Family Financial Planner (Beachwood)

Outstanding Opportunity with an Established Family Office

We are a small team with a big vision that collaboratively supports the financial, investment, business, philanthropic, and personal activities of an entrepreneurial multigenerational family.We are looking for a thoughtful financial planning professional to assist family members in organizing their financial lives, clarifying their goals, making well-informed decisions, and coordinating the resources available to them. In this newly created role, you will support family members with their personal financial planning and serve as a trusted liaison between family members, our team at Walnut Ridge, and outside advisors.

WALNUT RIDGE

Walnut Ridge coordinates the investing activities, business needs, philanthropic interests, and family activities of a multigenerational family. In this work, we support a mix of private and public market investments, family businesses, personal interests, and two philanthropic foundations. The family includes three living generations and is committed to generating both financial and societal value near- and longer-term. Walnut Ridge works with an outsourced investment firm (“OCIO”) and other specialist advisors to support family trusts and individual family portfolios.

We offer a flexible, hybrid environment and spend Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the office. Our office is located in Pinecrest in Orange Village, OH. The role will also involve remote and occasional in-person work with family members in other locations and collaboration with teammates in Brooklyn, NY.

ABOUT THE POSITION

The Family Financial Planner will support multiple family households simultaneously, each with differing financial circumstances, goals, levels of engagement, and financial sophistication. This role will help each household understand its current financial position, identify near- and long-term goals, project cash needs and resources, and prepare for major decisions while partnering with Walnut Ridge staff and other external specialists (investment, tax, legal, insurance, and others).

Success in this role requires strong financial-planning fundamentals, analytical rigor, excellent listening and communication skills, disciplined follow-through, and the necessary discretion to operate effectively in a private family-office environment.

This role will not provide specific investment recommendations but will integrate advice from our OCIO advisor on family unit portfolio construction, manager selection, due diligence, performance reporting, and other investment-advisory responsibilities. This role will take ownership to ensure agreed-upon actions are successfully implemented and completed. As this is a new position, the Family Financial Planner has the opportunity to help shape and build this advisory function as our service offerings to family members evolve.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Family Financial Planning and Relationship Management

• Serve as the financial-planning relationship lead for designated family units, building trusted long-term relationships while maintaining appropriate professional boundaries and respecting each family member’s autonomy.
• Develop a thorough understanding of each unit’s circumstances, goals, values, priorities, financial knowledge, decision-making preferences, and family context. Help family members formulate concrete financial goals and identify the choices, tradeoffs, and actions required to achieve them.
• Establish and maintain a structured engagement cadence that includes annual planning reviews, periodic check-ins, and event-driven discussions.
• Prepare concise, accessible planning materials tailored to each family member’s needs and preferred learning style.
• Support appropriate self-service access for units through software/portals.

Household Cash Flow, Budgeting, and Financial Modeling

• Develop and maintain a complete view of household financial resources, obligations, spending, liquidity needs, and anticipated trust distributions.
• Create current and multiyear household cash flow projections and help family members establish practical budgets, savings goals, and liquidity reserves. Monitor actual results, updating plans as circumstances evolve.
• Consider tax consequences in planning models and integrate tax considerations to optimize philanthropic and gifting decision-making.
• Model major financial decisions and life events such as home purchases, education costs, charitable commitments, career changes, family transitions, etc. to illustrate the effects of different financial choices.
• Translate analytical findings into clear, practical guidance rather than generic recommendations.

Coordination of External Services

Investment Integration and Coordination:

• Partner with Walnut Ridge colleagues, our OCIO, custodians, and other relevant parties to align family members’ individual portfolios with their household goals, cash flow requirements, tax circumstances, and broader family structures.
• Prepare family members for investment discussions by clarifying their needs, questions, time horizons, liquidity requirements, and risk considerations.

Estate, Tax, Trust, and Risk-Management Coordination:

• Help family members identify estate-planning needs and articulate their goals before engaging legal counsel.
• Serve as the planning coordinator for personal estate-planning matters partnering with Walnut Ridge colleagues, estate-planning attorneys, tax professionals, trustees, insurance professionals, and other outside advisors.

Family Office Liaison and Service Coordination:

• Translate family needs into clear requests, decision points, and execution plans for internal team members and outside advisors.
• Ensure clarity as to which matters can be handled directly, which require family authorization, and which should be referred to a specialist.

Financial Education and Decision Support

• Help family members strengthen their understanding of personal finance, investments, trusts, taxes, estate planning, and the long-term consequences of financial decisions.
• Create and deliver right-sized financial education programs tied to actual decisions and life events for next-gen family members (with support from Walnut Ridge and outside advisors). Support parents seeking guidance on preparing their children for financial responsibility.
• Support family members through significant transitions, major purchases, and increased responsibility for wealth.
• Coordinate with the broader family office on relevant family learning and stewardship initiatives.

Documentation, Controls, and Continuous Improvement

• Maintain accurate and current planning records, assumptions, preferences, decisions, rationales, and action items, while protecting sensitive personal information.
• Work within Walnut Ridge’s systems, controls, governance structures, and decision-authority protocols.
• Create and improve templates, planning tools, workflows, dashboards, and service standards as the function develops.

Judgment, Risk Awareness and Escalation

• Identify and appropriately surface potential issues such as:
• Financial dependency risks,
• Misalignment with advisors,
• Spending patterns that create long‑term concerns,
• Other potential issues that the family office would need to address.
• Exercise sound judgment in determining when matters can be handled independently versus escalated.
• Recognize when financial discussions are being influenced by broader family dynamics and involve Walnut Ridge leadership when additional support may be helpful.
• Operate with a strong fiduciary mindset, even when not acting in a formal fiduciary capacity.

CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• CFP® certification, or substantial progress toward certification with a commitment to complete it within an agreed-upon period. A CPA/PFS designation may also be considered where the candidate has substantial personal financial-planning experience.
• Five or more years of relevant experience in personal financial planning, private wealth planning, trust services, private banking, a multifamily or single-family office, or another planning-led advisory environment.
• Demonstrated experience developing and presenting comprehensive personal financial plans.
• Strong experience with household cash-flow forecasting, budgeting, liquidity planning, financial-goal analysis, and scenario modeling, including proficiency with Excel and financial-planning software, and the ability to build, evaluate, and explain multiyear financial projections.
• Working knowledge of investments, retirement planning, estate planning, income and transfer-tax considerations, insurance, trusts, and charitable planning.
• Experience coordinating work among attorneys, accountants, investment advisors, trustees, insurance professionals, and other specialists.
• Ability to translate financial and technical information into clear choices, tradeoffs, and action steps for individuals with different levels of financial knowledge.
• Strong listening, relationship-management, and interpersonal skills, including the judgment to navigate sensitive perso]]>