Marcia Nelson on family offices, authentic relationships, and the power of connection
By Kristen Oliveri
In the world of family offices, relationships aren’t just important, they're everything. Marcia Nelson of Freedom Capital understands this intuitively. She’s spent her career cultivating meaningful connections and now brings that spirit to life through curated gatherings that center around investing, philanthropy, and wellness. In this conversation, Kristen Oliveri sits down with Nelson to reflect on their long-standing friendship and explore what’s next in the evolving landscape of wealth.
Marcia, you and I have known each other for quite some time now, and I always joke that you’re the Kevin Bacon of the family office world because you truly know everyone! How did you build this reputation as the ultimate connector in our space?
It’s a lot of work! I attend conferences, read articles, follow people I find interesting on LinkedIn, speak or moderate panels when I’m asked, and follow up with people I meet. I like talking with people and hearing their stories, and I really have this crazy brain and a pretty good memory for stories. When I meet someone who has a unique story or passion, I really try to connect them to others with the same interests. What I’ve really found to be important is not “throwing spaghetti against the wall”. By that I mean, I am really careful and thoughtful about making introductions and connecting people to each other. People come to me and say, “Hey, is there anyone in your network who can help me solve x” and many times I can make a direct introduction or point them in the right direction.
Your role at Freedom Capital Markets has allowed you to create some incredible programming for family offices. Tell us how your Freedom event series came to life and what makes it unique.
I’ve always seen curated events as a way to bring people together in a meaningful way. This can be around specific topics and themes, or more generally around building a community. I genuinely like doing it as I feel like it makes me smarter, and if I feel that way maybe other people do, too. Freedom hired me after coming to one of the events I produced for family offices, and the firm has really championed the conference series. I have great respect for the people who run conferences as a business, but with the backing of Freedom I don’t need to fill a conference with sponsor pitches, so I can really focus on making my events peer-to-peer. What do I mean by that? I mean that the majority of the speakers at my conferences are themselves single family office members and/or their representatives.
I’m also able to bring unique topics to the summits – as I talk with various families and get to know them, I look for things they are passionate about, and when I find two or three other families with similar interests, I look for an opportunity to showcase them. I think in terms of best ideas for investments, and best practices for philanthropy. Some of my recent topics have been around hydrogen as an alternative fuel source, electrification of various modes of transportation, new technologies to make the fashion industry more sustainable, and how to support your local community through donating art and philanthropic dollars to a museum. Not every topic is going to appeal to everyone, but when people leave my conferences, they often tell me they learned something new and came away with new thoughts and ideas, in addition to making new friends in the community.
Your role at Freedom Capital Markets has allowed you to create some incredible programming for family offices. Tell us how your Freedom event series came to life and what makes it unique.
I’ve always seen curated events as a way to bring people together in a meaningful way. This can be around specific topics and themes, or more generally around building a community. I genuinely like doing it as I feel like it makes me smarter, and if I feel that way maybe other people do, too. Freedom hired me after coming to one of the events I produced for family offices, and the firm has really championed the conference series. I have great respect for the people who run conferences as a business, but with the backing of Freedom I don’t need to fill a conference with sponsor pitches, so I can really focus on making my events peer-to-peer. What do I mean by that? I mean that the majority of the speakers at my conferences are themselves single family office members and/or their representatives.
I’m also able to bring unique topics to the summits – as I talk with various families and get to know them, I look for things they are passionate about, and when I find two or three other families with similar interests, I look for an opportunity to showcase them. I think in terms of best ideas for investments, and best practices for philanthropy. Some of my recent topics have been around hydrogen as an alternative fuel source, electrification of various modes of transportation, new technologies to make the fashion industry more sustainable, and how to support your local community through donating art and philanthropic dollars to a museum. Not every topic is going to appeal to everyone, but when people leave my conferences, they often tell me they learned something new and came away with new thoughts and ideas, in addition to making new friends in the community.
I know everyone’s excited about your upcoming conference series. Can you give us a sneak peek — what should family office attendees expect this year?
We have our fall family office coming up in Houston in September. I’m excited to have a fireside chat with the founder of Texas Roadhouse. I like to showcase things that are happening and highlight family offices from a local area, and mix them in with others coming in from elsewhere. Our winter conference will be in Salt Lake City during the last week of the Sundance Film Festival. This is the last year Sundance will be in Utah – it’s moving to Boulder in 2027 – so we’re going to have some programming around film and entertainment.
Building authentic relationships seems to be at the heart of everything you do. What’s your approach to fostering real connections in an industry that can sometimes feel transactional?
