The subject of our regular Focused Insights section for Mosaic II is the family office segment. We asked a pair of firms serving the family office space for their insights on how the segment is evolving, the challenges families are confronting today, and the trends that will shape the next generation of family offices. 

• Edouard Thijssen is the Co-Founder of Trusted Family, a governance platform for multigenerational family businesses, family offices, and their advisers. Founded in 2007, Trusted Family is headquartered in Brussels, with offices in Lisbon, and Austin, Texas, and serves over 200 families across 35 countries. 

• Cory Shea is Founding Partner at Clockwork, a US-based private investment firm. Clockwork's technology + team approach powers the digital investment office for global private investors. 

A new era for family offices

The family office sector has entered a new phase of evolution. Once regarded primarily as investment vehicles for preserving and growing wealth, family offices today are on a journey as they increasingly become institutions focused on governance, continuity, education, decision-making, and family cohesion. 

At the same time, the segment is contending with a growing list of challenges: increasingly complex private market portfolios, geopolitical uncertainty, succession planning gaps, operational resilience concerns, and the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in modern history. The result is a sector that is simultaneously becoming more institutional and more personal. 

“The family office landscape has without a doubt evolved over the past five years,” says Cory Shea Founding Partner at Clockwork. "The sheer volume of groups defining themselves as family offices has multiplied, with a steadily lower assets under management (AUM) threshold required to claim the distinction."  

Another factor changing the family office landscape, Shea says, is the expanding universe of service providers catering to the segment – including consultants, technology, wealth management, and related offerings. The changing basis of wealth is also a source of change for the segment, he adds, as “entrepreneurial, first-generation wealth” comes to dominate in place of traditional dynastic structures. 

The change has occurred alongside a dramatic increase in the importance of family offices within global capital markets. Family offices now collectively manage trillions of dollars and have become some of the world's most influential investors in private equity, venture capital, private credit, and direct investments. They are also continuing to increase their exposure to private markets and alternative assets, leveraging their long-term investment horizons and freedom from short-term institutional constraints. 

Yet as wealth becomes more complex, the role of the family office itself is changing. 

Beyond investments: the rise of the family enterprise office 

Many wealthy families are fundamentally redefining what they expect from their family office. 

“For a long time, the family office was where the money got managed,” says Edouard Thijssen, Co-Founder of Trusted Family and a fifth-generation member of the Aliaxis Family. “The families we work with at Trusted Family have come to see it as where the family itself gets managed.” 

Investments remain central, but they now sit alongside governance, family education, philanthropy, succession planning, and lifestyle coordination.  

According to the December 2025 Global Family Office Report published by IMD Global Family Business Center and the Family Business Network (FBN), over 80 percent of family offices surveyed support family communication and engagement. Some go further: 55 percent provide education programmes, and 41 percent provide family members with psychological support. 

Trusted Family identifies two major forces driving this shift. The first is longevity, as multiple generations now commonly co-exist within a family's decision-making structure. The second is the unprecedented wealth transfer already underway. 

“In the US alone, roughly US$124 trillion will change hands over the next two decades,” Thijssen says. “A transfer that size rises or falls on decisions, not just on returns.” This focus on decision-making rather than simply portfolio performance reflects a growing recognition in the sector that family wealth failures are often failures of governance rather than of investment. 

“Around 70 percent of wealthy families lose the wealth by the second generation, and 90 percent by the third,” Thijssen says. “When you dig into those cases, the culprit is almost never a bad portfolio, but a breakdown in how the family communicates and governs itself.” 

Interested in reading more about the evolving family office segment? Mosaic II is available to read in full here.

Governance, succession, and managing complexity 

Across the family office sector, there is growing concern about what Trusted Family calls the “governance gap”. 

“For all the sophistication on the investment side, fewer than half of family offices have a formal governance framework with board-level oversight, and only a third have a defined succession plan for the office itself,” Thijssen says. 

UBS’s 2026 Global Family Office Report found that only 35 percent of family offices have a defined succession plan. J.P. Morgan’s own annual report into the sector found that 86 percent lack succession plans for their key decision-makers. 

