I know a guy with a big, old and rambling house.
It needs a gut renovation.
I mean everything - siding, new lawn and garden, roof, floors, kitchen, piping, literally everything needed to be replaced except the foundation.
He is a very hands on person, so he decided to do it himself. Not actually do the work himself, but hire his own teams of roofers, gardeners, sprinkler system installers, kitchen designers and fitters etc.
He had to schedule each of them, manage each job individually, monitor and evaluate progress and pay each one on time.
If one was behind or there was a snag, he had to coordinate with all the other related teams to make sure they understood how the issue would impact their job.
He is often managing teams late into the night because something went wrong and they have to fix something quickly before the other teams come in for their projects in the morning. I am talking "up until 2am managing other people's jobs."
The job my friend chose for himself is called "general contracting," and it is a full time job that requires broad expertise and great management and communication skills.
Ultra high net worth families have lots of hats to wear when managing their estate.
They need to hire and manage the following subcontractors (not an exhaustive list):
Financial advisors
Public and private
Debt and equity
Trust and estates lawyers
Asset reporting team
Personal and back office administrators
Bookkeepers
Income-tax strategists
Asset valuation firms
Insurance specialists
They need to recruit and hire subcontractors that are world-class, and performing at the highest levels.
They also need to make sure that their investments are made in a tax-aware fashion - meaning that the financial advisor needs to coordinate with the trust and estate attorneys, as well as the income tax strategists and insurance specialists.
That means a lot of meetings, and a deep awareness not to create "churn," meaning wasted time that racks up bills and doesn't produce benefit.
Someone has to manage this large and complex project, and the family who has a lot of their own "front-burner" issues definitely doesn't want to commit full-time resources to something that feels like it is on the "back burner but boiling over."
Who is making sure that the family's investments are beating the benchmarks, and creating the highest net after tax profits possible?
If you don't have a general contractor - YOU are the general contractor.
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