Despite the uncertainty and chaos that the Trump administration has brought to the U.S. economy and to Wall Street, many family offices remain optimistic. They are capitalizing on market volatility by seizing investment opportunities.
“History would indicate that three and five years out, equity returns will be really favorable,” Jack Ginter, CEO and founding partner of Callan Family Office, tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview. “So clients have been actively reallocating [and] putting additional funds to work in the market.”
The RIA is a licensee of Callan LLC, one of the biggest institutional investment consultants, whose support means that family office clients have access to institutional-quality products and services.
Callan Family Office, founded three years ago, already has more than $7 billion in assets under management. The average client wealth is $130 million.
The firm received two 2024 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries awards: Ginter won for executive of the year in the category of UHNW Wealth Management/Family Offices; the other was for the firm’s innovative Endure program that focuses on family governance, education and philanthropy.
Before forming Callan Family Office, Ginter was president of Abbot Downing (now The Wells Fargo Private Bank). A number of his former colleagues are co-founding partners.
In the interview, Ginter details how Callan Family Office is eager to add to its team of 42 advisors. He unpacks the required qualifications, which include a deep expertise in one of the significant wealth management disciplines.
Here are highlights of our conversation:
THINKADVISOR: Do President Donald Trump’s tariffs, firings, deportations and other moves magnify any issues concerning your family office clients?
JACK GINTER: We try to stay focused on facts. Certainly, we see what’s been happening over the last several weeks and the negative impact on GDP and corporate earnings. Of course, we don’t know what all the repercussions will be.
[But] we’re starting to talk with clients about where we see opportunities and are making specific plans. We look at this from a historical standpoint. History would indicate that three and five years out, equity returns will be really favorable.
So clients have been actively reallocating. They’re putting additional funds to work in the market.
You won a 2024 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries award for executive of the year, and Callan Family Office won another Luminaries award for innovation. What specific innovation?
It’s about the work we’re doing with our Endure program about wealth and wealth impact. With Endure, we’re advising about philanthropy as well as family governance and education.
Our average client relationship is approaching $130 million [in assets]. These clients have a level of wealth that will outlive them, and so they’re thinking about philanthropy.
In many cases, the clients we work with generated their wealth in the first generation and have sold the business. Their philanthropy is very generous.
What makes your firm different from other family offices?
All our investment professionals are highly credentialed veterans of the industry. They’ve spent the majority of their career working with ultra-high-net-worth clients.
The other thing is that we’re supported by Callan LLC, which has a 50-year history and is one of the largest institutional investment consultants in the industry. They’re advising on nearly $5 trillion of assets.
Last year on behalf of their clients, Callan placed $20 billion in private equity.
They’ve offered us their brand, which is why we’re called Callan Family Office, and we’re leveraging all aspects of Callan LLC. The clients of our firm get the benefits of the work Callan LLC is doing and the access that they bring.
Are you seeking to add advisors?
We launched in February 2022 and already have 42 on the team across the country.
Not a week goes by that we don’t have advisors inquiring about joining our firm.
We intend to bring in more advisors. We’re always thinking about who would be a great fit and how we will continue to grow our firm.
What qualifications are you looking for?
It’s all about experience with ultra-high-net-worth clients and acumen in one of the disciplines of wealth management. They need an understanding of [UHNW] clients’ expectations and some real depth in terms of their professional experience.
Such as?
We’re looking for investment professionals. We’re looking for [advisor] attorneys and people that have experience in estate tax or business tax, for example, and those that have deep experience on the fiduciary and trust side.
We marry that with the ability to help us grow the business over time.
In 2021, you left Abbot Downing, Wells Fargo’s ultra-high-net-worth business, where you were president. Why did you think February 2022 was a good time to found a family office?
I was convinced that we had the ability to build something exactly the way clients had been asking us to do in terms of solving the problems and challenges of the ultra-high net worth.
We thought that if we could assemble the right team and invest heavily in technology and really build out the offering, we could become a destination firm for ultra-high-net-worth clients.
We decided that the time was right and looked for advisors in the months leading up to the launch.
Sounds like you and your co-founders are quite entrepreneurial. Right?
Yes. We built this firm from scratch. It’s based on 20 to 30 years of experience working with ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Everything we do is founded on what clients have told us is most important to them.
That’s the guiding principle of how we built this firm.
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