The WealthTech Podcast Episode Transcript

Host: Mark Wickersham

Guest: Danielle Klimek, COO Single Family Office

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Mark Wickersham: All right, Danielle, welcome to the Wealth Tech. Podcast. I'm excited to have you on the show today. We're going to be talking for somebody who's in the COO of a single family office

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Mark Wickersham: and talking about where the kind of reality hits the road and and help people understand

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Mark Wickersham: better what happens with the family office? Some of the challenges that that family offices have and some of the the key services that the

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Mark Wickersham: they provide the families. But if would you mind? Just kind of giving a brief overview, a little background on you and maroon capital.

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Danielle Klimek: Yeah. So my name is Danielle Klimek COO of Single Family Office. I've been with this organization family for about 6 years. We are.

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Danielle Klimek: We're a full service family office. We do everything from

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Danielle Klimek: bill pay to investments and everything in between tax help with wealth, planning help with personal stuff, everything in the middle. And so other family offices don't do all of that. They do. Sometimes some components, some families do things on their own. Some families have people help out. Wait! I'm going to pause. This is there a delay.

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Danielle Klimek: Got it. Okay. So let me start over thanks, Mark, for having me on your podcast it's really great that you thought of Me and thanks for inviting me. I've been with Marin capital now for 6 years. We're full service family office, so we do everything from bill pay to investments and everything in the middle tax. We help with the taxes we help with

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Danielle Klimek: the wealth planning we help on the personal side, we help coordinate with concierge. So we have a small team. Like every other family office, we are still a small team, but we kind of wear lots of hats

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Danielle Klimek: prior to being inside family offices. I have experience. Coming in sort of from the vendor side. I used to work for a software company that serviced family offices on the accounting side. So I brought kind of with that.

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Danielle Klimek: the system knowledge. And then it's interesting, because it's very different working inside and applying actually how the family office functions back to the software.

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Danielle Klimek: we are, you know, 2 generations but 2 generations growing. And so it's an exciting time at least at Marin capital in terms of activity and everything that's going on. There's never a dull moment.

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Danielle Klimek: And I think that's 1 of the nice things about family offices and working inside family offices is, there's truly a never. There's never a dull moment. There's some always something needing to be improved, always something needed to be tackled, and I think that is a huge draw for individuals and professionals who are motivated. To come to the family office industry.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, Danielle, we had a chance to work on a project together right with the implementation archway. Back in the back in the day. You were. You were on the vendor side doing the implementation. I was on the consulting side. 

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Mark Wickersham: What in terms of family office professionals. What are what are some of the kind of

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Mark Wickersham: what makes a good family office employee? You talk about having to wear a lot of different hats and deal with a lot of different projects. But in your mind what kind of makes an ideal, what people shouldn't think about going into the family office space, or what makes an ideal family office employee.

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Danielle Klimek: So an ideal family office employee is somebody who largely doesn't care about vertical. Not that you don't have vertical growth in a family office. But we're typically horizontal organizations. And so there's a lot of growth professionally, and the things that you touch, you know, on a daily basis. I'm touching tax aspects. I'm touching legal aspects I'm doing, accounting

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Danielle Klimek: I'm helping with.

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Danielle Klimek: I don't know. Travel. We're dealing with some Hr issues. There's a wide range of things that you get experience in dealing with.

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Danielle Klimek: But it's not like you're gonna step in and like in a big 4 tax firm. You're gonna come in, and you have this projected path.

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Danielle Klimek: in a family office.

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Mark Wickersham: Vp, Svp. Like that.

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Danielle Klimek: Yes, or like seen managers.

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Danielle Klimek: senior manager partner, that doesn't exist in a family office, and you know, to some extent, I think some family offices try, because I think, especially with the younger generations where they're going and what they're working towards is really important. But I think always trying to. Just remember that

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Danielle Klimek: you're in an organization where you have the ability to do lots of things. And so with patience and just proving yourself and willing to help in any area, no matter how menial the task seems, I think, is really, I think, is really the type of person you need to have in a family office, you know. Obviously, there's all the components of trustworthiness and loyalty, because those are what families look for. But

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Danielle Klimek: most importantly, someone who's just willing to. You know I don't care if I have to help figure out a Venmo transaction today and tomorrow I could be reviewing a tax return. And it's and it's both okay. But just being all right with that.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah. So it's not being tied up. That's not my job. It's not really a.

