Family Office Forum New York

The Family Office Forum New York is the US edition of the Prestel & Partner forum series, held over two days at the Harvard Club in New York. It is now in its seventh year, and recent editions have drawn more than 100 family offices from across the United States and further afield. The organiser calls it North America's leading event for private single family offices. That is the organiser's own claim rather than an independent finding, though the attendance it reports has been consistent year to year.

Who attends

Access turns on one question: do you have an offering for the audience, or not? Family principals, the executives who run their offices and wealth owners with nothing to sell attend as complimentary guests. Anyone offering a product, a service, a co-investment, advice or commercial multi-family office work pays for a delegate pass or sponsors the event. People who fall into both camps are judged case by case, on their main activity and on how the room will read them.

Prestel & Partner define a genuine principal or family office as one holding at least US$150 million in assets and working for one family or a few, rather than selling to many third parties. A separate note in the attendance rules sets a minimum entry level of 120 million euros, so confirm the current threshold before applying.

How access works

Qualifying families and wealth owners apply by email and pay nothing. Providers buy a pass or sponsor. The published rates are £2,990 for a single day and £4,490 for the full two days, quoted in pounds even for the New York edition.

Willingness to pay does not secure a place. The organiser states there is no automatic right to attend or sponsor, that every application is reviewed on its own, and that provider numbers are kept low on purpose so that families outnumber sellers both in the audience and on the stage.

What attendees get

The programme is framed around securing family wealth through a changing national and international landscape, and runs on panels, presentations and open discussion covering governance and investment. Networking is continuous rather than scheduled, and pitching from the floor is not permitted.

Data privacy is explicit: attendee details are never passed to other guests or to partners, and the organiser takes no part in conversations that follow. Conference reports from past editions are published on the event page, which is the most direct way to judge the standard of the content and the make-up of the room before committing.