More women are leading investments for the likes of Lukas Walton and Len Blavatnik

Published Fri, Mar 21 20257:00 AM EDT

Hayley Cuccinello @in/hayleycuccinello/@HCuccinello

Key Points

A growing number of women are leading family offices as billionaires like Sergey Brin and Michael Dell name female chief investment officers of their private investment firms.
There is still a sizable gender gap, with women making up 29% of executive roles and 16% of CIO roles at family offices, according to one survey.
Four women CIOs told CNBC why they chose to work for family offices over traditional asset managers and how they broke into the exclusive industry.

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high net worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Elizabeth Lilly started her own asset management firm in 2017, fulfilling a dream three decades in the making. Since her 20s working as an equity analyst, she had carried around a composition notebook, envisioning what her future firm would look like and jotting down lessons from financial powerhouses she worked under like value investor Robert Bruce and turnaround expert Jack Byrne. Less than two years later, Lilly gave it up after getting an offer she couldn't refuse from one of her clients. The Pohlad family, best known as the owners of MLB's Minnesota Twins, needed a chief investment officer to oversee their vast portfolio, spanning public equities and direct investments in healthtech and manufacturing. Lilly had reservations about letting go of her newfound independence to work for a family office, but she decided broadening her horizons was worth it. "I was doing small-cap public equities, and I weighed that with what I would get to learn about, private equity funds, direct investing," she said. "I thought to myself, 'This is a point in my life where I don't know when I'll ever get this opportunity again.'" Lilly is one of a growing number of women who are taking the helm of prominent family offices — the private investment arms of wealthy families. Last summer, James Dyson appointed Jane Simpson as chief investment officer of his family office, Weybourne. In 2022, billionaires Michael Dell and Sergey Brin named Alisa Mall and Marie Young, respectively, as CIOs of their family offices. "I'm just surprised at the number of women CIOs there are, and it's wonderful," Lilly said. "Compared to where I started in the business in 1985, there has been a huge change." Lilly said it's possible that women thrive in the role because female investors are, generally speaking, more conservative in their financial decision-making . She noted that family offices have patient capital, only deploying funds when the right opportunities arise and measuring performance in terms of years, not quarters. "I think it's a matter of temperament, maybe," she added. "Women investors, if you look at all the studies, are more even-keeled, and their investment decisions are less impulsive." According to a survey by Botoff Consulting, women hold 29% of executive positions in family offices, greater than that of corporate America and finance sectors like private equity. However, only 16% of the 433 surveyed firms reported having a female CIO. Four female CIOs who spoke with CNBC said that their tight-knit networks make up for what the space lacks in numbers. Margo Doyle, CIO of S-Cubed Capital, is part of a WhatsApp group for female CIOs and hosts dinners and cocktail events for other family offices in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kristin Gilbertson, CIO of Len Blavatnik's Access Industries, described the family office industry as collegial. "When you're allocating to external managers, it's a bit of a team sport," she said. "We share references, we share experiences, we leverage each other's expertise." Gilbertson joined Blavatnik's family office in 2013 after spending most of her career in male-dominated niches: overseeing endowments at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as managing pension investments at the World Bank and working on economic reform in the former Soviet Union. "It's quite honestly, one of the few times in my career where I've not been made aware that I'm a female," Gilbertson said of her time at Access and working with Blavatnik. Gilbertson said she was sought out for her endowment experience. Blavatnik, an investor known for bold bets such as acquiring Warner Music, and his right-hand man, Access CEO Lincoln Benet, wanted a CIO to construct a lower-risk, diversified portfolio of external funds, she said. Like Lilly, Noelle Laing of Builders Vision once counted her now-principal as a client. She met Walmart heir Lukas Walton when she managed impact investments at Cambridge Associates and joined his family office in 2019. "When you go from serving so many clients to serving one, it's really fun to lean into the one principal's vision," she said. "You can really focus your time." Doyle, on the other hand, left Cambridge Associates in 2014 with the goal of working for a first-generation, single-family office with at least $1 billion in assets. She had moved from Boston to San Francisco the year prior, and wanted to help build a family office from the ground up. "You drink the water out here, and you get your entrepreneurial spirit," she said. Doyle reached out to a CIO at a single-family office she knew, who introduced her to Mark Stevens, the billionaire venture capitalist and former managing partner of Sequoia Capital. Doyle was hired to lead S-Cubed Capital's portfolio after five months of discussions, not only about investment strategies but also communication styles and personal goals. For instance, Stevens and his wife Mary has signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to contribute most of his family's wealth to philanthropic causes. "When you're coming into this high-level position within a family office, it's a very personal relationship that you're developing," she said. Doyle advised aspiring family office CIOs to be prepared to adapt, not only in terms of managing different types of assets but also in working with future generations of the family. "You will certainly have multiple risk tolerances, liquidity needs, durations," she said. "Thinking about the range of inputs that are affecting the portfolio is an important capability to build as you're evolving in your career."