The scope of what a family office manages has expanded well beyond investments. Most family offices we work with now oversee some combination of property portfolios, household staff across multiple residences, travel logistics, philanthropy, security, and the personal affairs of several generations of the same family. The operational load is considerable, and the way the staff team is structured makes a real difference to how smoothly things run.
This is where we see the most variation between family offices. Some are tightly run with three or four people covering everything. Others have teams of twenty or more spread across multiple locations. The question isn’t how many people you have. It’s whether the roles are defined clearly enough that nothing falls through the gaps and nobody is duplicating effort.
Where the pressure sits
The most common staffing issue we see in family offices is role overlap. A PA who is also expected to function as a Chief of Staff. An Office Manager handling HR, compliance and property logistics. A House Manager at one residence trying to coordinate staff across three others without clear authority to do so.
These overlaps tend to develop gradually. A capable person takes on more because they can, and over time the role expands beyond what one person can sustain. The result is usually burnout, turnover, or both, and the family office ends up recruiting for the same position repeatedly.
The family offices that retain staff well tend to be the ones that have taken the time to define each role properly and create clear reporting lines. That doesn’t require a corporate-style org chart, but it does require clarity about who owns what.
Many family offices reach this structure gradually rather than designing it from the start. A single trusted assistant often begins by supporting the principal directly. As the family’s operations expand, additional residences, staff, advisers and projects, that role grows around the pressure points. Over time the office becomes a small organisation in its own right, and the informal structure that worked when the team was two people starts to show strain. That is usually the moment when families begin formalising roles such as Chief of Staff, Estate Manager or senior EA.
How the key roles fit together
Every family office is different, but the staffing structures that work well tend to share a few common features.
A Chief of Staff sits at the centre. They coordinate between the principal, household teams, external advisers and office staff. They own the strategic overview, the calendar, the project pipeline and the communication flow. In a well-structured family office, the Chief of Staff is the person who makes sure everyone else can do their job without constantly going back to the principal for direction.
A Personal Assistant or Executive Assistant handles the day-to-day detail. Diary, travel, correspondence, personal errands, family logistics. In some family offices, this role reports to the Chief of Staff. In others, particularly where the principal is very hands-on, the PA reports directly to the principal and works alongside the Chief of Staff rather than beneath them. Either can work, but the reporting line needs to be clear.
On the household side, a House Manager or Estate Manager oversees the physical properties. Staff rotas, maintenance schedules, contractors, inventories, security. For families with multiple residences, this role often involves coordinating teams across different locations and managing the logistics of the family moving between them. We wrote recently about how families approach staffing across multiple residences.
Then there are the specialist household roles, Housekeeper, Butler, Chef, Nanny, Domestic Couple, that sit within the household structure. These roles work best when they have a clear line manager (usually the House Manager or Chief of Staff) and don’t need to go to the principal for every decision.
What has changed recently
Three shifts are worth noting.
The first is the increasing demand for Chiefs of Staff. Five years ago, most family offices we worked with had a senior PA as the most senior support role. Now, more are creating a distinct Chief of Staff position that sits above the PA and owns strategy, project management and team coordination. The PA role hasn’t disappeared, but the scope has been split, which tends to work better for everyone.
The second is the expectation that household and office staffing are coordinated, rather than running as separate operations. Families want one person (usually the Chief of Staff) who has visibility across both. The old model where the house ran itself and the office ran itself doesn’t work when the principal’s diary moves between both every day.
The third is international complexity. More of the family offices we recruit for operate across multiple countries. That means navigating different employment laws, managing staff who may need to travel at short notice, and coordinating across time zones. The staffing model needs to account for this, and the people in senior roles need to be comfortable working internationally.
Common structural mistakes
Two patterns come up repeatedly.
The first is promoting internally without redefining the role. A PA who has been with the family for years gets elevated to Chief of Staff, but nobody changes the brief. They end up doing both jobs, the PA responsibilities never get handed off, and the strategic work doesn’t get done properly. If you’re creating a Chief of Staff role from an existing PA position, the PA role needs to be backfilled.
The second is hiring household staff without connecting them to the family office structure. A Housekeeper at the country house, a Chef in London, a Nanny who travels with the family, each hired separately, each reporting directly to the principal. It works until it doesn’t, and when it breaks down it’s usually because nobody was coordinating the moving parts. A House Manager or Chief of Staff with clear oversight of household operations prevents this.
Getting the structure right
If you are reviewing how your family office is staffed, the most useful starting point is mapping who currently does what and where the overlaps, gaps and bottlenecks sit. From there, you can define the roles that need to exist and the reporting lines between them.
At 19 London, we recruit across the full range of family office and household roles, from Chiefs of Staff and Executive Assistants to Housekeepers, Butlers and Private Chefs. If you want to discuss how to structure your team or need to fill a specific role, contact us.