Liquidity planning is a priority - but who's doing the work?

Nearly half of family offices now identify liquidity planning as a top priority, according to Campden Wealth. It's not hard to see why. BlackRock reports that 84% of surveyed families see geopolitical risk as the central influence on allocation decisions. EY finds that private credit allocations doubled between 2022 and 2025. Portfolios are more complex, more illiquid, and more exposed to unpredictable cash flows than they were five years ago.

The strategic intent is clear: family offices want better visibility into their liquidity position, more rigorous cash flow forecasting, and the ability to stress test under various scenarios.

But a priority without capability is just an aspiration. And for many family offices, the question remains: who's actually doing this work?

Why Liquidity Planning Has Got Harder

Family offices have always had to manage cash. What's changed is the complexity.

A portfolio weighted toward public equities and bonds has predictable liquidity. You can sell. The timing is yours to choose. A portfolio with 40% or more in alternatives (private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure) behaves differently. Capital calls arrive on the fund manager's schedule, not yours. Distributions are unpredictable in both timing and size. Redemption terms vary. Secondary market liquidity exists but often at a discount.

Layer on the family's own cash needs (lifestyle expenses, tax obligations, philanthropy, opportunistic investments, major purchases) and the forecasting challenge becomes significant. The question isn't just "how much is liquid?" It's "what are our projected inflows and outflows across the next six, twelve, thirty-six months, and what happens if assumptions are wrong?"

This requires modeling capital calls across multiple fund commitments, projecting distributions based on fund lifecycle and market conditions, coordinating with the family on anticipated needs, maintaining appropriate reserves without over-allocating to low-yield cash, and stress testing: what if distributions dry up while capital calls continue?

It's not a spreadsheet exercise. Or at least, it shouldn't be.

The Gap

Many family offices pride themselves on lean teams. But lean teams were built for simpler portfolios.

A family office with two public market managers and some real estate doesn't need sophisticated liquidity infrastructure. One with fifteen alternative managers across private credit, PE, infrastructure, and co-investments (each reporting on different schedules, in different formats, with different capital call and distribution patterns) does.

The work often falls to one of three places:

An overburdened CFO. They're already handling financial reporting, tax coordination, entity management, and a dozen other responsibilities. Liquidity planning becomes one more thing. Done when time permits, updated sporadically, stress tested rarely.

External advisors. Consultants or multi-family offices can help, but they don't have full visibility into family-specific cash needs, and their models are only as good as the information they receive. The family office still needs someone who owns the internal picture.

No one. Liquidity planning happens reactively. When a capital call surprises, when a distribution disappoints, when someone realizes the cash position isn't what they assumed. By then, the options are worse.

The Roles That Solve This

Two hires directly address the liquidity planning gap:

CFO or VP of Finance

This is the most direct solution. A strong family office CFO owns the cash flow model, coordinates with investment managers on projected calls and distributions, monitors the liquidity position, and ensures the family's needs are met without forced selling or unnecessary borrowing.

But this isn't a traditional bookkeeper or controller role. It requires understanding how alternative investments behave: J-curves, vintage effects, distribution waterfalls, capital call pacing. A CFO who's only worked with liquid portfolios will face a learning curve. The strongest candidates come from fund finance, alternative asset managers, multi-family offices, or family offices that already have sophisticated alternatives exposure.

Investment Operations / Portfolio Analytics

This role builds the infrastructure that makes liquidity planning possible. They consolidate reporting from multiple fund managers, normalizing data that arrives in different formats, on different schedules, with different methodologies. They track unfunded commitments, capital account statements, and projected calls. They feed clean data into the liquidity model and flag discrepancies.

In some family offices, this sits under the CFO. In others, it reports to the CIO. Either way, it's the connective tissue between raw manager data and actionable insight.

Candidates often come from fund administrators, alternative asset managers (investor relations, fund operations), or platforms like Addepar, Archway, or similar. These are roles where they've built or maintained reporting infrastructure for complex portfolios.

What to Look For

Family offices hiring for these roles should consider:

Alternatives experience is non-negotiable. Liquidity planning for an alternatives-heavy portfolio is fundamentally different from traditional treasury work. Candidates need to understand how private funds operate, or they'll be learning on the job while the complexity grows.

Systems fluency matters. The tools exist. Addepar, Archway, eFront, and others can consolidate reporting and support cash flow modeling. But tools require someone who can implement them, maintain them, and interpret the outputs. A hire who's worked with these platforms has a significant head start.

Coordination skills are underrated. Liquidity planning requires pulling information from fund managers, accountants, tax advisors, and the family itself. Someone who can manage those relationships and synthesize the inputs is more valuable than someone who builds elegant models in isolation.

Look for people who've made the transition. The best candidates are often those who've already moved from institutional environments to family offices or similar settings. They understand the broader scope, the leaner infrastructure, and the direct access to decision-making that family office roles involve.

The Bottom Line

Liquidity planning is rising on the priority list for good reason. Portfolios are more complex. Cash flows are less predictable. The environment is more uncertain.

But naming a priority doesn't create capability. Capability comes from people. Specifically, finance and operations professionals who understand alternatives, can build and maintain the infrastructure, and ensure the family office has visibility into its liquidity position before problems emerge.

The family offices that build this capability now will navigate uncertainty with more confidence than those who wait until a liquidity crunch forces the issue.

Blackbook Associates places CFOs, investment operations professionals, and other key roles for single and multi-family offices worldwide. If you're building finance or operations capabilities, we'd welcome a conversation.