I have worked in and around the family office community for more than 25 years. I worked for four family offices during that time, and my first foray was working for a billionaire philanthropist as she was just getting her family office set up. We didn’t even call it a family office, we were just a team of people managing her life. That experience informs everything else I do today. Having that insider experience makes me more conscious and aware of the expectations and demands, and frankly, all the pressure that is put on wealthy individuals.
As I meet more people who are themselves family members or work for a family, I always think about what it’s like from their side, and then I try to find out what they need and want, and lead with how I can help them. Over the years I’ve helped people find staff members, private schools, Broadway shows to see, cool restaurants and vacation spots, and yes, co-investors for deals. I firmly believe that my reputation for providing real answers to questions has lead to me being considered a “connector” in the family office community, and I take that role and responsibility very seriously.
You’ve always been a champion for women in the wealth space. How do you help other women expand their networks and find their voices at the table?
You are right, this has long been something I’ve been passionate about. Before I started working in the family office world, I spent several years in fashion publishing – living the “Devil Wears Prada” life. What struck me at the time was how powerful some of these magazine editors were and still are, including Tina Brown and Anna Wintour. But they were on the editorial side, while men were the publishers and on the finance side. It seemed pretty incongruous. After getting my MBA and flipping to the finance world, I saw fewer women in leadership positions. In the investment banking and private equity world, for example the number of women in the industry has hovered consistently around 15% for years. And it’s worse in the venture community. I wanted to something to change that. I started a women’s network, Deals & Divas, and did that as a side hustle for several years. Each month we had a panel of female speakers who were well known in their industries, and we also showcased six to eight female led start ups. I invited guests to support the start ups by buying their products, sitting on their boards, and yes, if appropriate, investing in their companies. While I don’t currently run Deals & Divas anymore, I found other ways to support women in finance and business.
I joined a non-profit board, Kinect Capital in Utah, and co-chaired the annual women’s summit for several years, and I currently sit on boards of the NY Chapter of ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) as well as its Global Board – a fair number of the 60 chapters globally have Women of Leadership committees and are actively supporting and promoting women in middle market private equity and investment banking.
Mentorship is such a big part of moving the industry forward, especially for women and next-gen professionals. What does mentorship mean to you, and how do you personally approach it?
I think the mentor/mentee relationship is a two way street, and I love having conversations with young professionals just starting out, and I get great joy in hearing from them a year or two later and seeing how they’ve progressed in their lives and careers. But my own experience is that very few take the leap to seek out relationships – everyone wants a quick fix or an immediate answer.
About 15 years ago I put together a presentation on networking. It’s called Making First Impressions Last. I have given this working to the NY Women’s Bar Association, several young professionals organizations, to junior associates at law and accounting firms, for my own firm’s young professionals and interns, and even at a couple of colleges. I have a standard line at the end where I tell anyone in the room to find me on LinkedIn and reach out and I will give them 15 minutes of my time as a mini-mentoring session. What is surprising to me is how few people will actually reach out. I spoke at the Latter-day Saint MBA Society annual summit in Chicago earlier this year, and of the 50-60 students, I think three reached out. That’s about average. I will even tell the audience I’ve made a bet with myself that no more than five of them will reach out to me and I ask them to prove me wrong. No one ever does.
What excites you most about where the family office and wealth management landscape is headed and what role do you hope to play in shaping it next?
When I started in this space 25 years ago, the family office and wealth management mantra was all about wealth preservation and philanthropy. Wealthy families were told “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” was what they had to look forward to. That is, the first generation would make the money and by the third generation it would be spent. I saw a big shift in this thinking after the 2008/9 financial crisis. Family offices started to take more control of their own wealth, including participation in direct deals in order to enhance their portfolios. They started to hire professionals from the investment banking, hedge fund and private equity world to help them source, fund and operate deals. Various associations sprung up to help families meet each other and share deal flow. A big factor is the entrepreneurship ecosystem that has grown simultaneously. More family offices are seeding the next generation of wealth within their own families. I see family offices who’ve created family banks to lend to third and fourth generation family members who want to start a business, or they’re getting involved in search funds to stand up a recent MBA and get them started. So instead of emptying the financial bucket by the third generation, there is an expectation to keep filling the bucket. Families are thinking ahead to generation six, seven, eight and beyond.
I am excited for the future of wealth management, entrepreneurship, and family offices and I can’t wait to see what the next ten or so years brings to this community. I’m thrilled to be a part of it, and hope that as I continue to build relationships within the community, I can help connect people to each other so that we all get stronger, smarter, and wealthier together.