The challenge extends beyond leadership transitions. Clockwork argues that operational resilience has become one of the most significant risks facing family offices today. “Employee turnover can be unpredictable and very disruptive, alongside other succession-related events,” Shea says. “It’s important to maintain consistency in the office despite these changes, and to plan for contingencies ahead of time.” 

The operational fragility of many family offices is reinforced by their size. The IMD/FBN survey found that nearly 57 percent operate with just one to five full-time employees, underscoring how much institutional knowledge and decision-making authority can become concentrated in a small number of individuals. 

“Key-person risk is the one we hear about most,” says Thijssen at Trusted Family. “Many offices are lean shops built around a single long-serving executive or one outside provider – with no plan for the day that person walks out the door.” 

Key-person risk is amplified as family office operations – and portfolios – continue to grow more complex, particularly where their data management remains unaddressed. Without integrated systems, that vulnerability only increases. 

At the same time, there is evidence that governance formalisation is advancing. The IMD/FBN survey found that 53 percent of family offices now operate with a formal Investment Policy Statement; a similar number maintain an investment committee. More than two-thirds of respondents to the survey said they believe their governance arrangements provide effective oversight. 

Family offices are now recognising that governance structures are not bureaucratic constraints but essential mechanisms for continuity, Shea argues. “Clear decision-making frameworks and well-documented processes not only guide the office through change but also give the next generation a structured way to understand the portfolio and step into it over time.” 

Technology becomes core infrastructure 

For the family office sector as a whole, technology-enabled transformation is moving from aspiration to necessity. “Now ubiquitous, it is becoming a ‘must have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’,” Shea says.  

The next stage of technology adoption appears likely to be driven by artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and data intelligence. “What AI is capable of today is markedly improved compared with only a few months ago, and the resulting potential for family offices to streamline their operations is considerable,” Shea says. 

Given the issues facing the sector described above, he says AI offers potential for its ability to create actionable intelligence from fragmented information.  

“Data intelligence is one specific area where AI can create real value, helping investors better understand their own portfolios, exposures, performance, and return drivers – and compare against other datasets to enable better benchmarking” says Shea. “A great deal of energy, time, and cost is presently spent on back office efforts. Structured correctly, modern solutions can power those operational functions and free up time for more value-add endeavours.” 

But although family offices may in theory accept that exploiting AI potential is strategically important, that’s yet to be reflected in investment allocations. J.P. Morgan’s 2025 survey of the segment found that although 65 percent of family offices plan to prioritise AI, many remain underexposed to venture, growth, and infrastructure assets supporting the AI ecosystem. 

Trusted Family has observed a regional variance in technology adoption. “US offices have generally been quicker to put platforms and AI to work, while European families have moved more deliberately, partly out of a stronger privacy culture and stricter data rules,” Thijssen says. “The trajectory is the same on both sides, though. The families treating their data and decision-making as core infrastructure, rather than an afterthought, are pulling ahead regardless of where they sit.” 

There’s also a generational shift when it comes to technology adoption, Trusted Family argues – noting that next-generation family members expect information transparency, digital collaboration, and accessible rounds of decision-making rather than traditional reporting models built around quarterly updates and static documents.  

Private markets remain essential – but complexity is growing 

Alternative investments remain a defining characteristic of the segment. Family offices have historically been early movers in the space, and most are comfortable managing sizeable and diverse direct portfolios of alternative assets.  

The alternatives space rewards one of the family office sector’s key competitive advantages – the ability to invest with patience, as family offices often operate without fixed investment horizons or liquidity constraints, enabling them to pursue long-duration opportunities in private markets. 

But alternatives also create unique challenges and forms of complexity – including valuation uncertainty, illiquidity, due diligence requirements, capital-call management, and performance measurement. As the market grows and family offices increase their exposure, that complexity increases.  

Clockwork has observed family offices growing more disciplined in response. “A lot of family offices and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are evolving their approach to alternatives to become more proactive,” Shea says. “They’re making more investments within defined Investment Policy Statement frameworks and reacting less to the headline deal of the moment.” 

Liquidity management has become especially important, he adds. “Managing liquidity is critical, with cashflow planning key to understanding capital calls, commitment schedules, and other outflows.” 

