2026 Family Offices Compensation Report

Methodology

In an online survey, we asked participants to report their base compensation for 2026, 2025, and 2024; the value of cash bonuses and additional incentives received in 2025 and 2024; and their anticipated bonus and additional incentives for 2026. They also provided information about any additional incentives received, their organizations, and their demographic backgrounds. All data are self-reported and presented in aggregate form.

Cash base, cash bonus, and additional incentive statistics are calculated separately using respondents who reported each component. Respondents who reported zero or did not report a value for a given component are excluded from the calculation of that component’s distribution. Total cash compensation is calculated at the individual respondent level as cash base plus cash bonus, and total compensation as total cash compensation plus annual additional incentive, and then aggregated. Respondents who do not receive a bonus or annual additional incentive are included in the respective total calculations with those components treated as zero.

Only additional incentives reported on an annual basis are included in total compensation; other additional incentives are excluded from annual total compensation calculations. For 2026, total cash compensation and total compensation may include anticipated or expected bonus and annual additional incentive amounts, as these components may not yet have been paid at the time of the survey.

The respondent pools included in each calculation may also differ due to missing data and outlier treatment. As a result, average cash base plus average cash bonus may not equal average total cash compensation, and average total cash compensation plus average additional incentive may not equal average total compensation.

In some instances, the average may exceed the 75th percentile. This can occur when particularly high values influence the mean, especially when sample sizes are small.

All compensation figures are reported in U.S. dollars (USD). Compensation reported in other currencies was converted to USD using August 2026 average exchange rates, as reported in the Federal Reserve’s September 1, 2026 release. The exchange rates used, expressed as USD per one unit of local currency, were: EUR 1.1594; GBP 1.3516; BRL 0.1941; CHF 1.2322; MXN 0.0588; CAD 0.7196; AUD 0.7147; NOK 0.1072; and HKD 0.1275.

Market context

Family offices are entering a new phase of professionalization. After years of expanding in number, assets, investment sophistication, and scope, the focus is increasingly shifting toward the organizational infrastructure and leadership capabilities required to support that growth. Succession, technology, risk management, and operational complexity are all taking on greater importance as offices mature. In fact, according to our survey, governance and family dynamics now rank as the most common challenges facing family offices.

Yet professionalization does not necessarily mean building larger organizations or bringing every capability in-house. Family offices are remaining relatively lean even as their investment models and leadership mandates become more sophisticated. As a result, individual executives are taking on broader mandates, often spanning investment, general management, operations, finance, governance, and family priorities. Offices are also making increasingly deliberate choices about which capabilities to build internally and where to rely on external expertise. Growing interest in direct investing is adding to those demands, while technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are widening the range of operating models available.

Meanwhile, many family offices are navigating changes that extend well beyond investing. Generational transitions are prompting families to reassess governance, decision rights, and the roles of family members and professional executives. Succession is therefore becoming as much a leadership and organizational issue as a wealth-transfer issue. Many offices are also embedded within broader family enterprises that include active operating businesses and increasingly global structures. These dynamics are creating significant complexity within organizations that continue to concentrate substantial institutional knowledge and decision-making authority among a relatively small number of senior leaders.

While many of these forces are global, they are playing out differently across markets. In the United States, larger asset bases and more developed organizational structures are creating broad, increasingly enterprise-like leadership mandates. In Europe, sophisticated investment models are intersecting with the regulatory, tax, and organizational complexity of operating across multiple jurisdictions. In Brazil, growing family wealth and increasingly sophisticated family office models are creating greater demand for professional leadership and organizational capabilities as the market continues to mature. These differences are also reflected in respondents’ concerns: Brazilian family offices place particular emphasis on compensation competitiveness and attracting and retaining talent, European respondents on the regulatory and tax environment, and US respondents on technology and infrastructure.

These changes are reshaping both the leadership mandate and the talent proposition. Family offices continue to compete with private equity firms, hedge funds, asset managers, and other investment organizations for experienced leaders, but they increasingly need executives capable of navigating investment, organizational, and family priorities simultaneously. Candidates, meanwhile, are looking beyond compensation to the clarity of the mandate, decision rights, governance, resources, and relationship with the family.

Compensation, therefore, needs to be understood in the context of the leadership mandate each family office is building rather than against a single family office benchmark. Scale matters, but so do the investment model, organizational complexity, generational transition, geography, and the breadth of an executive’s responsibilities. As family offices professionalize in different ways, compensation is increasingly connected to the capabilities required to lead them successfully.

For full demographic and compensation data, download the full report.

About the authors

Daniel Aghdami (daghdami@heidrick.com) is a partner and leads the Family Capital Practice in Europe and Africa; he is based in the Zurich office.

Natasha La Marca (nlamarca@heidrick.com) is a partner and member of the Financial Services Practice; she is based in the São Paulo office.

Paulo Mendes (pmendes@heidrick.com) is a partner and member of the CEO & Board of Directors, Private Equity, and Family Office practices; he is based in the Miami and São Paulo offices.

Renee Neri (rneri@heidrick.com) is a partner and leads the global Family Capital Practice in the Americas; she is based in the New York office.