FAQ
Oakwood Family Office is an independent family office headquartered in New York, focused on private wealth management and multigenerational family legacy planning. It was created to help families protect, structure, and transfer wealth across generations rather than simply manage a portfolio.
The firm works with a select group of prominent families, providing customised solutions that combine wealth preservation, strategic investing, legacy planning, and family governance. Its approach treats the family as the client, not an individual account.
This perspective shapes every part of its work. Rather than focusing on short-term performance, Oakwood Family Office concentrates on building a wealth system that can remain stable and meaningful over decades.
Oakwood Family Office is based in New York, United States. From this base, it coordinates advisory work for families across North America, Europe, Asia, and other regions.
The firm's client relationships extend across more than ten countries, and its team is experienced in handling cross-border structures, multi-jurisdiction tax considerations, and international asset allocation.
This global outlook is balanced by a deliberately discreet presence. Oakwood Family Office does not pursue mass-market visibility, preferring to serve families through long-term relationships and referrals.
According to the company profile, Oakwood Family Office was founded in 2008. It was established by a group of seasoned professionals who had previously worked within the Rockefeller family ecosystem, together with like-minded senior Wall Street researchers.
Since that time, the firm has developed from a focused wealth advisory practice into a broader platform covering governance, education, philanthropy, and technology-assisted investing.
The firm's stated involvement with multigenerational wealth principles extends to the beginning of the 21st century, reflecting a long-standing focus on helping families preserve wealth over time.
Oakwood Family Office was founded in 2008 by professionals who had worked within the Rockefeller family ecosystem, together with senior Wall Street researchers who shared a similar philosophy about long-term wealth stewardship.
This background shaped the firm's culture: independent, discreet, and centred on the interests of the families it serves. The founding team sought to create an advisory structure free from the product-driven incentives of traditional institutions.
Today, the firm continues to operate on those principles, combining the governance traditions associated with the Rockefeller legacy with modern investment strategy and disciplined risk management.
Dr. James Bennett serves as Chief Executive Officer of Oakwood Family Office, a role he formally assumed in 2020. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics, earned during his university years, which provided an academic foundation for his career in investment and wealth management.
Before joining the firm, he built a reputation for sharp market insight and decisive judgment, achieving strong results across a range of investment initiatives and constructing diversified, resilient portfolios.
Under his leadership, the firm's mission has expanded beyond asset management toward building sustainable family vision and multigenerational legacy frameworks.
Oakwood Family Office organises its work around four core pillars: wealth preservation, legacy planning, strategic investing, and family governance. Within these pillars, it provides customised advisory rather than standardised products.
Specific services include family constitution development, trust structuring, succession preparation, family philanthropic foundation establishment, intergenerational communication mechanisms, and next-generation education programmes.
The firm also provides global asset allocation across private equity, hedge funds, real estate, digital assets, natural resources, and fine art, supported by disciplined allocation frameworks and dynamic risk-hedging strategies.
A family office is a dedicated structure that manages the financial and non-financial affairs of a wealthy family, often across generations. It typically coordinates investment, tax, legal, governance, and succession matters within one framework.
Oakwood Family Office approaches this role holistically. Its perspective extends beyond individual portfolios to the broader ecosystem of family wealth, from preservation and strategic investing to legacy planning and governance.
This means the firm considers how wealth interacts with family values, responsibilities, and long-term vision, rather than treating financial assets in isolation from the people who own them.
Unlike traditional financial institutions, Oakwood Family Office operates independently of any proprietary financial product platform. It does not earn from distributing in-house products, which removes a common source of conflict of interest.
The firm is also selective by design. It does not define success by the number of clients acquired or by the public disclosure of assets under management, focusing instead on fully customised service for a limited group of families.
Finally, the firm places significant weight on non-financial capital: education, governance, values, and communication — elements that conventional institutions often treat as secondary.