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Danielle Klimek: Yeah.

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Danielle Klimek: Yeah, it's

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Danielle Klimek: it's not really an option either, to step back and say, that's not my job over, at least, what I've seen since I started working is family offices have really evolved. There was this saying, almost where you know, you go into family offices, and you would see people who've been there for many, many years, and they've kind of stayed in the same roles. And I don't think that's true of family offices anymore. Once family offices started adapting to technology

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Danielle Klimek: and

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Danielle Klimek: seeing the opportunity for reporting. And obviously you have younger generations who are more adept to technology. Anyways, I think it's really a place now where professionals are thriving and those challenges that you know you used to be able to just write out your days doing the same thing you've been doing forever doesn't really exist anymore, because as the family changes, and as the generations change, so do so do your professionals.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think that's a that's a good point. I think you know family offices deal with a tremendous amount of complexity and offer, you know in your case, a wide range of services with a very limited staff, right? Even a large family office when you're talking 40 50 people.

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Mark Wickersham: And certainly there's a couple of Mega offices out there that may be bigger than that. But really you're talking a small staff with a wide range of

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Mark Wickersham: of services that they're providing with really complex clientele. So I think that you know you need the best of the best. And then to your point that that trust factor is also incredibly important to families. As well.

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Mark Wickersham: Tell me a little bit about your role, though, that the coo role, what is the coo responsible for within a family office.

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Danielle Klimek: So I'm really involved in kind of all points of operations. I help with accounting and reporting, and we use a very large tech stack at Marin for the size of our office, in terms of number of employees and number of generations served, we actually have a very complex

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Danielle Klimek: tech stack and offering so we run, you know, 4 different systems. We our systems integrate our systems have reporting capabilities. And our some systems need a bit of talking to each other, and part of our role is to help do that. So it's figuring out all the pieces work together from a finance side. So part of my role is on the finance side.

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Danielle Klimek: And just making sure. You know, bills are getting paid and reports are being done and capital calls are happening and distributions are happening. And you know any

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Danielle Klimek: thing that if someone in your personal life might do you know, I'm typically helping me or someone on my team is helping to facilitate

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Danielle Klimek: so buying houses, selling houses, renovating houses, all those things that everybody does in their daily lives. Right? We're just

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Danielle Klimek: helping someone else do it and making sure that it's

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Danielle Klimek: all good and compliant, and everything in the middle.

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Mark Wickersham: So a lot of project management. It's the responsibility of the tech stacks falling within your preview. The investment operations component of it, right? Capital calls distributions.

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Mark Wickersham: funding.

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Mark Wickersham: So your tech stack, you're using

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Mark Wickersham: multiple components and integrating those components. I know there's 2 different approaches when family offices are looking at software. And you know there, I don't think there's really a wrong answer. I think it depends on the operational requirements of that family office, the tech personality of that that particular family office. But can you just talk to me a little bit about

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Mark Wickersham: best of breed where you're bringing together different components of a tech stack and integrating those versus maybe an all more, an all in one comprehensive solution. What? How should family offices be thinking about that approach, and what are some of the pros and cons to to those approaches.

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Danielle Klimek: So we are.

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Danielle Klimek: We run 4 softwares, and I guess we are kind of in the best of breed area. We evolved from an all in one approach. So the all in one approach is one software that typically does a wide range of capabilities. You have your kind of your asset. Vantage. Eaton Solutions Archway group. Those are the big name all in one systems.

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Danielle Klimek: out in the family office space. And then you have, like your best of breed approach, which is like your sage, intact for general ledger accounting. You have other, I mean, people use Microsoft dynamics. People use Great Plains. Still, people still use QuickBooks. So it's kind of like fitting in those components. So it's your general ledger piece. You typically have an investment piece. Some people use. Just excel. Some people use Addepar or Mastrro

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Danielle Klimek: People use different functions for bill pay, and there's like a million bill pay softwares out there. There's bill.com and ramp, and I mean there's hundreds. There's a lot of them out there. So the idea just being, Do you kind of want one system to do everything. And or do you want the best of breed where you might have multiple systems? But they're really great at what they do. So

