Family CFO

Our Firm

Companies and investment firms built today are scaling faster than at any time in history, but the founders and investors building the defining businesses of our era face a paradox: the more value they create, the faster the demands and complexity of their own financial lives compound. Santa Barbara Management was founded by a small group of accomplished business builders and investors who lived this problem first-hand and decided to solve it. To make this vision a reality, we have reimagined the family office experience from first principles, relentlessly questioning industry norms.

At Santa Barbara Management, we engineer wealth for exceptional builders and their families. Our innovative model has been painstakingly designed to deliver a fully-integrated, client-aligned solution that combines investments, tax, trusts and estates, financial operations, and strategic finance under one roof, within one team. We have built our firm to be the trusted advisory platform we wish we had as we navigated some of the most complex and consequential financial decisions of our lives.

Today, we serve some of the most accomplished founders and investors of our time – and we’re just getting started.

The Role

At Santa Barbara Management, the Family CFO serves as the primary financial thought partner to a select group of families. Acting as a key strategic advisor, you will help them navigate the full spectrum of financial complexity that they face: investments, liquidity planning, tax, trust and estate, and the hundreds of financial decisions – large and small – that enable our clients to thrive. This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, client-first environment and has the expertise to build and scale world class financial operations for ultra-high-net-worth families.

We are seeking an exceptional Family CFO, based in our historic Chicago office. In this unique role, you will lead delivery of SBM’s innovative family office solutions to a group of Chicago-based families. The Family CFO is, at its core, a strategic advisory role. As a result, the role demands a rare combination of technical depth across the full spectrum of family office services; the ability to develop durable, trusted relationships with the incredibly accomplished families we serve; and the operational range required to build and lead a high-performing team capable of executing at the highest level.

What You’ll Do

Be a Trusted Advisor to Exceptional Individuals

• Serve as the primary financial thought partner to a select group of clients – the person they trust to understand their family’s full financial landscape and give them clear, highly-aligned, and sophisticated guidance
• Lead client conversations on complex financial matters including tax strategy, liquidity planning, cash management, trust and estate, and asset allocation
• Partner with SBM’s tax, trust and estate, investing, and strategic finance teams to fluently deliver the full capabilities of our platform

Run World-Class Family Office Operations

• Own end-to-end delivery of core financial operations for a select group of SBM clients, including financial reporting, tax and accounting, cash management, bill pay, and more
• Serve as a relentless optimizer of client balance sheets, eliminating tax drag, rationalizing cash deployment, and surfacing creative structuring opportunities that others would miss
• Maintain an exceptional standard of accuracy and expediency across all client deliverables
• Recruit, develop, and lead a cross-functional team of accountants and client service professionals capable of delivering an unparalleled family office experience to SBM clients

Operate with a Builder’s Mindset

• Design and implement process improvements that raise the quality and efficiency of service delivery, applying them within your team, and sharing them across the organization
• Embody a “no task is too small” mindset in pursuit delivering unparalleled results for the families we serve, capable of managing complex projects and contributing individually
• Collaborate cross-functionally across SBM’s team to ensure every dimension of a client’s financial life is optimized

Who You Are

You are your clients’ first call. You've spent your career developing deep expertise across the financial disciplines that matter most to extraordinary families: tax, trust and estate, investments, and financial operations. You know how to translate that expertise into trusted, lasting relationships with the sophisticated principals you serve.

You are equally comfortable in both client meetings and in working sessions with your team. You lead from the front — you hold a high bar, invest in your people, and understand that operational excellence and exceptional client experience are inextricably intertwined.

You are intellectually curious, resourceful, and energized by complexity. Your bias toward action is innate, leading you to surface problems, craft solutions, and always have a point of view. Most importantly, you understand that our clients have earned the right to expect something genuinely different from what the rest of our industry offers: an advisor who deeply understands their full landscape, anticipates their needs, and is truly aligned.

What We Look For

• Track Record as a Trusted Advisor: 10 years of experience in a client-facing financial advisory role, with a demonstrated history of earning deep trust from sophisticated, ultra-high-net-worth clients. Candidates with Single Family Office or Multi-Family Office experience will have a strong understanding of the culture and expectations of serving our clients.
• Multi-Disciplinary Financial Expertise: Substantive knowledge across tax strategy, trust and estate planning, financial operations, and investments for high-net-worth families. You are the kind of thought partner who can lead the conversation with an extremely sophisticated client and know exactly when and how to bring in a specialist.
• Proven Leadership: A proven ability to recruit, develop, and inspire high-performing teams. You create clarity, build culture, and make the people around you better. You know how to scale operations without sacrificing quality or client experience.
• Exceptional Communication: Outstanding presence coupled with written and verbal communication. You distill complexity into clarity for clients who are brilliant but not always steeped in financial detail. You communicate a clear point of view in a way that builds trust and confidence.
• Intellectual Curiosity: You thrive when presented with novel questions or problems that you have never been asked before. You are action-oriented, truth-seeking, and enjoy opportunities to architect elegant solutions to complex, multi-disciplinary problems.
• Operational Range: The ability to operate at a strategic level and roll up your sleeves when it matters. You have strong project management instincts, a rigorous attention to detail, and the judgment to know which problems need your direct attention and which ones your team should own.
• Outstanding Judgment: The families we serve trust us with the most consequential decisions in their financial lives. As a trusted advisor and partner to our clients, you display unparalleled professional judgment and discretion.
• Desire to Build: You understand where existing wealth management and family office solutions fall short, and are genuinely energized by the opportunity to play a role in building a platform designed to reimagine the category from first principles.
• Relevant Credentials: A CPA, CFA, JD, or equivalent professional credential is a meaningful signal of the rigor we're looking for — though the depth and quality of your experience will speak loudest.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to Build Something Different: Santa Barbara Management is reimagining a significant, under-innovated category of financial services. The people who join us now will help shape how we serve our clients, how we build our platform, what this firm becomes and will have an opportunity to help redefine how this industry works.
• Exceptional Colleagues: Join an ambitious and exceptionally talented team led by people who have built category-leading businesses before. The bar is high, and that's the point. We move quickly, are highly collaborative, and care deeply about creating an environment where we make each other better every day.
• Meaningful Scope, Real Impact: SBM is growing quickly. There are no small roles, there’s no entrenched hierarchy, and the opportunities for professional growth are significant.
• A Culture That Takes Care of Its People: Competitive compensation, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k), paid parental leave for all parents, and unlimited paid vacation. We apply the same standard of excellence to how we treat our team as we do to how we serve our clients.
• The Conditions to Do Your Best Work: This role is based in our Chicago office. We work together in person four days a week because the best ideas and the strongest cultures are built in the same room. We also trust our people to manage their time and energy like the professionals they are.

Santa Barbara Management is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any of the above characteristics. Santa Barbara Management is enrolled in E-Verify to confirm the identity and employment eligibility of all new employees.