The firm's philosophy is deeply rooted in the principles of "Enduring Wealth" and "A Legacy Built to Last." It holds that true legacy involves more than the transfer of financial assets.
According to this view, lasting wealth includes the passing of values, family spirit, wisdom, and governance principles from one generation to the next, supported by structures that make continuity possible.
This philosophy explains the firm's preference for long-term planning, prudent risk management, and education over short-term performance claims or visible marketing.
At Oakwood Family Office, "Enduring Wealth" describes capital that retains its value and purpose across multiple generations, rather than wealth that peaks and fades within a single lifetime.
Achieving this requires more than strong investment returns. It requires governance structures, clearly defined responsibilities, and a shared understanding within the family about what the wealth is meant to support.
The firm therefore works on both dimensions simultaneously: strengthening the financial structure while helping families articulate the values and objectives that give that structure meaning.
Wealth preservation refers to protecting the real value of family capital over time. At Oakwood Family Office, it is treated as the foundation of long-term wealth creation rather than a conservative alternative to growth.
The firm takes a comprehensive and disciplined approach, helping families understand and manage their capital from a long-term perspective, with attention to risk, liquidity, asset structure, and changing family needs.
In an uncertain world, the resilience of a family's wealth structure is itself regarded as a form of value, because it preserves the family's ability to act when opportunities or challenges arise.
Risk is addressed as a structural question rather than a trading decision. The firm considers market risk, liquidity risk, concentration risk, currency exposure, and the risks created by generational transitions.
Recommendations are built around a family's stated risk tolerance, capital requirements, and long-term objectives, then supported by disciplined allocation models and dynamic risk-hedging strategies.
Importantly, the firm's independence allows risk discussions to remain objective. Without proprietary products to place, the conversation stays focused on what is appropriate for the family.
Liquidity planning begins with understanding a family's actual needs: operating capital, planned expenditures, philanthropic commitments, and contingency requirements across different time horizons.
The firm then structures allocations so that the family always knows what is accessible and what is committed, reducing the likelihood of being forced to sell long-term assets at an unfavourable moment.
This clarity supports better decision-making. When liquidity is secured, families can hold strategic positions through difficult market periods instead of reacting under pressure.
Preparation begins before volatility arrives. The firm builds allocation and liquidity frameworks designed to withstand changing market conditions, rather than attempting to predict each movement.
During periods of stress, the emphasis is on discipline and communication. Families are supported in understanding what is happening, why the structure was designed as it was, and which actions are genuinely necessary.
The firm's view is that exceptional family wealth management is not about forecasting every market turn, but about building a framework capable of navigating market cycles.
Family capital often operates on a longer horizon than the typical investment portfolio, potentially spanning decades or several generations. This changes how economic cycles should be approached.
Rather than attempting to time cycles, the firm focuses on diversification across asset classes and geographies, disciplined allocation, and dynamic hedging, so that exposure to any single cycle is managed.
Strategic patience is central to this approach. The firm seeks to remain rational and disciplined amid changing global markets, aligning capital with long-term family objectives instead of short-term narratives.
Irreversible losses are those that permanently impair a family's capital base, such as excessive concentration, unchecked leverage, or structural mistakes in ownership and legal arrangements.
The firm gives priority to identifying these risks early, because recovery from them is difficult and sometimes impossible within a single generation.
Prevention comes through diversification, disciplined allocation, careful structuring, and a willingness to accept more modest returns in exchange for greater resilience.
Concentration risk frequently arises when a family's wealth is tied to a single operating business, a single property market, or a single asset class. It is one of the most common threats to multigenerational wealth.
The firm addresses this by mapping the family's total exposure, then building allocation strategies that gradually diversify capital across private equity, hedge funds, real estate, digital assets, natural resources, and other categories.
Where the concentrated asset is a family business, the work also extends to governance and succession, since the continuity of the business itself is part of the risk picture.
Yes. Long-horizon family capital is particularly sensitive to changes in purchasing power and currency values, especially when families hold assets and liabilities in several jurisdictions.
