WE Family Offices

Since its inception in 2000 and transition to a fee-only independent fiduciary in 2013, WE Family Offices has been committed to delivering best-in-class advisory services. Catering to over 100 families across the U.S., Latin America and Europe, and advising on a total of $16.3 billion in assets, the firm recognized the need for a robust technology solution to enhance its ability to scale and improve operational efficiencies. WE required a partner that would grow alongside their ambitious goals — upleveling how they serve their clients, scale their business, handle and process data, ensure strong privacy and security standards, and create operating leverage by using technology, data and automation in a more strategic way.

Addepar emerged as the firm’s foundational technology and data platform of choice in 2020, revolutionizing WE’s ability to scale and overcome the limitations of people-powered operating models that relied on point solutions and a high degree of manual work.

FIRM

WE Family Offices

LOCATIONS

Miami, FL

New York City, NY

MANAGING PARTNERS

Maria Elena Lagomasino

Santiago Ulloa

Michael Zeuner

ESTABLISHED

2000

CURRENT ASSETS  UNDER ADVISEMENT

$16.3 billion

HOUSEHOLDS  SERVED

80+ across U.S.,  LATAM and Europe

TEAM MEMBERS

TECH PARTNER INTEGRATIONS

FactSet

Canoe

THE CHALLENGE

Scaling high-touch advisory services

WE Family Offices faced a critical challenge: how to scale its high-touch, advisory-centric business model and access on-demand portfolio insights amidst growing market uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic, subsequent volatility and growing client complexity underscored the limitations of their legacy system, particularly in providing real-time insights into client portfolios. Built in 2001, the firm’s homegrown SQL database required a new, innovative solution.

Michael Zeuner, Co-managing Partner, explains the pressing need for a technological overhaul to maintain their high standard of advisory relationships while efficiently scaling operations.

Our mission is to help families make decisions with confidence, competence, a sense of success and a sense  of control. That’s what we do. And there’s no doubt  that Addepar has become a key player in that.

michael zeuner, partner

“We realized we simply didn’t have the level of insight we’d like into the real-time activity in our client portfolios,” says Zeuner. “Alongside that, we were aware that our business is based upon advisory relationships — an extremely high-touch service. This is very challenging to scale effectively. As a result, we realized we needed to find a way to scale everything else — reporting, operations, data quality control, etc. We decided to become absolutely committed to investing in technology.”

With Addepar, WE has experienced:

27%

reduction in manual transactions

30%

automated manually entered transactions using the import tool

2-3x

increase in transactions reconciled

0%

increase in operational headcount with 2x transactions

94%

reduction in time spent creating reports

THE RESULT

Increased productivity, efficiency and scalability

The impact has been substantial – helping the firm simplify data reconciliation, improve automation, and enhance efficiency and productivity. With Addepar, WE Family Offices is decreasing the need for manually entered transactions by 27%. They are boosting processing capability using the platform’s import tool to further automate 30% of these transactions.

Firm analysts and advisors are reclaiming time for value-add activities, shifting focus from administrative tasks to strategic client engagement. Before Addepar, if an analyst wanted to change a standard report using the firm’s proprietary system, it might take up to a day or two, depending on complexity. “Today, with Addepar, a couple of clicks and it’s done,” Rocio Ortega, Partner and Head of Organizational Effectiveness & Talent relates. “Further, producing reports, or other supporting materials for client meetings, requires just minutes versus a half day or longer.”

From a growth perspective, the firm maintained its operational headcount while doubling its client base — revealing significant productivity gains. Report generation times were also cut significantly, transforming days of work into minutes and facilitating rapid onboarding of new clients without compromising service quality.

One of our advisors summed it up by saying, ‘Life before Addepar is like life before the iPhone — I don’t even remember it.

michael zeuner, partner

“We estimate we’ve doubled or maybe even tripled the number of transactions we’ve been able to reconcile,” says Zeuner. “And we’re able to handle many more relationships because our analysts don’t have to spend all their time finding answers in very manually intensive ways. Also, we’re now able to onboard new clients without sacrificing the level of service we want to provide, or adding an extra body to the firm.”

WE Family Offices’ partnership with Addepar has been a strategic success, aligning with the firm’s mission to empower families with confident, competent decision-making. With Addepar firmly in the center of their tech stack, WE continues to achieve global scalability while maintaining best-in-class client service and operational efficiency. Rocio Ortega emphasizes the central role Addepar plays in the firm’s operations: “When sourcing other solutions, our first question is ‘Do you integrate with Addepar?’ If they don’t, we’re not interested.”

Case study