Managing the managers in a family business: Terry Jenkins

What can an advisor who has the usual mix of clients learn from a family office business serving the ultra high net worth? A lot, according to Terry Jenkins, president of BMO Private Bank, U.S., in Chicago and a speaker at this year’s Distinguished Advisor Conference.

Whether it is an office serving one-family or multiple-family businesses or a commercial family office business (FOB) such as BMO Harris Bank offers, the key is integrating services and anticipating the client’s needs.

“The advisor brings capabilities together in a coordinated and seamless fashion,” Jenkins says. “He or she has access to multiple experts and brings those capabilities to bear for the good of the client.”

As Jenkins explains it, the concept of the FOB grew out of the need for the successful family business to handle growing wealth. “As the family grew in wealth and its affairs became more complex, it would deal with more and more advisors,” he explains. “The business would hire an individual — on its payroll — to represent its interests, who would coordinate all those vendors, and would be on the same side of the table as the family. That individual would work for the family.”

The FOB evolved from there. Because of the expense or complexities involved, offices serving multiple family businesses appeared, handling the needs of several families in a way that made economic sense. “What emerges from there,” says Jenkins, “is the commercial multi-family office such as Harris myCFO.

“The type of skills an advisor brings to the FOB is similar to many other advisory roles,” says Jenkins, who addresses the key trends in the FOB arena at the annual Distinguished Advisor Conference Nov. 11-14 in Naples, Fla. In keeping with the theme of this year’s conference, which is “Navigation: Charting a New Course,” Jenkins will look at the implications of those trends for advisors and their clients.

“The advisor is one who listens, gathers information — and executes,” adds Jenkins, who speaks on the morning of Nov. 12.