Utilizing Operational Liftouts to Build an Agile Family Office with John Castrucci & Ben Berger

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Dec 5, 2024

Join John Castrucci, National Director of Family Office Advisory Services at RSM, and Ben Berger, Partner and Family Office Enterprise Markets Leader at RSM, as they dive into the evolving landscape of family offices. They discuss the rise of operational lift-outs, analyzing when they are beneficial. The duo explores the complexities of family office structures, innovative models such as the catamaran approach, and the balance of insourcing versus outsourcing. Their insights also touch on the growing impact of next-gen leadership and the societal role of family capital.

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ANECDOTE

A CEO Role That Shaped His Practice

John described running a multi-generational single-family office that shaped his consulting approach.
That office helped pioneer lift-outs and applied a multigenerational sustainability lens.

INSIGHT

Design For Facts, Not Case Law

A family office must balance tax efficiency with operational design rather than copy a single court-case model.
Ben Berger warns that structures should reflect each family's facts and goals, not just precedent.

INSIGHT

Six Pillars Define Office Readiness

Family offices commonly lack best-in-class technology and struggle to identify optimal solutions.
John Castrucci highlights people, process, technology, governance, services map, and structure as core design pillars.

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Today, I’m excited to speak with John Castrucci, National Director of Family Office Advisory Services at the Global Family Office Enterprise Division of RSM and Ben Berger, Partner and Family Office Enterprise Markets Leader at RSM. John has 10+ years of experience at a Big 4 Accounting firm as a practicing family office tax and family office advisory services national director and more than a decade at Private Wealth Management and Multi-Family Office institutions as regional managing director overseeing wealth strategists. Ben is on RSM’s Global Family Office Advisory Board, and has served families and family offices, addressing their full range of needs, including tax, operations, and technology since 1995. John, Ben, and their firm RSM are valued advisor members of FOX, and we are fortunate to have their expertise as part of our membership community.

John and Ben work with many family offices to help them design and implement the best operational structure for their needs. They talk about what they are seeing in the marketplace, including how family offices are being structured today, what kind of complexities and challenges they are facing, and how are they addressing them.

One growing trend John and Ben highlight among single-family offices is the rise in operational and functional lift-outs. They define what lift-outs are, and describe when they make sense, how they work, and why they are increasingly common among single-family offices.

One practical suggestion John and Ben offer for family offices is to create an operational roadmap as a tool to understand where they are and where they need to go to meet the family’s needs. They explain how this self-assessment and road-mapping process work and what its benefits are for family office leaders .

John and Ben also suggest that family offices conduct a thorough and systematic cataloguing and design of the services they provide to family members and the family enterprise, and also determine how these services will be sourced – i.e., in-housed, outsourced, co-sourced, etc. They elaborate on this best practice and explain how family offices should strive to apply it.

Don’t miss this highly relevant conversation on a topic of high interest to families and family office leaders with two of the leading experts on the subject in our industry.