The situation
This one started in a fairly typical way, in that there wasn’t really a brief.
There was no fully formed job description, no clear sense of “we need this exact person”, just a conversation around how the business was evolving and a feeling that something needed to be added.
The business, a multi-family office, was in a good place. Clients were well looked after, relationships were strong, and the way they worked was clearly valued. At the same time, more and more of that seemed to rely on a small number of individuals, and there was a growing sense that something needed to sit at the centre of it all, not to change it, but to hold it together as the business developed.
At some point that naturally became a role, and in this case it was labelled as a Client Services Director, but that label didn’t really get you very far.
What wasn’t obvious
What they were trying to solve wasn’t something that fitted neatly into a job specification, and it certainly wasn’t about building a traditional function or introducing more process.
It was much more about judgement, presence and the ability to handle conversations that don’t follow a script, particularly in the early stages of a relationship where how something is handled can shape what happens for years afterwards.
That’s usually where things go off track. The instinct is to define the role properly before going to market, to make it clearer and more structured. The problem is that in doing so, you often lose the very thing you were trying to protect.
What we focused on
Rather than rushing to define the role, we spent time understanding how the business actually worked in practice, how clients experienced it, where it depended too heavily on certain individuals, and what needed to remain consistent as it grew.
Once you have that, the shape of the role starts to emerge in a much more natural way, not as something fixed, but as something that can evolve around the individual.
That changed the nature of the search. We weren’t looking for a traditional “Client Services Director”, but for someone who could build trust quickly, operate comfortably without too much structure, represent the business well in early conversations and grow into a broader position over time.
The outcome
The person we appointed worked because of that alignment. Not because they matched a predefined role, but because they were right for where the business was at that point.
The impact wasn’t dramatic, but it showed up in the way you would expect. There was more consistency in how clients were looked after, less reliance on a small number of people, and a sense that the centre of the business had strengthened without losing what made it work in the first place.
The TWYD view
You see this pattern a lot. The role is there, everyone can feel it, but no one has quite defined it yet.
The risk isn’t that you won’t find someone capable, it’s that you define the role too tightly and end up hiring someone who needs that definition in order to operate effectively.
In situations like this, getting clear on what actually matters tends to be the more important piece of work. The hire then follows from that, rather than the other way round.