The day you sold your business was monumental. It was the culmination of years—likely decades—of relentless effort, personal sacrifice, strategic thinking, and leadership. The check cleared, the contracts were signed, and just like that, a significant chapter of your life came to a close. But as the adrenaline fades and the dust settles, you may find yourself in unfamiliar territory. The sense of freedom is real, but so is the gravity of what comes next.
You are now in possession of more than just significant liquidity—you hold a complex responsibility. Not only to yourself, but to your family, to your legacy, and perhaps even to causes and communities you care deeply about. The stakes are higher. The decisions are more nuanced. And for many, the sense of what to do next is less clear than expected.
So, what is the next step?
For individuals and families who have experienced a major liquidity event, such as the sale of a business, forming a family office is often the natural progression. But make no mistake—this is not about replicating a corporate structure or building a miniature company to manage your wealth. This is about creating a purposeful, flexible framework that supports your goals, protects your legacy, and offers clarity in a time of transition.
And here is where the journey truly begins.
Begin with Leadership, Not Infrastructure
The idea of a family office can be overwhelming. When most people hear the term, they picture a suite of staff, a complex tech stack, and a dizzying number of financial and legal documents. But a family office does not begin with infrastructure—it begins with leadership. The right leadership. You do not need a building full of specialists to start. What you need is the one person who can connect the dots and keep the big picture in focus.
The Critical Role of the Expert Generalist
Enter the Expert Generalist.
This is not a role you hear about often, and it is even more rarely filled by the right person. That is because an expert generalist is difficult to find. They sit at the intersection of disciplines. They are not simply a financial advisor, tax specialist, or estate planner. Instead, they possess an unusually broad knowledge base and can think across silos. They understand enough about investment strategy to engage with your portfolio manager, enough about tax to communicate with your CPA, and enough about governance to facilitate healthy family conversations.
Think of this person as your strategic integrator—a translator between experts and your family. They are capable of holding the full context of your financial, legal, philanthropic, and personal priorities, and they know when and how to bring in deeper expertise. They can see where decisions intersect, where risks are buried, and where opportunities may go unrealized.
When you are navigating wealth at this level, it is rarely the obvious mistake that causes problems. More often, it is the missed connection between disciplines. A generous charitable gift that unknowingly disrupts your estate plan. A trust structure that inadvertently creates tension between generations. A real estate investment that affects your family’s liquidity in ways no one anticipated. The expert generalist exists to prevent those missteps and to guide you with coherence and clarity.
Because this role is so crucial—and so unique—it is often the most difficult one to fill. The person you choose needs a rare blend of competence, humility, strategic insight, and emotional intelligence. They are your most important early hire, and getting this right makes everything that follows significantly easier.
Build the Core, Then Expand
With the expert generalist in place, the foundation of your family office is set. From there, the next most important hires are operational in nature. An experienced executive assistant brings order to the complexity, managing schedules, coordinating with professional advisors, handling document flow, and ensuring communication stays efficient. This role is often underestimated but quickly becomes indispensable. They ensure that the right things happen at the right time, with nothing slipping through the cracks.
Next comes a financial professional—typically someone with accounting and tax expertise. Their role is not merely to keep the books, but to maintain clarity and control across all financial flows. With accurate data and informed reporting, you gain visibility and confidence, both of which are essential when managing significant wealth. Tax planning, cash flow forecasting, charitable accounting—these are not things you want to improvise.
This lean team—the expert generalist, the executive assistant, and the accounting lead—is often all you need to begin. From there, you can scale intentionally. Perhaps you want to formalize a philanthropic initiative. Maybe your family is interested in direct investments or building a private equity portfolio. Or you might want to explore the creation of trusts or family governance structures to prepare the next generation.
Whatever your goals, this core team gives you the flexibility to adapt, the structure to operate, and the insight to move forward with confidence.
The Family Office as a Reflection of Purpose
A family office is not a static entity. It is a living, evolving system that should reflect your family’s values, goals, and circumstances. For some, the focus may be preserving wealth. For others, it may be empowering children and grandchildren to take on leadership roles, invest with purpose, or engage in high-impact philanthropy. There is no one-size-fits-all model.
That is why it is important, once your core team is in place, to define a shared vision. What do you want your wealth to do for you, your family, and your community? What are the values that should guide your decisions? How will you make choices when opinions differ or uncertainty arises?
These conversations are not always easy, but they are essential. Done well, they create alignment and continuity. They allow wealth to become a tool—one that supports opportunity, resilience, and intergenerational unity—rather than a source of division or stress.
Let Us Help You Take the First Step
At Olson Wealth Group, we believe that building a family office is one of the most meaningful steps you can take after the sale of a business. It is not about creating bureaucracy—it is about building a foundation for enduring impact. We specialize in helping families transition into this next chapter with clarity, intention, and support.
If you are thinking about what comes next and want to explore what it would look like to establish your own family office—starting with the right leadership—let us be your partner in that journey.
You have built something extraordinary. Now is the time to ensure that what you have created continues to serve your family for generations to come.