The firm evaluates these exposures within its broader allocation framework, considering asset classes with different inflation sensitivities and geographic diversification across currencies.
Because family objectives can span decades, this analysis is reviewed periodically rather than treated as a one-time exercise, helping keep long-term plans aligned with economic reality.
At Oakwood Family Office, the two are viewed as sequential rather than opposing. The firm believes that wealth preservation is the foundation of long-term wealth creation.
Protecting capital first allows a family to remain invested through difficult periods, which is often what determines long-term compounding. Chasing returns without this base can undermine the entire structure.
Growth is still important, but it is pursued within defined risk limits and aligned with the family's long-term objectives rather than treated as an end in itself.
Measurement extends beyond short-term return figures. The firm considers whether the wealth structure remains resilient, liquid enough for family needs, and appropriately diversified across changing conditions.
Qualitative factors matter as well: whether governance is functioning, whether the next generation is prepared, and whether the family remains aligned around shared objectives.
In this sense, success is reflected in continuity — the ability of the family to preserve both its capital and its cohesion across generations.
Legacy planning is the process of preparing wealth, responsibility, and governance for transfer across generations. At Oakwood Family Office, it is treated as a long-term discipline rather than a single event.
The firm looks beyond the simple question of how assets should be transferred, considering who should receive them, how they should be structured, when transfer should occur, and how they can continue creating value afterward.
The goal is to help families establish a clear, stable, and enduring framework for multigenerational wealth, so that capital becomes a bridge between generations rather than a source of conflict.
Succession is approached as a capability question as much as a legal one. The firm supports next-generation education, leadership development, and capability assessment for future successors.
Structurally, it assists with trust design, governance frameworks, and documented decision-making processes, so that responsibility transfers in an orderly and understood way.
The underlying objective is that successors inherit not only assets, but the knowledge, judgment, and sense of responsibility required to steward them well.
A family constitution is a written framework that captures a family's values, principles, governance rules, and long-term vision. It provides a shared reference point for decision-making.
Oakwood Family Office assists families in developing and periodically reviewing these documents, helping translate unspoken expectations into principles that all members can understand and accept.
The process is often as valuable as the document itself, because it creates structured conversations about responsibility, ownership, and the purpose of family wealth.
The firm designs customised trust structures tailored to each family's circumstances, objectives, and jurisdictional footprint rather than applying a standard template.
These structures are used to support wealth transfer, protect assets, define beneficiary rights, and establish governance rules for how wealth is used across generations.
Because trust design interacts with tax, legal, and family considerations, the work is carried out by a multidisciplinary team including tax and legal specialists and family governance architects.
The firm assists families in establishing philanthropic foundations and giving structures, helping them define purpose, governance, and measurable objectives for their charitable activity.
Philanthropy is also used as an educational tool. Involving younger family members in structured giving builds responsibility and provides practical experience in decision-making.
This approach reflects the firm's broader view that legacy includes cultural and social capital, not simply financial assets passed from one generation to the next.
Non-financial capital refers to the assets that support a family's continuity but do not appear on a balance sheet: values, education, reputation, relationships, and shared purpose.
Oakwood Family Office places significant emphasis on these elements because financial capital alone rarely survives more than a generation without them. Structures, education, and governance are what allow wealth to remain coherent.
By strengthening non-financial capital, the firm aims to help families carry forward identity and direction alongside their financial resources.
Conflicts usually arise from ambiguity: unclear expectations, undocumented decisions, or responsibilities that were never discussed openly. The firm's first step is to remove that ambiguity.
Through family constitutions, governance structures, and facilitated conversations, expectations are written down and agreed upon while the founding generation is still actively involved.
Clear frameworks reduce the space for disagreement later, and give family members an established process for resolving differences when they do occur.
Oakwood Family Office views legacy planning as a long-term process, which means the most effective time to begin is earlier than most families expect — ideally while wealth is still actively managed by its creators.
