What Is a True Family Office? Exploring different structures and paths to success

The term “family office” is widely used — but often misunderstood and rarely well-defined. Today, firms across the wealth management spectrum, from private banks to RIAs, market “family office services,” yet few truly operate as a fully integrated family office.

In this webinar, we’ll examine what a family office actually is, the range of family office structures in use today, and what an optimal family office looks like.

Date and Time

Tuesday, January 20, 2026
2 PM ET | 11 AM PT
60 minutes

Justyn Volesko, JD, LL.M.

Partner & Co-Head of Family Office, Cerity Partners

Justyn is a partner in the New York office, where he serves as co-head of the Cerity Partners Family Office. In this role, he leverages his expertise in complex estate and tax planning to advise ultra-high-net-worth clients with complicated balance sheets, including partners of hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms, as well as entrepreneurs and business owners navigating growth, succession or liquidity events. As an attorney with an LL.M. in tax law, Justyn has a unique ability to understand various intricacies of the tax code and efficiently integrate them into clients’ lives. His knowledge spans multiple areas of tax law including partnership taxation, where he works closely with CFOs of hedge funds, private equity funds and operating businesses to ensure they are structured properly and operate tax-efficiently, and estate tax, where he has developed and implemented strategies to transfer fund and business interests to family trusts tax-efficiently.

Prior to joining Cerity Partners, Justyn served as a managing partner of AJ Wealth, a New York-based registered investment advisor specializing in providing family office services to ultra-high-net-worth families that he co-founded in 2012. In this role, he implemented his deep knowledge of the tax code to efficiently manage clients’ wealth. Justyn’s skill set carried over to the asset management side of the business where he helped build an efficient investment platform, based on modern portfolio theory and tax efficiency. Before AJ Wealth, he spent nearly 10 years as a vice president at the Goldman Sachs Family Office, which is a multi-family office exclusively for the partners of Goldman Sachs. Justyn worked closely with members of the executive committee and played a part in shaping the family office service offering for the partners.

Andrew Cooper

Partner & Co-Head of Family Office, Cerity Partners

Andrew is a partner in the New York office, where he serves as co-head of the Cerity Partners Family Office. In this role, he leverages his expertise in complex estate and tax planning to advise ultra-high-net-worth clients with complicated balance sheets, such as partners of hedge funds and private equity and venture capital firms. Andrew is dedicated to providing exceptional client service and advice that successfully guides clients through both financial and nonfinancial decisions, paying great attention to clients’ needs and building trusted relationships with clients and their friends, family and associates. His deep involvement in various areas of a client’s life puts him in a position to oversee daily legal and financial transactions, spotting issues and protecting clients’ best interests. Additionally, Andrew leverages his extensive network of relationships to develop business opportunities and guide the growth of the firm overall.

Prior to joining Cerity Partners, Andrew served as a managing partner at AJ Wealth, a New York-based registered investment advisor specializing in providing family office services to ultra-high-net-worth families. Before co-founding AJ Wealth in 2012, Andrew spent more than eight years as a vice president in the Goldman Sachs Family Office, where he provided full-service financial counseling to more than 40 of the firm’s partners. His earlier work history includes time spent providing sophisticated financial planning services to high-level executives and high-net-worth individuals.

Jennette Brilliant, CFP®

Partner, Cerity Partners

Jennette is partner in the New York office, where she brings 20 years of experience in the financial planning industry. Her experience working for C-suite executives as well as building out the family office at a premier hedge fund allows her to leverage her knowledge and expertise to provide excellent service to a growing client base.

Prior to joining Cerity Partners, Jennette served as a vice president at AJ Wealth, a New York-based registered investment advisor specializing in providing family office services. Before AJ Wealth, she worked as the family office controller at Silver Point Capital (SPC), a $10 billion investment management firm, where she was the original family office employee working with the founders and partners. At SPC, Jennette was responsible for all aspects of their financial planning and household management and helped build out the family office group. Prior to SPC, she was a vice president at Goldman Sachs and worked for seven years with the Goldman Sachs Family Office. During Jennette’s tenure, she played an integral role in the financial planning of dozens of the firms’ partners, including several members of the C-suite.

David Shaw

Publishing Director, Family Business Magazine

David Shaw is the publishing director for MLR Media. He also co-founded and serves as conference director of the Transitions conferences, The Private Company Governance Summit, Align and Family Business Legacy.

David writes frequently on governance issues for public and private companies, and develops and maintains close relationships with multi-generational family-owned businesses. He is married, with two grown children.