Private-market enthusiasm remains strong in the segment, according to the IMD/FBN survey. Private equity already accounts for 15 percent of average portfolio allocations, while 65 percent of respondents to the survey expected to increase their exposure over the next two to three years. More than half also expect to increase venture-capital allocations, reinforcing the long-standing role of family offices as important providers of patient capital.

Want to find out more? Mosaic II is available to read in full here.

One market, many models 

Although family offices are often discussed as a single segment, important regional differences remain. Trusted Family, which operates in both Europe and the United States, sees the two markets approaching family office management from different historical foundations. 

Many European family offices originate from multigenerational operating businesses, often spanning four or more generations. As a result, governance structures such as family councils, family charters, and shareholder assemblies tend to be deeply embedded.  

US family offices, by contrast, frequently emerge from more recent liquidity events, entrepreneurial exits, or wealth creation episodes. “The US tends to lead at the investment level,” Trusted Family’s Thijssen observes. “US offices are quick to stand up investment committees, write investment policy statements, and formalise the board of the office.” 

Clockwork identifies a similar distinction, observing that markets with longer institutional histories often favour established governance structures, while newer entrepreneurial wealth tends to be more opportunistic and faster to adopt technology.  

The next generation changes everything 

Perhaps the most transformative force shaping the family office sector is the next generation. Trusted Family argues that younger family members are not simply inheriting wealth but redefining its purpose. “They’ve grown up with a more connected view of wealth, where how it’s made, invested, given away, and passed on, are one expression of what the family stands for,” Thijssen says. 

The IMD-FBN report found that the average office now serves three generations and approximately 29 family members, illustrating why governance, communication, and education have become central organisational priorities rather than secondary considerations. 

Transparency ranks among this transformed client base’s highest priorities. “Where the old model assumed the next generation would learn by watching, this one wants the implicit made explicit: how decisions get made, and what the money is ultimately for.” 

This generation also seeks earlier involvement in governance and decision-making – demanding participation rather than observation: the IMD-FBN report has found younger heirs increasingly stepping into leadership roles.  

As they do so, the younger generation is introducing new priorities – including impact investing, sustainability, technological innovation, and diversity and inclusion in the advisers and specialists they choose to hire. 

A sector being rebuilt for continuity 

Taken together, these trends point towards a fundamental shift in what family offices are becoming. Investment management remains critical. But increasingly, the defining challenge is not generating returns. It is preserving decision-making capability across generations, integrating increasingly complex portfolios, and building organisations capable of enduring long after today’s principals have stepped aside. 

Thijssen says the best-prepared families have “stopped asking how to manage their capital and started asking how to keep making good decisions together for the next hundred years”. The portfolio is part of that, he says, but it is no longer the whole of it. 

Perhaps the clearest sign of the family office’s evolution is that wealth itself is being redefined. Increasingly, leading families view the office not merely as a manager of financial assets but as a steward of what IMD describes as “total family wealth” – encompassing human, social, intellectual, and reputational capital alongside financial capital.  

In that sense, the future family office may be less an investment institution than a coordination platform for family continuity itself. 

Mosaic is grateful to Cory Shea, Founding Partner at Clockwork, and Edouard Thijssen, Co-Founder of Trusted Family, for contributing their insights to this report. 

Interested in reading more about the news, insights, and trends shaping wealth management today? Mosaic II is available to read in full here.

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Discover Mosaic I

If you’ve enjoyed Mosaic II: Summer 2026 edition, don’t miss where the journey began. Mosaic I: Spring 2026 edition explores many of the themes that continue to shape today’s wealth management landscape – including the rise of private markets, the foundations of effective AI adoption, revenue management, client onboarding, and the evolution of digital advice.

Alongside exclusive executive interviews, contributor insights, company profiles, and technology showcases, Mosaic I offers wealth management professionals a curated, global view of the trends reshaping our industry. Read it today here.

Interested in discovering more? Read our reports!

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About The Wealth Mosaic
The Wealth Mosaic is a UK-headquartered online solution provider directory and knowledge resource, focused specifically on the wealth management industry.

For wealth managers, the buy side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic is designed to enable discovery of key solutions, solution providers and knowledge resources by specific business needs.

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