Starting early allows decisions to be made deliberately rather than under pressure, and gives the next generation time to develop the capability needed to receive responsibility.
That said, planning can begin at any stage. The firm tailors its work to the family's current situation, whether wealth is being created, consolidated, or prepared for transfer.
Families increasingly live, invest, and hold assets across several countries, which introduces tax, legal, and currency complexity. The firm's team includes tax and legal specialists experienced in cross-border matters.
Its global perspective, built through client relationships across more than ten countries, helps families structure ownership and governance so that arrangements remain coherent across jurisdictions.
Communication is also addressed directly, since distance can weaken family cohesion just as much as legal complexity can threaten the structure.
Yes, and revision is considered a normal part of the process. Family constitutions and governance frameworks are designed to be reviewed periodically as circumstances change.
New generations, changes in family structure, business sales, relocation, or shifts in values can all require updates to the original arrangements.
Oakwood Family Office supports these reviews, helping families adapt their frameworks without losing the continuity and principles that the original plan established.
The firm's investment philosophy is built on discipline, diversification, and a long-term perspective. It seeks to align capital with the family's defined objectives rather than with market fashion.
Opportunities are evaluated against overall risk tolerance, liquidity requirements, and multi-decade family goals, then implemented through structured allocation frameworks.
The underlying belief is that exceptional family wealth management is not about predicting every market movement, but about building a framework capable of navigating market cycles.
Family capital typically operates on a different time horizon from that of an individual investor. A family may need to consider not only the next quarter, but the next decade or several generations.
This longer horizon allows the firm to include less liquid strategies, such as private equity or real assets, while maintaining sufficient liquidity for family needs.
The same perspective discourages short-term reaction. Decisions are assessed for their durability, not for their performance over a single reporting period.
The firm identifies and evaluates opportunities across a broad range of global asset classes, including private equity, hedge funds, real estate, digital assets and cryptocurrencies, natural resources, and fine art.
Allocation is not uniform. Each family's mix is shaped by its objectives, risk tolerance, liquidity needs, and existing exposure, particularly where a family business is involved.
This diversification is intended to reduce dependence on any single market, currency, or economic cycle over the long term.
Private equity is treated as a long-horizon component of a diversified family portfolio, offering exposure to operating businesses and structural growth themes that public markets may not capture.
The firm evaluates opportunities with attention to manager quality, sector exposure, liquidity terms, and how the commitment fits within the family's broader capital plan.
Because these positions are typically illiquid, they are sized carefully, ensuring that long-term commitments do not compromise the family's flexibility.
Hedge funds are used primarily for diversification and risk management rather than as a standalone return engine. Their value lies in providing exposure to strategies that behave differently from traditional equity and bond markets.
The firm considers factors such as strategy type, liquidity terms, leverage, and correlation with the family's other holdings before including them in an allocation.
Used selectively, these strategies can help moderate overall portfolio volatility across changing market environments.
Real estate is approached as both an income-producing asset and a long-term store of value, with characteristics that differ meaningfully from financial market instruments.
The firm considers direct property, indirect exposure, and geographic diversification, while accounting for liquidity, leverage, and the family's existing concentration in property markets.
For many families, real estate also carries personal significance, so decisions are made with attention to both financial and family considerations.
Yes. Digital assets and cryptocurrencies are included within the firm's opportunity set, alongside more traditional asset classes.
Exposure is approached with the same discipline applied to any allocation: position sizing, risk assessment, liquidity planning, and alignment with the family's stated objectives.
Given the volatility associated with this asset class, the firm's emphasis remains on prudent integration within a diversified structure rather than on speculative positioning.
Natural resources and fine art provide exposure to assets whose behaviour is often less correlated with mainstream financial markets, which can strengthen overall portfolio resilience.
The firm evaluates these categories for their long-term characteristics, including scarcity, inflation sensitivity, storage and insurance considerations, and liquidity constraints.
