Fifteen Percent of Family Office Principals Are Women. That Number Is About to Move.

^{Echo to Athena Journal · 3 October 2026}

Women are the principals of about 15 percent of single family offices worldwide, according to Deloitte Private’s survey of 354 offices. That share is about to be tested. Four in ten families expect a generational succession within a decade, wealth is moving to spouses and daughters, and the office’s job is changing.

A second number sits beside it. In Agreus and KPMG Private Enterprise’s 2023 survey of more than 650 family-office professionals, 21 percent identified as women. Those are not footnotes. They are a lagging indicator.

The work of the office has already changed.

A family office is a private company set up to manage one wealthy family’s investments, administration and, increasingly, its governance. The principal is the family member who holds final authority over it.

A family office used to exist to keep the portfolio intact and the name quiet. The latest editions of the large surveys, from UBS, J.P. Morgan and Deloitte, keep returning to a different brief: prepare future owners, write down governance, survive the departure of one indispensable executive, and keep the family in the same room long enough to make a decision.

That brief is relational and technical at the same time. Families are noticing who can do both.

Why is the principal’s chair opening?

Four in ten families in Deloitte’s research expect to go through generational succession in the next ten years, and 41 percent have no plan for succession of the family leadership. In the same research, the average family-office principal was 68 [Deloitte, 2024, via Caproasia].

Capital is moving too. Cerulli Associates projects that $54 trillion will pass between US spouses through 2048, with more than 95 percent of it going to women.

Some female successors are choosing the office over the operating company. Not as a consolation prize, but as the seat where investment, philanthropy and family process actually meet.

15% of single family offices worldwide have a woman as principal. Among principals with US$100 million or more, women are also 15%, though they make up only about 10% of the world’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals. [Deloitte, 2024]; [Paperjam, 2024]

Deloitte also found that, on a like-for-like basis, women are more likely than men to use a family office for their wealth management [Deloitte, 2024]. That finding should be on the wall of every search firm that still treats “family office talent” as a male CIO plus a female chief of staff.

What are women doing in the seat that the old model missed?

Kathy Lintz, founder of the St. Louis multi-family office Matter Family Office, has said that with one of the largest intergenerational wealth transfers underway, communication, education and shared purpose will be central to a successful transition. Her firm, she says, spends a great deal of time on governance, decision-making and preparing future generations for responsibility [Family Wealth Report, 2026].

That is not a softer mandate. It is how you keep an office serving a family worth billions from becoming a museum with a trading account. The families in UBS’s 2026 survey had an average net worth of $2.7 billion [UBS, 2026].

Three documents a principal puts in writing

A principal who takes the governance brief seriously forces three documents into existence:

• A decision-rights chart that says who can say yes, who can say no, and who is only informed.
• A next-generation pathway that is not “sit in the meeting until you absorb it by osmosis.”
• A values statement that can survive a term sheet.

If those sound like family-systems tools, they are. They are also operational controls. The offices that skip them are the ones that later call a psychologist after the siblings stop speaking.

What are decision rights?

Decision rights are the agreed rules for who in a family office can approve, veto, or simply be informed of a decision: hiring advisors, setting investment policy, approving distributions, chairing the family meeting. When they are not written down, they default to whoever has always held them.

For families in London, Zurich, Singapore and Hong Kong

Cross-border offices feel this first. UBS’s 2026 report found that 88 percent of family offices hold investable assets in at least two jurisdictions, and 68 percent in at least three. Multi-jurisdiction structures require someone who can hold legal complexity without losing the human plot.

Swiss, Singapore and Hong Kong seats already live in that tension. Deloitte found women lead 20 percent of family offices in Europe and 18 percent in Asia Pacific [Paperjam, 2024]. A principal who can only speak allocation will miss the residency, tax and loyalty questions that actually blow up a family.

What should you do if you are next?

If you are a woman already inside the office

Ask for the org chart of decisions, not titles. Titles lie. Decision rights do not.

If you are a daughter who wants the office, not the factory

Say that out loud. The family cannot appoint you to a role you have only hinted at.

If you advise a family whose principal is 68 and male

Put succession of the office on the agenda this quarter. Not succession of the company. The office.

J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s 2026 Global Family Office Report, a survey of 333 family offices in 30 countries, found that 86 percent lack a clear succession plan for key decision-makers. Reporting on the same study, Crain Currency noted that about a third of offices named that gap among their top risks, and another third cited overreliance on a single individual or provider.

That person will leave. Deloitte expects the share of family offices led by non-family professionals to rise from 35 percent to 49 percent after succession. The question is whether the women in the system are being prepared as principals or as staff.

Fifteen percent is a starting number. It is not a destiny.

May the woman who enters this work leave more fully herself.

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Sources

• Deloitte Private. “Deloitte Private’s latest report in its Family Office Insights Series - Global Edition explores the rapid expansion of family offices.” Press release, 4 September 2024. deloitte.com. Supports: 15% of principals are women; women more likely to use a family office; 15% of principals with $100M+.
• Deloitte Private. Defining the Family Office Landscape, 2024: Executive Summary. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2024. deloitte.com (PDF). Supports: regional shares (North America 12%, Europe 20%). Survey of 354 single family offices, Sept–Dec 2023.
• Deloitte Private. The Family Office Insights Series - Global Edition (inaugural report). 2024. deloitte.com. Supports: 41% of families expect generational succession within ten years; 41% without a plan; 35% of heads non-family, expected 49% after succession.
• Caproasia. Summary of Deloitte Family Office Insights Report 2024. caproasia.com. Supports: average principal age 68 (secondary source).
• Paperjam. “Family office assets set for $5.4trn.” 2024. paperjam.lu. Supports: regional breakdown (Asia Pacific 18%) and women as about 10% of UHNW individuals (secondary, reporting Deloitte).
• Family Wealth Report. “Study Shines Light On What Family Office Professionals Are Paid.” 7 June 2023 (Agreus Group and KPMG Private Enterprise, 2023 Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark Report). familywealthreport.com. Supports: 21% of professionals are women; 650+ respondents.
• Family Wealth Report. “Global Politics, Talent Woes, Legacy Anxiety And Private Equity Top 2026 Family Office Concerns.” 2 February 2026 (J.P. Morgan Private Bank, 2026 Global Family Office Report). familywealthreport.com. Supports: 86% lack clear succession plan for key decision-makers; 333 offices.
• CIO / ai-cio.com. “Key Metrics About Family Offices and Their Strategies.” 2026. ai-cio.com. Supports: J.P. Morgan survey method (333 offices, 30 countries, May–July 2025).
• Crain Currency. “The one-person family office: what breaks when the CIO walks out the door.” 26 June 2026. craincurrency.com. Supports: one-third / one-third risk findings from J.P. Morgan 2026.
• UBS. “UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.” Media release, 28 May 2026. ubs.com. Supports: 307 family offices; average family net worth $2.7 billion.
• Caproasia. “UBS Global Family Office Report 2026.” 11 June 2026. caproasia.com. Supports: 88% in at least two jurisdictions, 68% in at least three; average office AUM $1.3 billion (secondary).
• Cerulli Associates. “$54 Trillion Will Transfer to Widows Through 2048; More Than 95% Will Go to Women.” Press release, 22 January 2025. cerulli.com. Supports: spousal wealth transfer projection (US).
• Family Wealth Report. The Family Wealth Report Awards 2026: Acclaim, “Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Katherine Lintz on the Future of Family Wealth.” 2026. issuu.com. Supports: Lintz paraphrase.

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