Evan Jehle, CPA/PFS, is a partner at FFO and a technical expert and industry luminary providing accounting, tax and business consulting and advanced planning services to ultra-wealthy clients including business owners, celebrities, athletes, asset managers and executives. Combining his depth of experience with the PFS accreditation, Evan is uniquely positioned to serve as a trusted advisor providing objective recommendations in all areas of personal financial planning, including income tax, estate, retirement, investment and risk management.
Russ Alan Prince: Please describe FFO.
Evan Jehle: FFO is a multi-family office with the mission of letting our clients fully realize the benefits of their exceptional wealth. We do that by creating, implementing and refining customized solutions that encompass and unify our clients’ financial and lifestyle objectives. Our family office service professionals deliver multi-disciplinary expertise in balance sheet wealth preservation and are distinctly attuned to the lifestyle management goals of high-net-worth individuals and families.
FFO’s goals are clear. We help high-net-worth individuals and families meet their goals and objectives. We do not provide investment advisory services or manage assets, assuring the personalized support and focused collaboration of an independent team.
FFO’s core values are centered around the 4 C’s: Confidentiality, Competency, Continuity and Caring.
Confidentiality is our overriding commitment to our clients that their personal and financial information will be kept private, giving them peace of mind.
Competency is delivering on our clients’ expectations of exemplary quality assurance and internal controls, unsurpassed expertise, and uncompromising accuracy at the highest level.
Continuity is the confidence our clients have in knowing that although attrition in any operation is inevitable, we understand that the impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation can loom large. The ultra-wealthy family is reassured knowing that in the event of personnel changes, the institutional knowledge of the family and its objectives stays behind.
Caring seems like an obvious principle, but it is surprising how often it is overlooked. Ultra-wealthy clients typically require and expect a greater level of service. The level of care and sensitivity exhibited in delivering this customized support is the primary difference between being a trusted advisor and a replaceable vendor.
Prince: What expertise do you provide your clients?
Jehle: FFO is the central advisor to our clients, often serving as their Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officers, depending on their evolving needs. We will tailor our services to provide the infrastructure, process, and results they demand. This requires that we are experts at making the complex simple.
Our clients utilize some or all of our services as part of the virtual infrastructure we build around them. Services are offered directly or through our vetted network of expert service provider relationships. We centrally coordinate and manage all aspects to ensure seamless integration and effective oversight of all functions. This holistic orientation allows us to unlock synergies and drive truly exceptional results for clients.
With a strong emphasis on advanced planning, we guide our clients through a sound reassessment of past decisions and fresh determination of the appropriate direction moving forward. The virtual infrastructure we build around our clients is designed and managed specifically for the benefit of each individual, family, or institution.
We can provide whatever the family or institution requires and wants, directly or indirectly. We bring it all together, acting as the central hub, integrating an array of services into a solution designed specifically for you supported with consolidated reporting and augmented by easy-to-use technology. We act as a fiduciary and serve as a trustee when deemed appropriate by the client.
We review the current estate and wealth management plans, and all life insurance policies. We provide recommendations and advice regarding estate and financial planning based on our findings and our clients’ future objectives. We interface with our clients’ full team of attorneys and advisors in setting up trusts, partnerships, and corporate structures.
We provide coaching and education to the next generation of family members so they gain an understanding of the current legacy plan and can develop their own strategic planning goals for the future. Our clients have access through their engagement team to all of the firm’s resources, including our proprietary research, webinars, white papers, and other publications.
We have several family office industry affiliations that provide us with insights into the changing environment of the family office universe. Through our memberships, we are able to discuss pressing topics and issues with families and continue to stay on the cutting edge of the family office industry.
Prince: What is the future for firms like FFO?
Jehle: The future is incredibly bright for FFO and firms like us in the outsourced virtual family office solutions model. Many of the ultra-wealthy are not optimizing their financial and personal lives. There are several reasons for this such as a reliance on professionals who are more interested in selling than serving. Helping clients make well-informed decisions is in high demand and that is what we have been doing for decades.
Any firm that is able to address the broad range of concerns of the ultra-wealthy with the appropriate solutions from the basic to the state-of-the-art is going to do very well. In addition, our country is going through the greatest transfer of wealth in its history over the next 15 to 20 years. These inheritors might not be wealthy enough or may just not be interested in having their own single-family office, but they still want the numerous advantages of a high functioning single-family office. So, the outsourced virtual family office structure—we provide—allows them to get the benefits of the services needed without the costs.
Simply put, there are so many opportunities to counsel the current and inheritor stewards of their family wealth on advanced planning and tax mitigation strategies to ensure they preserve as much of the wealth they earned as possible. FFO and firms like us are doing well today and will likely do even better in the years to come.
Russ Alan Prince is the executive director of Private Wealth magazine and one of the leading authorities in the private wealth industry. He consults with family offices, the wealthy, fast-tracking entrepreneurs, and select professionals. Connect with him on LinkedIn.com.