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Danielle Klimek: we evolved out of the All in one, just because over time our reporting needs were becoming too complex for the all in one system, right. The all-in-one system has some core functionality which typically kind of is its bread and butter. And then it has everything outside. But from a maintenance perspective on those systems and their ability to be able to maintain all parts of the software. Well, it's

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Danielle Klimek: costly. And it's money. It's money people. A development team your team has to be, you know, have a wide range of knowledge about different

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Danielle Klimek: spaces, whereas you know you think about like Sage. They're just focused on General Ledger right? And Sage is really great at also saying we're going to partner with somebody. Right? We're not going to be the best at Bill pay, and we are going to now link up with bill.com. But we're going to make it really easy for you to link up with bill.com. You don't have to figure it out on your own. So we have ended up in a situation where we're best of breed and we I appreciate it. I have found

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Danielle Klimek: coming from the All in one space, both as a vendor and as a client. I found best of breed to be very refreshing, just because you, you can ultimately get what you want, and more easily than you can sometimes in an all in one system.

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Danielle Klimek: But I think that on.

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Mark Wickersham: Go ahead!

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Danielle Klimek: Oh, I was, gonna say, the pro of the all in one system.

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Danielle Klimek: especially on an employee side, is that you're learning one system.

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Danielle Klimek: Many, all in one systems are modular, modularized. So you don't have to.

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Danielle Klimek: you don't have to learn multiple systems. You don't have to learn multiple things. Sometimes. You don't even need to necessarily be aware of the accounting that's happening. You can just go in and do your thing and make sure that your side of the system works, and everything's being taken care of on the other side. So I think the the pro on an all in one system is, it's probably a little bit easier to administer from an employee capability side. And while still complex, all these systems are complex, and

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Danielle Klimek: you know it's all comes down to bad data in bad reporting out. But

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Danielle Klimek: it's typically a bit easier

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Danielle Klimek: of a lift. And then, on the best of breed side, there's the constant. Well, if I put it in here, how does it affect the other system? And that takes a little bit different

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Danielle Klimek: kind of an employee.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, the change management approach is a little different. You have kind of

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Mark Wickersham: different components changing at different times and compatibility

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Mark Wickersham: issues sometimes. I mean? Certainly the all in one has a unified user interface. So employees can kind of adapt to that. Certainly they tend to be very good at partnership accounting embedded general ledger. But, like you said, they can't be. It's like you can't be the best of all components, right? So

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Mark Wickersham: and sometimes different departments have specialized needs, or the reporting can be to a point where maybe you need to get a different approach. The right tool for right job. In some cases. Certainly. The vendor management

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Mark Wickersham: where you're now managing multiple vendors

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Mark Wickersham: versus a single vendor is also, I I'm sure, a concern for some family offices. How do you go about?

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Mark Wickersham: in terms of prioritizing your tech stack and taking a look at

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Mark Wickersham: what initiatives you need to have. I mean, obviously, like, like any organization, you have limited resources. With kind of probably an unlimited wish list. How do you go about prioritizing your tech changes and what you're gonna be working on going forward.

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Danielle Klimek: So I think this has happened a few times now.

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Danielle Klimek: throughout. My like tenure here with Marin is that we've

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Danielle Klimek: you kind of get to a point where you're like.

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Danielle Klimek: do I need another person? And then you have to think about, okay, what are all my people doing? And is there a software that does that. And

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Danielle Klimek: you have to then research what the maintenance looks like, how you know, that's where the whole process of demoing the software, understanding exactly how it works. When we implemented Sage, it took us a very long time, I feel, to get comfortable and understanding how we were going to use it and our approach to it, just because, you know, we weren't going to switch to another system for a new set of problems. Right? It might fix one thing, but it doesn't fix everything.

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Danielle Klimek: So when we, you know, carved out a subset of our entities and said, We're going to use sage. We

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Danielle Klimek: we're very deliberate about how that looked, what it was going to be, how much strain it was going to be to manage the multiple systems

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Danielle Klimek: on our team and what that all looked like. So I think that usually you know the 1st your 1st thought is always like, Oh, I'll just. We need to hire another person, but that is also expensive and comes with its own set of

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Danielle Klimek: not problems, but just training. Right? No person is no individual is really good till about a year in. So you're at least a year out from any relief of whatever problem you're experiencing. And you're not even

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Danielle Klimek: may not even feel some relief even with another person, because on top of your regular job that you're already feeling overflow, overflowing on, you are also then training somebody. So 2 jobs.

