struggles.
- Annapurna Cybersecurity Advisors has hired Jeff Vaughn, who was previously the managing director of IT at Family Office Exchange. Tony Gebely, founder and CEO of Annapurna, also previously worked at FOX, where he was the chief technology officer.
- Emigrant Bank hired Tyler Kelley to support its leadership and changes at the firm, including an expansion of its family-office capabilities. He was previously the chief operating officer and a partner at Evoke Advisors and spent fifteen years at Bel Air Investment Advisors, a private wealth management firm.
- Are those Anthropic shares you bought on the secondary market worthless? Many of them are, according to Anthropic, although this could just be saber-rattling ahead of its expected IPO.
- Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and their venture capital firm have so far donated a whopping $115 million to midterm elections efforts, more than George Soros, Elon Musk and many others.
- The Financial Times explains why the Schroder family sold up and what it signals: “If someone the size and scale of Schroders concludes it is not big enough, then what does this mean for the many smaller players?” Richard Buxton, a former Schroders fund manager, told the FT. “It’s almost inevitable that there will be further deals in this industry to come.”
- That Hamptons House: Just How Far Out of Reach Is It? Humblingly far—even for people with a family office, depending on the zip code and the address...
- For Broadway fans and/or data nerds: Seaview, the New York-based theater, film and television company, just released chromolume.io, a free dashboard that turns all the weekly sales performance into a composite score that captures efficiency, momentum, and market context that raw grosses miss.
- She Has Taken 30 Years to Write a 7-Part Novel About 1 Day. It’s a Sensation.
How does Integris Aviation Consultancy help clients?
We turned a real estate developer's $1 million annual loss into $5 million of net revenue with an aircraft lease.
A family office came to us to improve the safety of their aviation program. We did that—and saved the family $3 million over ten years by establishing a stand-alone flight department.
For over a decade, we've helped C-suite executives, family offices, and corporate flight departments worldwide navigate the complexities of private aircraft sales, acquisitions, and more. Let us help you.
Reach out to Founder David Clark to learn more: david@integrisaviation.com
Jobs
- The Hillman Company, a single-family office that advises on investments for the clan’s private-equity holding company and the Hillman Family Foundations, is hiring an investment associate in Pittsburgh. This office has a rich history. For 100 years, the family firm has made diverse investments, some that have transformed Pittsburgh and the energy, real estate, finance, healthcare, technology, media and telecom industries.
- Black Oak Partners, a multigenerational single-family office in Oklahoma City, is hiring a client services associate. This point person will coordinate the office's day-to-day operational and administrative activities, support the principals, affiliated entities, and external advisors and report to Dawnetta Taylor, the chief accounting officer.
- The Mom Project, a recruitment firm, is helping a boutique family-office services company find a part-time accountant in San Anselmo, California, just north of S.F. The company will consider candidates who work remotely. The job pays $65-$70 per hour and could become permanent.
- ArchBridge Family Office, the private wealth management firm formerly named the St. Louis Trust & Family Office, is hiring an investment analyst, client service manager and bill pay specialist.
- Robert Half has a search for a senior accountant at a family office in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It’s a “key role in reviewing financial and operational practices, strengthening internal controls, and helping the organization manage risk across the business.”
Other Stuff
- Join 2,000+ others and follow the Modus LinkedIn.
- News tips are important, and you should keep sending those about high-profile executives departing or accepting new jobs; trends that aren’t getting talked about; software companies raising capital or other changes that can impact their customers (you!).To share information in confidence, reply to this email or message me on Signal (+1 330-962-6441) using a personal device that your employer cannot access.
- Want to get your brand in front of real family-office workers and other relevant professionals? Sponsor Modus! Fill out this form. I’ll send you the latest sales deck that competitors envy.
I'll be in...
- And out of Midtown all next week.
- Boston later this month. Exact dates TBD. Message me if you want to meet!
- Las Vegas in mid-June. Who are the family-office people I need to meet there? Also, theoretically, if my wife and I don’t stay at Caesar’s, our go-to, where should we stay?
