Director of Family Office Operations

Waverly Advisors, LLC•Chicago, IL

13h

About The Position

Waverly is building a scalable family office platform that gives ultra-high-net-worth families the depth and capabilities of a dedicated family office without requiring each advisor to build one. The Director of Family Office Operations owns the platform’s day-to-day operations and develops the infrastructure, team, and standards needed as it grows. The role combines operational ownership of service delivery, workflows, team capacity, reporting, trading, systems, billing, and advisor-compensation processes with responsibility for maintaining the operational standard as the firm adds advisors and families. The Director assesses capacity and service implications, evaluates growth trade-offs, and explains the shared-service model and available resources to advisors and acquired firms. The Director will inherit a working platform and an approved operating model that has not yet been fully documented. The role will run the model, document how it works, strengthen it, and build capabilities to support growth. It is a hands-on builder and operator position, with an opportunity to develop and expand the Family Office operations team as the business grows.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree.
7–10+ years of experience in RIA, family office, or wealth management operations.
At least 3 years leading an operations team.
Hands-on experience administering a portfolio accounting and reporting platform such as Addepar, Tamarac, Black Diamond, or a similar platform, and willingness to become the firm's Addepar administrator.
Experience running client billing processes and ability to understand and own the logic behind advisor compensation.
Experience managing vendor relationships end to end, including selection, contracting, renewal, and administration.
Working knowledge of SEC-registered investment adviser operations and compliance obligations that affect operations, including custody, books and records, and trade errors.
Strong writing and presentation skills, including the ability to explain an operating model to advisors, leadership, and partners.
Advanced Excel skills.
Hands-on, problem-solving approach and willingness to fix operational issues directly.
Curiosity and industriousness, including willingness to learn systems deeply and address identified issues.
Ability and motivation to document and improve an existing operating model and build and grow a team.
Operational mindset focused on processes, handoffs, and standards.
Comfort with ambiguity in a firm that is actively acquiring and adding advisors.
Credibility with advisors and ability to push back when needed while maintaining trust.

Nice To Haves

Direct Addepar administration experience.
Working knowledge of alternative-investment operations, including capital calls, distributions, and document collection, ideally with Canoe or a comparable tool.
Direct experience in a single- or multi-family office, including entity and trust structures and consolidated multi-custodian reporting.
Exposure to M&A integration in a roll-up environment.
Basic SQL skills and comfort working alongside a technical counterpart.
CFP, CFA, or MBA.
Series 65.

Responsibilities

Run day-to-day family office operations and service delivery.
Maintain and develop the Family Office operating model, including the client lifecycle and division of labor among advisor pods, the Family Office team, firm resources, and outsourced partners.
Build and maintain operating documentation, including a field manual, role definitions, division of responsibilities, and clear ownership of key processes.
Set and maintain operational standards as advisors and clients are added; evaluate growth-related capacity and service implications, identify trade-offs, and recommend actions to leadership.
Lead operational onboarding for advisors and explain the shared-service model, available resources, and effective ways to engage them.
Oversee operational requirements involving entity, trust, and partnership structures; consolidated reporting across multiple custodians; alternative-investment subscriptions, capital calls, and distributions; and applicable bill-pay or household services.
Manage the operational boundary with Waverly by tracking its commitments, holding it to them, and moving work across as the shared-service model matures.
Oversee reporting and trading teams and share oversight of the client service associate team, with potential for broader team leadership as the operating model evolves.
Oversee rebalancing and trade execution, resolve trade errors under the firm's trade error policy, and support best-execution review.
Own operational relationships with Schwab, Fidelity, IBKR, and Equity Trust, including account opening, money movement, and paperwork standards.
Set priorities, manage capacity, handle escalations, ensure teams have adequate resources and systems, and provide training as systems and processes change.
Own operational relationships and administration for Family Office platforms, including Addepar, Canoe, Tamarac during decommissioning, Practifi, RightCapital, and Asana; manage access, permissions, configuration, workflows, vendors, contracts, renewals, and system effectiveness.
Lead the operational side of the Tamarac-to-Addepar migration and Canoe Connect integration in partnership with the Director of AI.
Identify ways to improve reporting, data management, and operational efficiency through better use of existing systems and technology.
Execute quarterly client billing according to firm fee schedules and the ADV, including shadow billing and rebates for internal private-investment products, with the goal of transitioning execution to Waverly over time.
Understand and own the logic of advisor compensation calculations, partner with Waverly on execution, and bring open policy questions to resolution.
Fulfil recurring and ad hoc data requests from Waverly's private equity sponsor.
Oversee daily and monthly reconciliations between custodians and Addepar, ensure discrepancies are resolved promptly, and audit data inputs across systems at least quarterly.
Work with accounting on billing and compliance on reporting templates and adoption of best practices.
Support the Chief Compliance Officer with books and records, custody-rule and surprise-examination preparation, and operational responses to regulatory exams.
Maintain operational controls for privacy and client data under Reg S-P, business continuity, and trade-error reporting.
Conduct vendor due diligence and ongoing oversight for administered systems in accordance with the firm's compliance program.
Own metrics covering billing accuracy and timeliness, client reporting delivery against the quarterly calendar, trade-error rate and resolution time, advisor and client onboarding cycle time, and closure of data-integrity audit findings.