A former family office executive and a second art advisor have recently joined the family office solutions group at UBS, the small unit dedicated to the bank’s wealthiest private clients in the U.S.
The new employees are the latest to be hired by the group, which has doubled in size over the past three years to approximately 60 people.
Jeffrey Skipper, a longtime executive at single-family offices in Texas, Colorado, and California, will serve as a family office design and governance strategist. He is the second member of the group with this job type. Mark Tepsich, another former employee of a single-family office, joined the solutions unit three years ago as design and governance strategist.
Rachel Peart, who worked in the art world for 17 years and was most recently head of the photographs department at the auction house Phillips, has joined as an art advisory specialist. Peart is also the second person with her job type. Matthew Newton, who previously worked at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and James Cohan Gallery, joined UBS three years ago as an art advisor to clients.
Both Skipper and Peart will be based in Los Angeles, opposite their counterparts in New York, where they will be more accessible to family offices based in or closer to the West Coast.
They also bring their own unique and complementary expertise to the team, Judy Spalthoff, head of the family office solutions group, told Modus. Skipper has deep accounting and firsthand experience with different family offices. He also enjoys writing and will be a significant contributor to the unit’s quarterly family office report. Peart has intimate knowledge of auction houses, as well as consignment experience with collectors and institutions worldwide.
And they are arriving at the right time.
“Capital markets activity is up and therefore liquidity is up,” Spalthoff said. As a result, more families are establishing offices and seeking advice on all kinds of things. “When we have conversations with the heads of family offices, they want to know who they should hire, how to set up payroll, things like that. Most clients have the infrastructure of the company they just sold. Now, they have to re-set up that structure. It’s a very big job.”
The current market environment is only one reason the team is expanding, though. The number of family offices is expected to grow from 8,000 to 10,700 globally by 2030. Meanwhile, offices are also acting more like institutional investors, and their portfolios are getting more complex. In the future, UBS expects to work with more offices and that they will increasingly rely on the solutions group and others like it.
Spalthoff was asked to lead the family office solutions, or FOS, team in North America four years ago. Since then, she has restructured it, replaced some employees and doubled its size to about 60 people. (Similar UBS groups exist in other regions.) Thirteen professionals report directly to her, and tax professionals, quants, 32 estate planners, and others within adjacent groups are dedicated to FOS clients. The tax team has tripled in size under her leadership, Spalthoff said.
The unit has also expanded its professional service network to 17 categories, as there are many services that UBS can’t provide to clients, such as cybersecurity and other necessities. Another example: “We have conversations with clients about their art, but we can’t ship and store their art, so we have providers for that,” she said.
Spalthoff plans to continue growing her solutions group in 2026, hiring more tax and other specialists, especially in the Midwest — if she can find them. Many of the best candidates have never worked at a bank and might never want to.
“It’s very difficult to find and hire the right people. We need to take them out of their jobs and put them in financial services, which isn’t right for everyone. We need people with very high [emotional intelligence],” she said.
And if they check all the right boxes, candidates still have to fit in with the overhauled FOS group. They want to keep the current good vibe.
“Even though the team is doing a huge amount of work, the mood on the team is very happy,” Spalthoff said.
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