Talent: Do You Have What it Takes
Mark Somers, Founder & CEO
Somers Partnership
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning Podcast. I'm your host Dr. Kirby Rosplock and today, we're talking about talent. I have an exceptionally wonderful guest today, Mark Somers, who's the co-founder with his wife of Somers Partnership. Now, this is an executive search firm that looks at top talent, around the globe for Family Offices. We're lucky enough to have Mark here today to talk about what it takes to work in a family office and if you're a family office, what it takes to find top talent today.
So, Mark welcome and we're so thrilled to have you here.
Mark Somers
Ok, thank you so much for asking me to join you. I'm actually delighted, and very much looking forward to this podcast. So thank you from over here in London.
Kirby Rosplock
So you're far away from where I'm sitting today, but maybe you can tell us, how did you get into the executive search field? And specifically, how were you drawn to or found your way, to working with family offices? I'm just so curious.
Mark Somers
Well, my first career was in the British Army. I was an officer in the cavalry and I was lucky enough to win a university scholarship, to pay for my university education from the army, and it was a fascinating time. And, reflecting back on it, the army does seem to be the ultimate people business. You learn a huge amount about yourself. You learn a lot about other people, learn about leadership, trust, integrity, and all the qualities that are so important in family offices.
Mark Somers
Well, in terms of how I got into executive search, when I got married, I decided I need to settle down and leave the army. So, I went into executive search, because I was keen to set up my own business and use some of the skills and experience that I've had picked up in the army. So that's been the case.
Mark Somers
I started working in wealth management section in the private bank, which is growing. And then, clearly went on to the family office area over the last 20 years now. As it has just got bigger and bigger and more interesting, more sophisticated . And as recruiters, we like to solve our clients' problems and produce solutions. And actually, what greater challenge could it be to work for, some of the most dynamic people on the planet, in terms of those that have created great wealth, and have extremely high standards and interesting experiences.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, you’ve distilled a lot of this wisdom and to not one, but two books. So we are so fortunate to have you because you've written the “How to Work for a Billionaire” which I'm sure has invaluable to those who are stepping into those shoes for the first time or seasoned veterans who are just trying to find ways to up your game. And then I love this new book which is so helpful for family offices who are trying to understand the talent space, “Family Office Fundamentals”. This is your most recent book on, you know, creating staffing and future proofing of the family office.
So there seems to be just so much information that you have been able to pull together in this space. Tell me a little bit more about how these two different book's tackle the topic of talent and the family and the family office.
Mark Somers
Well, firstly, in the second book and the “Family Office Fundamentals” we were indeed fortunate to have your input into that, and thank you again for your renewed contribution. We went around, the family office ecosystem, globally, and interviewed 50 of the leaders and thinkers consultants across the sector, as well as principals, and gathered their thoughts together. And I’d say, a renewed, thanks to you for your contribution to it.
Mark Somers
And how the books balance with one another is that they address either side of the equation. So, the “How to Work for a Billionare” is written for people who wished to understand more about the challenges and benefits of working within a single family office environment. So, that stressed the candidates side of the equation, and “Family Office Fundamentals” is written for families, who are thinking about setting up a family office or indeed, have already have one, and looking to strengthen the talent bench and future proof that family office as well. So, it essentially addresses both sides of the equation.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, let's start with the first side of the equation. More connected to your first book. What does it take? Right? What are the requirements today to work in a family office, and how might that look a little bit differently than, say, a decade ago.
Mark Somers
Well, the trend that we've observed over the last decade or so with, with family offices and how they staff or how they start is that there has been greater professionalization across the whole of the sector. And that actually goes down to the people that work in family offices as well. So, each search that we do, in each role, within a family office, has a deep, professional requirement. And we look at jobs within family offices, rather, like a T-shaped structure. So, you have a central plinth that is the deep skill. And then, when you join the family office, your deep skill goes broader, and spreads out like a T. And that is one of the joys of working within a family office . So far, as you can gain mastery of the role , you can get better and better and get wider and wider in terms of your understanding and capabilities of doing that role.