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Danielle Klimek: So usually, then it's an evaluation of what are we doing?

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Danielle Klimek: What's inefficient, you know, for us. It was I was taking multiple days to prepare reports which now, out of one system, I can produce in 2 days I can produce all the reports in 2 days, all the footnoting, all the review, everything condensed down to what was probably a week.

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Danielle Klimek: and then, plus because anytime there was adjustments, you know, I had to make an adjustment, run it to a big data file. Make sure that that adjustment was captured, so that on my next round of reporting that I spit all out of excel kind of everything.

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Danielle Klimek: Everything that was entered into the system then was going to appear on my reports. Now everything that's entered into the system spits out of the system. So if I make an adjustment, that adjustment flows through automatically shows up on the reports that I'm going to produce, so I think that those are the types of questions we ask ourselves. And you know they happen when there's just evolution in a family office. Right? You have

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Danielle Klimek: life events. You have growth as generations age. Maybe they're starting to do their own things, whereas

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Danielle Klimek: generations used to function kind of as one family unit. I mean, if you think about how your own family functions, you and your kids function as one family unit until they're old enough to go off and do things on their own. And then, all of a sudden, you have 2 family units, you know, and in the middle there you have one and a half family units.

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Mark Wickersham: So that that makes sense. Yeah, that that these families are constantly changing, right as as any any family does

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Mark Wickersham: but then also you. So you're looking at that that kind of key marker for you is when you kind of get up to that point where you're taking a look at potentially adding additional staff. And then you, you step back and say, Is there a way to automate this as a way that we can kind of avoid that, that adding that staff to be able to continue to do what we need to do.

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Danielle Klimek: Yes, and what are the costs of automating? Right? So is it is appropriate. Is it appropriate to be automating something, I think, is another good question to ask, and if

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Danielle Klimek: if the automation is going to reduce the risk of error?

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Danielle Klimek: So if something can be fully automated and fully integrated between systems, whereas you might have an individual who you have to train to recognize errors like that might be a key process that you could automate

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Danielle Klimek: right versus having to train somebody. What if they stay? What if they go, you know? Do you have documentation of what they learned? So that then you can train the next person if you have to. So I think processes that have room for error where there's just a lot of manual intervention are great things to evaluate when you're looking at potential software options.

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Mark Wickersham: I think that's that's a great way to put it. I think that makes sense. So it's not always just a straight up Roi type of of situation right? There's other intrinsic

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Mark Wickersham: value that that tech spend can have. Why, why do family offices struggle so much, though with with technology and don't necessarily get the results that they want.

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Danielle Klimek: I think this family offices struggle because they're so small, they're so small. It's sometimes difficult to find the right service provider. You also have to have staff internally that speak

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Danielle Klimek: tech language and speak it enough that they can. You know, every software uses a different set of terms. So it's like a different set of language. Every time you have to learn a new software.

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Danielle Klimek: it could be attributes, it could be dimensions. It could be classes, all basically terms designed around tagging data. That's it. But every software is different, understanding how those tags and how those things work within the software, what the outputs are within the software. So I think it's a combination of

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Danielle Klimek: making sure you have at least a a 1 to 2 people internally on your staff who kind of get it?

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Danielle Klimek: I always, when I speak with other family offices when they're evaluating software, I always say, like, you have to find your one person who's going to be your super user, the person who in your organization people are going to come to and ensure that the system is being maintained accurately. And you're using it. You know the way that you've designed to use it. And then ultimately finding obviously a software that works.

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Danielle Klimek: And I think all software only solves 80% of your problems.

