Conducting Operational Due Diligence to Manage Family Office Risks with Maura Harris

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Maura Harris, Founder of Maura Harris & Company, an operational due diligence (ODD) consulting boutique. With over 25 years of experience in alternative asset management, Maura has worked for premier asset managers, fund of funds, RIAs, and family offices. Her core services include Operational Due Diligence (ODD) Readiness, ODD Document Review, ODD Full Reviews, ODD Audit and ODD Verification, as well as add-on specialty due diligence.

Prior to working with private clients, Maura was the Head of Due Diligence at Bostwick Capital, a fund of funds, from 2016 to 2024. In addition, she provided consulting and advisory services for a broad range of firms including AITEC, a technology peer group, Centrl Inc., a fintech company digitizing investor questionnaires, Symphonic Leadership Partners, a change management advisory group, and Harness All Possibilities, a nonprofit helping individuals transform their value to meet the future of work. From 2006 to 2015, Maura developed and managed the operational due diligence program at The Permal Group. Permal was a global multi-strategy, multi-manager investing in hedge funds, private equity, and real assets. Prior to Permal, she worked in accounting, operations and due diligence at GAM Investments and Bank of America Alternative Group, as well as the private equity group at Prudential Financial.

In this episode, we discus Maura's core area of expertise – operational risk and due diligence (ODD) for family offices. She explains why this discipline is important and what families, family office executives, and family advisors should do to stay focused on in this specialized field of ODD.

Maura leads us through the different types of operational risks family offices need to understand and mitigate and outlines the various dimensions of ODD that she covers in her work with family offices.

One practical need and challenge for family offices is how to assess managers and vendors for operational risks. Maura talks about this need and how family office leaders should think about and manage these external risks that are affecting their operation.

Maura explains how family leaders and family office executives should think about the value of ODD and offers her tips on the best methods and tools to articulate, measure, and mitigate these operational risks.

Enjoy this highly instructional conversation with a deep expert in the ODD discipline as applied to family enterprises and family offices.