Mark Somers
So, uniquely, within family offices, there is not the sort of normal career structure that you get in corporate. And one needs to understand that before embarking on a career within family offices. And in addition to the professional side and the skills and experiences that are so important, we also look for an overlay of other characteristics, which are often, some of them are really unlike those to be found in the corporate world. So we're looking for high levels of EQ. We're looking for trustworthiness . We looking for discretion, for integrity, which are all common in the in the corporate world as well. But in addition to that, we're looking for a fiduciary mindset. We're looking for people who understand the concept of stewardship in a really deep way. We're looking for people who have an idea of a higher purpose and also humility and the ability to fix puzzles and get to get things done.We're looking for an appetite of hard work. We're looking for strength of character. We're looking for diplomacy. And we're also looking, and I think what brings all of this together is, we're looking for people who are comfortable in working in an environment of abundance when they come from an environment of scarcity, and people who can mentally change their thinking when they come into work about what the two concepts are. This is a particular attribute for being a successful executive within a family office.
Kirby Rosplock
That's an interesting last item that you leave us with because quite honestly, there is an admiration. I want to be in the inner circles of these extraordinarily powerful and wealthy individuals and families. Yet, there also has to be this respect, distance, and removal of judgement, right? Now, they are so entitled, or they have so much waste or whatever, whatever it is, about what they observe. To compartmentalize perhaps, their own personal feelings, right? And really engage in a super professional, and also, I mean, let's call it, for what it is, but a risk management type of approach, where you're thinking constantly about the vulnerabilities of these positions of power, and wealth and influence.
Mark Somers
Completely. That fiduciary mindset and that stewardship is very important to do and the fact, you remind me of one other attribute that is also very useful within the family office. And that is the suspension of disbelief as you say. You know, this is the difference between abundance of scarcity and actually, if people wish to do things in a particular way, well, that's, that's ultimately their business.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, I find that the way I operate when I work with so many families is that I am humbled, right, to always be able to work in these circles and to work with top talent, but recognize that I'm always, across a veil. Like I'm never really going to be super well connected or super intimately connected. And I think that's a big mistake, that many family office professionals, and, or consultants make, is that they think they are, um, you know so inextricably linked, or need to be connected. And the reality is we're all expendable, replaceable. And that humility, I think, goes a long way when working with these types of families.
Mark Somers
I couldn't agree more. In fact, that's what prompted us to write the first book, which was advice to two candidates wanting to do that because we have so many people writing in to us wanting to work in a family office environments. And sometimes, it's because they, they've had enough of being on the south side by side, or they want to have an easy life. Or they've got five years left on their careers, they think, and they want to have a nice sort of gentle roll into retirement.
Mark Somers
And these are things that are absolutely not anything that has ever appeared on any job spec, that we been given or worked on in creating a family office. And because there was such a mismatch in terms of understanding of what working in a family office might be like, and the realities of doing it, we went and interviewed a lot of our clients. And so straight from the horse's mouth, we got their requirements and put that into a book. And the thesis of the first book, to candidates, is this know thy self and if you have a good understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and having read the book, you think that there's a good match, well then you should see if you can pursue a career in the family office sector. And if you think that might be a difference, then it's probably best to take talents, new expertise into another sphere.
Kirby Rosplock
So let's flip over to the family office leadership side who might be looking to staff up or augment their team. Why is talent at such a premium at this juncture and what is it that fundamentally you see the opportunities but the challenges to staffing a family office today?
Mark Somers
Well, the people puzzles around family offices of so many varied up. The first is that the supply of true talent at work in family offices is extremely limited. It's also global. It's rather like a soup bowl. It's sort of very broad and very shallow intensive talent pool. And accessing that talent pool, this is really quite difficult. So finding the right people, this is, it's quite a challenge.