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Danielle Klimek: Every software is going to have its pros. Every software is going to have its cons. You may get some solutions. You may exchange it for a different set of

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Danielle Klimek: problems, but maybe they're smaller problems than the ones you were dealing with before. And then there's the the 3rd piece, which is finding the right, you know. If you choose to use an implementation service provider or consultant finding the right one and making sure that they are knowledgeable enough in

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Danielle Klimek: the software you're implementing to

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Danielle Klimek: help you do that and a service provider that you might use to evaluate software and all the potential products out there may not be the same person who should help you implement it. And I think that's really important to recognize is where people's strengths are, because if you don't have somebody who fully understands the software helping you implement it, and who kind of hasn't been around the block with it. They might not be the greatest at

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Danielle Klimek: helping you with your solution, because in my experience, family offices, each one has its. We all do basically the same thing. But we all have our own unique way of doing things. And I've been at a few family offices. Now, I've been at many family offices, if from a client from a vendor side and everybody same basic functions slightly different.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think those are all good points. I think you know.

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Mark Wickersham: using consultants can be a great way to to help with technology, search and selection. They're they're doing market scans there knows what's available to you in the in the marketplace. But maybe that if you get to the point where say you select sage?

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Mark Wickersham: They haven't done that many sage implementations where you could go with a consulting firm that maybe specializes in sage implementations that they're gonna know the ins and outs. They're gonna know the ways in which you can be more successful in that onboarding of those kind of major systems in particular, right?

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Danielle Klimek: Yes.

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Mark Wickersham: When it comes to outsourcing. Obviously, you have a lot of functions that you need to provide

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Mark Wickersham: can't necessarily do everything in house. How do you think about what the outsource?

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Mark Wickersham: 1st let's talk about that, and then we should. And then I want to talk to you. Pick your brain a little bit about how you should manage and outsource it. But when and where should family offices look to outsource.

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Danielle Klimek: So I think it depends on the family office where you look to outsource mainly because

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Danielle Klimek: you, you want. You want to outsource where you have specific

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Danielle Klimek: needs that you might be able to oversee, but may not be technically like so technically in the weeds that you could actually do. For instance, outsourcing tax is a really good example. There's many family offices that do it. There are family offices that have their own team of tax professionals. But that, just obviously right, is more people and depending on the size of the family office, the number of tax returns you're doing.

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Danielle Klimek: How many people does that? How many people do you need to manage all of that versus going with an outside firm? Also, the outside firm is up to date on, you know, legislation is changing all the time. So you know, they have a whole team of people making sure that things are up to date on. You know. What? What can they be doing from a tax planning perspective?

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Danielle Klimek: I feel like tax is generally one of the ones that I see. There's I've seen a few family offices with in-house legal even with like an in-house. Even if a lawyer, some family offices have coos or Cfos, who are also lawyers, even in those family offices. I also see them using outside tax firms or outside legal firms.

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Danielle Klimek: So I think it. It largely depends. And I think it depends on whomever is running the ship. Because that person is responsible for overseeing to make sure all those

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Danielle Klimek: out so outsourced firms are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And I think that

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Danielle Klimek: some people have talked about more and more. The conversation of outsourcing the accounting work, outsourcing bill pay has been on the forefront. I think I hear that I've been hearing that in a lot of conferences, because hiring employees is difficult. Having employees stay is difficult, especially when there's not a lot of upward mobility which we talked about. You get employees. They come in. They

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Danielle Klimek: are, you know, useful for a few years, and then they want to go and and continue their development. So they leave. So it is a conversation that's happening.

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Danielle Klimek: I've heard success stories, and I've heard horror stories. I've heard stories where you know the outsourced accounting firm has their own set of turnover, and

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Danielle Klimek: the books haven't been managed properly, but I think all of that really comes down to oversight, and having, if you're going to outsource that kind of work, making sure that you have a team of people inside who are dedicated to reviewing it and making sure that it's right and determining, based on competencies of the outsourced accounting firm and competencies internally, what level of review is needed.

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Mark Wickersham: I think that makes sense, I think. You know, there are some really technical matters like tax, as you say, tax changes all the time. So you have firms that can stay up to date on that

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Mark Wickersham: cyber security. Another one of those it. Items. Right? We're we're having a dedicated cyber security expert. Maybe not possible for the family office directly, but they outsource that.

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Mark Wickersham: I think, to your point in terms of managing, just because you've outsourced. It doesn't mean that you don't need to manage that function anymore. Right? You're still ultimately responsible for managing those vendors. Those vendors change right? Their personnel change ownership changes those type of things you need to be kind of on top of that and making sure that those

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Mark Wickersham: the service levels are are still being met.

