The posting
About the role
Waverly is building a scalable family office platform designed to serve ultra-high-net-worth families with the depth and capabilities of a dedicated family office, without each advisor having to build one. The Director of Family Office Operations owns how that platform runs day to day and builds the operational infrastructure, team, and standards it needs as it grows.
The role has two layers. The first is operational ownership: service delivery, operational workflows, team capacity, reporting, trading, and the systems that support them, including Addepar and Canoe. This also includes oversight of the billing and advisor-compensation processes that depend on them.
The second is harder to find: holding the operational standard, thinking through the capacity and service implications of each new advisor and family relationship, and evaluating the trade-offs that growth introduces. This person must be able to explain to an advisor or an acquired firm how the shared-service model works, what resources and capabilities are available, and how to engage them effectively.
The Director will inherit a working platform and an approved operating model that has not yet been fully written down. The job is to run it well, document how it actually works, strengthen it, and build the capabilities to support its growth. The position will also have the opportunity to develop and expand the Family Office operations team as the business grows.
This is a hands-on builder and operator role: someone who solves problems directly, establishes structure without creating unnecessary complexity, and grows into leading a larger team as the platform scales.
What you'll own
Shared-service operations
- Run the day-to-day family office operations and service delivery
- Maintain and develop the Family Office operating model, including the client lifecycle, the division of labor between advisor pods, the Family Office team, firm resources, and outsourced partners
- Build and maintain the operating documentation the model needs, including a field manual, role definitions, division of responsibilities, and clear ownership of each key process
- Set and hold operational standards as advisors and clients are added; evaluate the capacity and service implications of growth, identify the trade-offs, and bring recommendations to leadership
- Lead operational onboarding for advisors, explaining how the shared-service model works, what resources are available, and how to engage them effectively
- Oversee the family office operational requirements, including entity, trust, and partnership structures; consolidated reporting across multiple custodians; alternative investment subscriptions, capital calls, and distributions; and any bill-pay or household services where applicable
- Manage the operational boundary with Waverly: track the tasks Waverly has committed to own, hold them to those commitments, and move work across as the shared-service model matures
Team leadership and capacity
- Oversee the reporting and trading teams, and share oversight of the client service associate (CSA) team, with the opportunity for broader team leadership as the Family Office operating model evolves
- Trading: oversee rebalancing and trade execution, identify and resolve trade errors under the firm's trade error policy, and support best-execution review
- Custodians: own the operational relationships with the firm's custodians (Schwab, Fidelity, IBKR and Equity Trust), including account opening, money movement, and paperwork standards
- Set priorities, manage capacity, and handle escalations across those teams; ensure the teams have the resources and systems they need, and provide training as systems and processes change
Systems and vendors
- Own the operational relationship and administration of the Family Office dedicated platforms, including Addepar, Canoe, Tamarac (through decommissioning), Practifi, RightCapital, and Asana. Responsibilities include user access and permissions, configuration, workflows, vendor relationships, contracts, renewals, and ongoing system effectiveness
- Lead the operational side of in-flight platform programs, including the Tamarac-to-Addepar migration and the Canoe Connect integration, in partnership with the Director of AI
- Identify opportunities to improve reporting, data management, and operational efficiency through better use of existing systems and technology
Billing, compensation and data requests
- Execute quarterly client billing per the firm's fee schedules and 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 the advisor compensation calculation; 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 reconciliation between custodians and the portfolio accounting system (Addepar), ensure discrepancies are identified and resolved promptly, and audit data inputs across systems at least quarterly for integrity
- Work with accounting on billing and with compliance on reporting templates and adoption of best practices
Compliance and risk
- Support the Chief Compliance Officer on books and records, custody rule and surprise examination preparation, and operational responses to regulatory exams
- Maintain operational controls for privacy and client data (Reg S-P), business continuity, and trade error reporting
- Conduct vendor due diligence and ongoing oversight for the systems the role administers, consistent with the firm's compliance program
What you'll bring
Required
- Bachelor's degree
- 7–10+ years in RIA, family office, or wealth management operations, with at least 3 years leading an operations team
- Hands-on experience administering a portfolio accounting and reporting platform (Addepar, Tamarac, Black Diamond, or similar), and the willingness to become the firm's administrator for Addepar
- Experience running client billing processes and the ability to understand and own the logic behind advisor compensation
- Experience managing vendor relationships end-to-end: selection, contract, renewal, administration
- Working knowledge of SEC-registered investment adviser operations and the compliance obligations that touch operations (custody, books and records, trade errors)
- Clear writer and presenter who can explain an operating model to advisors, leadership, and partners
- Advanced Excel
Preferred
- Direct Addepar administration experience
- Working knowledge of alternative-investment operations (capital calls, distributions, 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 and comfort working alongside a technical counterpart
- CFP, CFA, or MBA; Series 65
Who thrives here
- A problem solver who rolls up their sleeves: you would rather fix it than delegate it, and you build as you go
- Curious and industrious: you pull on threads, learn the systems deeply, and fix what you find
- You grow a role rather than maintain it; you will inherit a working model and are expected to document it and make it better
- An aspiring leader: you want to build and grow a team, not inherit one
- Operationally minded first: you think in processes, handoffs, and standards, and you notice when one is slipping
- Comfortable with ambiguity in a firm that is actively acquiring and adding advisors
- Credible with advisors: you can hold a room, push back when needed, and keep their trust
Metrics you'll own: billing accuracy and timeliness, client reporting delivery against the quarterly calendar, trade error rate and time to resolution, advisor and client onboarding cycle time, and data-integrity audit findings closed.
