Many of the family offices that Lili Forouraghi and her colleagues engage with have finally moved on from laborious Excel spreadsheets and are keeping track of their investments using software and services designed for that purpose.
Nonetheless, Forouraghi, a managing director and the head of family office, healthcare, endowments, foundations and the U.S. official institutions effort at BlackRock, says an increasing number of offices want to talk investments with her. Family offices may have a better understanding of their assets' value, and much of that information could be aggregated in one place. They also have access to risk management tools, either within the software they already use or third-party ones. But they are still seeking help.
In the spring, BlackRock surveyed 175 single-family offices that collectively oversee $320 billion in assets, and more than half of them acknowledged that they lacked the internal expertise needed for reporting (57%), sourcing deals (63%), and private-market analytics (75%).
Organizations dedicated to helping family offices source direct investments have hundreds of members and new groups are popping up. Offices want deals and professionals are happy to deliver those opportunities, for a membership fee or some other form of compensation.
And much has been written about the challenges investors face with private asset performance, especially when there’s more uncertainty about the direction markets are headed. It’s no surprise that most family offices are seeking help from outside their own walls.
However, when it comes to stocks and bonds, offices don’t feel much better about themselves. According to the BlackRock survey, nearly half (44%) recognized at least some gaps in their own public-market analytics — data and information about the most liquid securities that are effectively priced in real time.
Family offices are generally confident in their overall investment strategy; 72% reported this in the BlackRock survey. Only 22% of offices have used an outsourced chief investment officer or would consider doing so in the future. (Research suggests that if offices want to emulate the portfolios of endowments and foundations, more of them should hire OCIOs.)
Offices need assistance because knowing what assets are worth is only one step toward executing a portfolio’s strategy and achieving its ultimate goals. Loads of choices must be made along the way, and those decisions are multiplying and becoming harder to make as portfolios become more complex. Consider private debt as an example. So few family-office portfolios contained private debt (or so little of it) that a widely read, annual family-office report by UBS didn’t begin including data on the asset class until 2021. Since then, the average strategic asset allocation to private debt at family offices surveyed by UBS has grown to 5% in 2025. An entirely new (at least to family offices) asset class has entered the portfolio mix.
Improved performance reporting software, coupled with Aladdin, Preqin, eFront (which are all part of BlackRock), Venn (which Modus previously reported has tripled its family-office users since 2022), PitchBook and other tools and resources, is ushering family offices into a new stage of the portfolio management continuum, according to R.J. Smolenski, who was managing director of investments at Pitcairn and worked at the century-old “shared single-family office” for over 23 years. He now consults for single-family offices.
Those things have “in a lot of ways, made it possible to track, manage and think about risk in a more holistic way,” Smolenski said, but it hasn’t made managing portfolios much easier.
Family offices tend not to make sweeping changes to their investments, even during years that include the U.S. imposing steep tariffs on longtime trading partners, ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and a stock market inexplicably reaching new highs. Offices are most worried about undercurrents or overlapping exposures and risks that could disrupt their capital preservation, a common objective among them.
“They want to partner more with us, as well as their other advisors, to see how they can get better insights into their portfolios,” Forouraghi said. “They don't want to be caught flatfooted because they have too much exposure to one thing. They just want to have a better handle so that the risks that they are taking are rewarded appropriately, and they're not surprised by them.”
Forouraghi, who joined BlackRock in 2002 as a founding member of the firm's wealth management team, also knows that a consultative approach is the only one that works. She has a team dedicated to crunching scenarios for offices and filling their internal investment gaps. And, of course, there’s a possibility that offices enlist BlackRock to make the changes they’ve seen in hypothecials.
“The last thing I would want to do or advise my team is to throw products at them,” she said.
“It's really about spending time collaborating with them. We do a lot of work just to make sure that they understand the implications of adding an asset class or diversifying from one asset class to another. Because every client — every chief investment officer we speak to — they're accountable for that portfolio. They have to be able to talk to their clients in great detail about their portfolio. So we just make sure that we provide all the transparency to them.”
More News
- The latest UBS Family Office Quarterly journal went out this afternoon.
- SS&C Technologies rolled up Black Diamond, Accord, Salentica, and its family office services into a single offering called SS&C Black Diamond Wealth Solutions. When Modus asked what the family office services unit provided, and to how many single-family offices, the SS&C said it offered general ledger and partnership accounting, family member reporting, data aggregation, tax services, portfolio analytics, privacy protection and more to “scores” of clients.
- Schroders’ founding family has no intention to sell, says CEO.
- Judge Rules Against Hedge Fund Billionaire in Fraud Case Linked to Loans Against Works by Hirst, Prince, and Picasso.
- Dennis Mangalindan, a financial software sales veteran, ended a 14-year stint at Archway to join Canoe Intelligence. In February, SEI sold Archway to Aquiline Capital Partners, the $12 billion investment firm with private equity, venture, and credit strategies. Anthony Abenante was named the new CEO of Archway in July, but he’s been planning and recruiting new employees for months.
- Family Office Exchange (FOX) announced personnel changes: Scott Muench was promoted to chief membership officer; Melvin Simms is now a vice president of sales; and Heather Abramson was promoted to managing director of core membership.
- The Eagle Hunters of Kyrgyzstan.
Jobs
- Here’s one you don’t see often: Stephany Julius, a controller at Ballmer Group, is hiring a Treasury manager in Bellevue, Washington. This person will be responsible for all the cash-related activities you’d expect across a lot of interesting entities: Ballmer Group Philanthropy, USAFacts, Rainier Climate Group and related family interests, and Halo Sports & Entertainment (L.A. Clippers, Intuit Dome, Kia Forum). Salary is $183,000 and there are other benefits.
- A family office in Maine is hiring a personal assistant. They want a “natural helper with a warm, approachable presence and strong emotional intelligence.” You must also be aligned with the family’s values, including “a love of nature and a commitment to land conservation.”
- Recruiter Trevor Esse is helping a family office in Chicago find an investment associate. This junior employee will be part of a “dynamic, collaborative” team and work across strategies on primary fund commitments, co-investments and direct investments. Ideally, candidates will have 1-3 years of experience at an investment bank or a private-equity firm.
- Brown Brothers Harriman is hiring a family office analyst to join its Capital Partners team in Boston. Clients of this wealth management unit must have at least $10 million of investable assets, but many are much wealthier. The job pays $90,000 and an annual bonus, which, even in Boston, isn’t bad for the candidates with 0-2 years of experience that BBH is looking for.
- The Goldman Sachs asset and wealth management division’s private family office group is hiring an associate financial planner in San Francisco.
- Fidelity’s Center for Family Engagement is hiring a vice-president-level consultant.
Modus Stuff
- Modus newsletters always have original reporting and they’re searchable online.
- Follow Modus on LinkedIn (1,500+ people already do).
- Know a family office doing something truly unique or interesting? A software or service provider for sale? High-profile personnel changes? Modus covers all of those things. But what’s a good news tip? Documentation and other things. You can reply to this email and share information with me in confidence, or message me on Signal using a personal device that is not accessible by your employer.
I'll be...
- In New York for a few weeks.
- Headed to L.A. for Future Proof.