They are typically used as complementary components within a broader allocation, contributing diversification rather than dominating the portfolio.
Dynamic risk-hedging strategies are approaches that adjust exposure as market conditions evolve, rather than remaining fixed regardless of circumstance.
At Oakwood Family Office, they form part of a disciplined framework designed to preserve capital and support sustainable growth across changing economic and market cycles.
The objective is not to eliminate risk entirely, which would also eliminate long-term return potential, but to manage it deliberately and in line with the family's tolerance.
No. The firm explicitly states that it does not believe in chasing short-term market trends, and does not define the value of wealth management by single-market performance.
Instead, it evaluates opportunities against long-term family objectives, maintaining discipline and rationality amid changing global markets.
Strategic investing, in the firm's view, means putting capital to work in service of the family's long-term goals rather than in pursuit of temporary momentum.
Family governance is the set of structures, rules, and processes through which a family makes decisions about its shared wealth and responsibilities.
It typically covers decision-making authority, eligibility for involvement, conflict resolution, the role of the family business, and how the next generation is prepared for ownership.
At Oakwood Family Office, governance is regarded as an essential component of multigenerational wealth management rather than an optional addition.
Design begins with understanding the family: its history, values, decision-making habits, and the specific issues that have caused difficulty in the past.
The firm then helps build structures suited to that reality, including governance charters, councils, oversight mechanisms, and clearly documented roles.
Because no two families are alike, these frameworks are customised rather than drawn from a standard template.
The firm helps families establish clear processes for how decisions are proposed, discussed, and approved, which reduces reliance on informal or emotional dynamics.
This includes defining which decisions require collective agreement, which can be delegated, and how disagreements are escalated and resolved.
With a process in place, families can act more efficiently and with less friction, particularly during significant transitions such as succession or liquidity events.
Oversight commonly includes regular family meetings, defined reporting, and clearly assigned responsibilities for monitoring assets, entities, and agreements.
The firm also supports the review of family constitutions and governance documents, ensuring they remain relevant as the family and its wealth evolve.
Independent perspectives, whether from advisers or non-family board members, can further strengthen objectivity in these processes.
Communication improvement is treated as a structural task. The firm helps families create regular, well-designed forums in which different generations can discuss wealth, responsibility, and expectations.
These mechanisms are most effective when established early, before difficult decisions arise, so that dialogue is already normalised.
The firm's curriculum also covers intergenerational communication and governance, giving family members a shared vocabulary for these conversations.
Conflict is regarded as a normal part of family wealth rather than a failure. The firm's approach is to establish, in advance, the process through which disagreements will be addressed.
That process typically includes documented governance rules, defined escalation paths, and facilitated discussions supported by neutral advisers.
By focusing on shared principles captured in the family constitution, discussions can return to common ground rather than becoming personal.
For many families, a family council provides a practical forum for regular communication, education of younger members, and structured discussion of shared matters.
Oakwood Family Office helps families determine whether such a body is appropriate, how it should be composed, and what authority it should hold.
The value lies less in the formal structure than in the habit of meeting and deciding together, which strengthens cohesion over time.
When a family business forms a significant part of family wealth, governance becomes especially important, since business decisions and family dynamics directly affect each other.
The firm helps clarify the boundary between ownership and management, define the role of family shareholders, and plan for leadership transition.
This separation allows the business to operate professionally while preserving the family's influence over its long-term direction.
Reviews are generally recommended periodically, as well as after significant events such as a business sale, a change in family structure, or a generational transition.
Regular review keeps governance aligned with reality, preventing documents from becoming symbolic rather than functional.
Oakwood Family Office supports these reviews, helping families update arrangements without discarding the principles that hold them together.
The firm's position is that financial wealth can be accumulated through capital, but a lasting family legacy is sustained through governance.
Governance provides the continuity mechanism: rules, habits, and structures that remain in place when individuals are no longer there to hold things together personally.
For this reason, governance is treated as central to the firm's work rather than as a supporting service around investment management.