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Mark Wickersham: how should family offices be be thinking about risk and and risk management in general?

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Danielle Klimek: I think the risk management is

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Danielle Klimek: comes from the family itself, right? What their tolerance is for risk so inherently. It is my belief that a family office is there. You know, you create a family office in order to protect a family. But every family, you know, just like individuals. Everyone has different tolerances for risk. So you know, some

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Danielle Klimek: may want to be more risky here, and they want to be less risky somewhere else. So I think it's learning what your family wants and what you know their tolerances for risk, and then helping implement that internally in the office in the various areas, right? So some family offices are

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Danielle Klimek: have high data

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Danielle Klimek: worries, right? They worry about where their data is. There's family offices who have everything in their own servers. They don't put anything in the cloud. Then there's family offices who have everything in the cloud. So it it depends, and it depends what you can get comfortable with. I think it depends again on the person leading the ship. So whether that's a family member or

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Danielle Klimek: a family office professional, what their level of comfort is the organizations they're working with. What the data redundancy is, how you know whether it's

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Danielle Klimek: tested to make sure that there's, you know no penetration from outside like hackers. But there's, you know, several areas of risk, right? There's areas of human capital risk. If you know, you have everybody who kind of you have your trusted individuals, and everybody knows everything, and a trusted individual leaves. There's risk there. So one thing I always think about is, you know, if I get hit by a bus walking across 57th Street is.

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Danielle Klimek: are we going, you know, because someone else know what I know. So we always, you know, I always worry to make sure that there's some continuity and processes and procedures, and somebody the right person is aware of

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Danielle Klimek: what you know needs to be done.

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Mark Wickersham: How should family offices be thinking about

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Mark Wickersham: modernization? I I think you know to your point that I I think this has been going on the modernization, the professionalization, certainly of of family offices. But

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Mark Wickersham: what are some of the drawbacks that that are are preventing some family office from from modernizing? And then how should family offices take a look at like new capabilities that such as AI and and is that gonna force more family offices to modernize.

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Danielle Klimek: I think family offices tend to move a bit on the slow side in terms of modernizing and technology. I specifically experienced this in my career, just seeing you know

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Danielle Klimek: how it, how family offices evolved as they took on technology and took on a software product and even after I left that company. The need for individuals who knew how to run those products. Transitioning from vendor to client, I think, is very different now than it was, you know, back when I was transitioning from vendor to client. So I think that a family offices

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Danielle Klimek: capability to modernize also goes back to the family. What generation is making the decisions at the time? Do they want to modernize, or do they have the needs to write? Some family offices? Are, you know, in terms of

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Danielle Klimek: complexity and operations tend to be very simple. Some are very complex which could mean, you know, more people or more technology in today's world. So I think it runs the gamut. I think that family offices tend to decide to modernize when there's there is a need, or there's some sort of like situation that presents itself.

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Danielle Klimek: Maybe it's a key. Yeah, maybe it's a key individual leaving right? Maybe it's a generation shift. That will

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Danielle Klimek: move them to that next thing. Maybe it's a new person coming in and saying, Hey, we could do this, this and this, and we could reduce headcount and be less reliant on on people, or at least shift people's responsibilities, which family offices, as we talked about tend to be lean. Let's shift people's responsibilities to be more on the review side as opposed to on the data entry side.

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Mark Wickersham: The evolution of the family office. You've always had a front row seat, both on the vendor side and and in in the family office. Where? Where do you see the market going? 2, 3, 5 years out.

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Danielle Klimek: So I think that

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Danielle Klimek: I feel like the market is going from a technology perspective. I think it's it's gonna move fast. I don't know that family offices is gonna move as fast as everybody else. And it was interesting. I was at the Sage Conference, and they did a talk on AI, and

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Danielle Klimek: one of I can't remember where she was from, but she her point was, Don't be the first, st and family offices. I kind of joked. Family offices are usually not the first.st From a technology perspective, we're very careful about how we figure out how to use things, making sure that it's private, making sure that we're secure. So I think that we'll move a bit

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Danielle Klimek: slower. But I don't think I don't think the family offices will move as slowly towards, you know, technological advancements as as slowly as I think they have in the past. I think that the ability to stay lean and is is a huge proponent for technology, but also on the human capital risk side. So I think to balance those, it's going to be a marrying the 2 together, and a and a balance.