Mark Somers
And then selecting them according to the exact requirements of the family office, the purposes of each family office is going to be different from the next family office, and so just because the context has worked in one company does not necessarily mean that they are the right person to go in and another. So defining the requirement is the second challenge after finding the the right sort of talent. And then bringing those individuals in it and making sure they're paid and at the right level, structured in the right way, that they're attractive, that they're incentivized, and that they’re retained is also another big, big challenge to overcome for a family office.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, certainly compensation probably looks very different across the spectrum of clients that you work with and perhaps traditional comp and say, a wealth, investment or wealth advisory firm, or a broker dealer product shop. Maybe you can talk a little bit. I know you've done so much work on the compensation side. Are there any sort of trends or best practices that you see bubbling to the top.
Mark Somers
Well absolutely. We've just completed working with for over a year, a compensation consultancy firm run by a lady, Trish Botoff, based in the United States. We brought her to the UK and Europe and persuaded up 199 family offices to update the details onto a report, to shed a light, shed a bright light in terms of what the norms are in terms of payment for different functions within the suite of the family office, and at different sizes, and the full complexity of family offices. So that report has just been published and that was very interesting indeed. The pay we consider to be a hygiene factor. So, it's really the cost of access to human capital.
Mark Somers
What we specialize in is finding the human capital, looking to find the most value, ie, getting the biggest bang for their buck, in terms of what those teams can deliver. And we're seeking for this, we're seeking this Nirvana of compound talent view. If everyone understands the concept of compound interest and how powerful that is?
But our thesis is that actually the compound talent is actually much more powerful than compound interest. That's what we seek for our clients, to bring that on board, which is a mixture of getting great talents and experience, focusing them, anchoring them within the family office. At the same time, paying people correctly and appropriately, in such a way that they are attracted to join the family office in the first place. Secondly, that they are incentivized to deliver to the family office. And thirdly that they are also reatined as well because when you’ve got a great member of the team on board, you don't want to lose them in this great war for talent that exists globally for good quality family office professionals.
Kirby Rosplock
And tell me a little bit Mark when when you're dealing with a new family office or perhaps principals, and there is no existing family office. Can you share some of the common pitfalls or the challenges that you observe? And I'm just guessing, because you are such a thought leader, author extraordinaire, how do you help educate them so that they aren't going under a search with false pretenses? Like, oh, I can just get excellent talent, maybe not compensation, compensate them adequately and they'll stick with me because I'm such a big name or an important person. So, tell me more about the challenges that you see?
Mark Somers
Well, Kirby you've actually hit the nail on the head in terms of all the people puzzles that you could possibly be presented with. The people puzzle for finding the right staff for a new family office is very much, it's that institution about which nobody really knows anything. There's no brand, that infrastructure.There's nothing. There’s an absolute green field site.
Mark Somers
So, to find the right people for that, is really difficult. And oftentimes we're looking to bring the right person out of a corporate environment, where the structure is completely different, and the career structures different, and so on. So, it's how do you bridge that gap is a real puzzle? So what we have done is, we've thought about this long and hard, and we've developed a process which should help families, who are thinking about setting up family offices, to work out, how to get the right people. And it's the sequence. There's a chain you start off with, and you look at the, you look at the family itself. You look at the values of the family and how those values manifest themselves in terms of time, terms of treasure, in terms of talent.
Mark Somers
I mean, what they do, to demonstrate to who they are, and what's important to them. So we would help sort of understand that and pin down what that values is because values drive everything else in this chain. So we look at the values of the family. Then we look at the purpose. What is the purpose of the family office?
What's the reason? Why does it exist? But really exist? And drill down on the side from the purpose. We then move on to the proposition. What does the family deliver, to the benefits of the family office and what it delivers to the beneficiaries.
You know, who does what for whom, and by when? And to what, level of quality?
And so on, so forth. So what is the proposition? Which is really important.
Mark Somers
And once you've got those first three things, the values, proposition, it's then possible to have an intelligent conversation about the kinds of people that you need in order to staff that family office and deliver that proposition. And once you've got an understanding of that with the organic diagram, the structure, and the job specs , then the real specifications for each, you can draw out a person specification and then do an executive search across the world for those individuals.
Mark Somers
And then we've got the people. Then if we move on to the pay which underpins the whole thing, and that's what, I mean by being a hygiene factor. If the pay follows, the people from that perspective. That’s the order and sequence we to try to go through to find the right people.
