Seeking ControlSeeking Control

Sara Hamilton, founder and chief executive officer, Family Office Exchange, Chicago

Financial families, defined as owners who manage their wealth as business, focused their attention in 2006 on enhancing their wealth strategies and strengthening their relationships with advisors as well as like-minded financial families. Whether the challenge was ownership control, new liquidity management or developing a 100-year family wealth plan, owners worked to get the right team of advisors around the table to effectively manage the transitions they faced and the transactions they needed to execute throughout the year.

What's new is how big that advisory table has become. Research by Family Office Exchange (FOX), a Chicago-based provider of research...