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Mark Wickersham: That makes sense. I think. Yeah, family offices are definitely not early adopters of technology. I don't know if they should be. But you won't necessarily want to be on that bleeding edge. I do think you see a lot more options now, right that there was really limited options in in the space in the in the past.

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Mark Wickersham: had to use retail software or software from from certain other industries and be able to adapt that to to your needs. Now, you see a lot of purpose built specific products entering in the marketplace. You're definitely seeing vendors taking, you know, a focus on that sage, for example, specific vertical focus on family offices.

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Mark Wickersham: So I I do think it it is. There's a lot more options for family offices was great. I think that kind of creates a little bit of buying confusion

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Mark Wickersham: going forward for family offices. But that's really a high grade problem compared to not having options.

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Mark Wickersham: But I do think it is a space where you're seeing. What is you seeing? A growth, a lot more family offices, which is great. And then you're seeing a lot more options for those family offices. But I think those are good points in terms of

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Mark Wickersham: the adoption curve.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, Daniel, I like to end these podcasts on a personal note with 3 questions that have nothing to do with wealth, tech, or in this case, nothing to do with family offices.

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Mark Wickersham: If you could have one superpower, what would it be.

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Danielle Klimek: I don't know. I I really don't have an answer to that, mostly because.

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Mark Wickersham: Oh, my God, sure! Well, one is being a mom's a superpower. But you know, could you be in 2 places at one time or.

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Danielle Klimek: Maybe maybe that I think

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Danielle Klimek: I think as I I've just been navigating life professionally, personally, all of it. I think there's an importance to finding balance, and also just appreciating certain things for what they are. And so

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Danielle Klimek: I think a superpower. You might miss some stuff. 2 places at once. Maybe you're not there. Maybe you're not there wholly. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't. I honestly didn't give that question too much thought but.

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Mark Wickersham: Hey? Present, that would be a great superpower. I think we need more of that in the world, you know.

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Danielle Klimek: Yeah, yeah, being more present. In the moment and less technology. And as we just talked all about technology,

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Danielle Klimek: but it it is. It's it's nice.

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Mark Wickersham: What one hobby or skill that you have, that that somebody might not know about.

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Danielle Klimek: I run. I don't run fast, but I run and

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Danielle Klimek: you might not know about that. Me and I was a dance, Major.

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Mark Wickersham: Okay, did. So when you got out of school, did you dance professionally? Or what was the.

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Danielle Klimek: No, I didn't dance professionally. Went to school for dance performance, picked up a finance major on the way, didn't especially love finance by my junior year in college, but was like, just gotta get out of here, and then ended up heading over to accounting.

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Mark Wickersham: It's it's served you well, since right? So.

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Danielle Klimek: Yes.

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Mark Wickersham: Favorite show. You're you're watching, or binge binging right now.

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Danielle Klimek: I have not really binging any shows right now, and that's really weird. I also feel like I I just finished school. I just finished my master's, and so I haven't had a lot of time to kind of sit and digest and figure out what show I want to watch. And you know, we're still finishing up year end of school for the kids and all that fun stuff sports are still finishing up, so there hasn't been much downtime.

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Mark Wickersham: So you have a ton of time to be able to watch the problem with these shows like you gotta kinda commit to them like wife and I. We do this all the time. We'll we'll start watching a show and 3 episodes. And then, like, you know, 4 months later, you're like, oh, remember! Shall we watch it?

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Danielle Klimek: We started. We've started a few shows. And then we just yeah, things got busy. We, you know, we didn't have the evening time new sport started. Something happened. So not a whole lot of show watching, but maybe someday.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, I'll throw one out there slow horses on Apple. It's it's a great spy thriller really

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Mark Wickersham: really enjoyable. I was. I was doing some

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Mark Wickersham: riding a bike indoors during this during the winter, and and that that got me through it because I get really bored on the on the trainer.

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Mark Wickersham: So that was that was a fun one. If anybody's out there looking for a new show, and they haven't seen that one but alright, Danielle, this has been great to catch up. It's good to see you. Thank you so much for sharing all your insights.

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Danielle Klimek: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.