Mark Somers
That's the reason we wrote the book. Because too often, we'd be approached by someone or a family thinking about setting up a family office and they will say, well, can you find the right person for us? We say we can find people for you, but we think you'd be better served if you have gone through that thought process, before we get onto the actual people side.
Kirby Rosplock
And Mark, do you ever find that you have principals who say, “Oh, no, no, no, we already have identified our former CFO, or our accountant, or our attorney, or banker. They're going to come fill this role. We just want you to do this search over here for XYZ”. Do you ever find that you're also trying to work with a rubric that wouldn't be your design or to try and to speak some sense or give some wisdom of why it might not be the greatest? It might feel more efficient and cheaper to pull somebody else up, but maybe it's not really right? Have you had that experience before?
Mark Somers
We have. We've had that experience quite a lot in the past. One of the great trends that we've been observing was the creative professionalization of family offices. Certainly when we first do this what you get is families would and particularly, the principal would place a great deal of emphasis on finding someone who they already trusted. And that would normally outweigh the professionalism, the skills, and experience that individual necessarily brings. Now, that'd be in the right area, and it wouldn't be a total disaster, but it just wouldn't be as enhanced of a result that they could possibly get.
Mark Somers
So we will often see that where someone who was known was placed in a position which they weren't necessarily particularly suited for. And that would last, for a period of time. So what we're seeing now is that there’s a professionalism in terms of the approach, engaging us to help, but also the professionalism of the candidates that are being looked for has gone up. Whereas before the process was led by trust, and professionalism was a second secondary order. Now, it's delivered or the search is delivered where the professionalism, the value add is much greater, and the trust comes. It develops and earned over time, but that's more of a secondary order. So we have notice that change.
Kirby Rosplock
So, Mark, if there were a couple of takeaways for those who wanted to work for our family office, versus those who are staffing or looking to hire in a family office, can you give us some closing thoughts on sort of both sides of the equation about the talent premium? And what if you want to come into this space you should be prepared? And if you're hiring in this space, you should be prepared? Maybe your wisdom would be super helpful here?
Mark Somers
Well, yeah. Thank you. Well, I think it's by way of summary. If you're a candidate looking into the area, it's really important you understand yourself really, really, very thoroughly. You want to understand your motivations and what you want to achieve and what you think you can deliver within the sector. And until you're in that position, you're not going to be great. You won't have a great deal to offer until you have that level of self awareness.
Mark Somers
And if you're recruiting into a family office, it's really important that one understands the purpose of the family and what it is that their trying to do and that their trying to fulfill? And again, if that could be to done, other things then fall into place. It can be a much simpler result and one's less likely to make a big error.
Mark Somers
And staffing errors within family offices are really costly. You know, it's one of the reasons that we supported Trish in the compensation survey because we have found in the past that family offices, principles particularly, have tried to get, for example, a chief investment officer at a lower price than the market warrants. It's got to be one of the worst examples of cost saving because if you pay the person, you know, a few, tens of dollars, less than, than they're worth, and then you would trust them with investing hundreds of millions of pounds or dollars. Then, actually, it's a very, very short sighted saving, which is unlikely to benefit the family for the long term.
Kirby Rosplock
Very, very good words of wisdom. I have to say, I feel like the compensation is a central theme to successful talent acquisition, onboarding, and long term retention. So we could probably talk even more about that next time. Mark Somers, thank you so much for being here today. So many incredible thoughts and ideas, and certainly, you can read lots more in this book and his prior book on “How to Work for a Billionaire”. I think, no, this conversation never gets old. We know that premium of family office talent is only going up and and we're facing a big transition. So, we know more and more owners and operators are retiring and aging out. We certainly need to have more top talent coming into this space to serve this very niche echelon of ultra high net worth individuals. So thank you so much. I know you have some links below on our podcast that you can check out to find more about his books, about his firm, about the compensation study. So, we are so grateful to have him here today on the Tamarind Learning podcast. This is Dr. Kirby Rosplock and we're signing out.
Mark Somers
Thank you very much, indeed. It’s a great pleasure to be here.
