This article is the first in our special report Outlook 2026, which puts 2025 in the rear-view mirror and spotlights challenges expected in the year ahead.
Coming to the close of a tumultuous year and looking ahead at 2026, heads of family offices are expecting a gradual easing of turbulence while their industry grows and responds to the ever-more-complex needs of wealthy families.
“Two great words to summarize 2025 are volatility and uncertainty,” says Yannick Archambault, president of private wealth at Nicola Wealth, a Vancouver-based wealth management firm with offices across Canada. “Political instability, geopolitical tension, recession concerns, shifting trade regimes and unpredictable inflation and rate policy have all shaped the environment.”
Another major theme in 2025 has been the burgeoning role of private markets and alternatives in portfolio construction, Archambault says. “Families are looking for resilience, diversification and access to opportunities that extend beyond traditional public markets.”
In Canadian Family Offices’ recent study “The Multi-Family Office Landscape in Canada 2025” (now available to newsletter subscribers and to be released widely next month), global uncertainty is cited among the top five concerns for heads of MFOs, although Canada’s tax rates remained the chief concern. The second most common concern today is AI and cybersecurity, cited by nearly one-third of MFOs polled—a sharp increase from 2024—while U.S.-Canada relations, geopolitical unrest and recession worries round out the top five.
Krista Kerr, chief executive officer of Kerr Financial Group, an integrated wealth management firm and multi-family office with offices in Toronto and Montreal, says minimizing taxes and rising deficit numbers are common concerns among wealthy families she speaks with.
“Definitely with those running businesses, we’re getting into those discussions,” she says.
It’s great to see an increased awareness and increased maturity of the industry, but it means that firms need to be clear on what makes them unique.
Krista Kerr, chief executive officer, Kerr Financial Group
Kerr is not surprised at the focus on AI and cybersecurity in the study, which she notes brings layers of issues.
“Cybersecurity is more important than ever, and you are always looking at how you can use AI to become more efficient and to access more information without compromising privacy and security,” she explains. “Meanwhile on the investment side, how do we identify those next generations of companies that will benefit from AI, not just the chip makers and the data centres but the people who are going to use it really well and find an improvement in profitability?”
She says that 2025 has also been stormy in the investment industry.
“Every day this year, it seems like we’ve faced different winds. We came into the year feeling like fundamentals were strong, and we were going to see growth,” she recalls. “Then we had the big tariff surprises, so there was negativity, but valuations have remained very strong. The consumer is still showing up. Earnings are still okay.”
Valuations remain “pretty stretched,” especially with retail flows of money into broad-market exchange-traded funds, which creates fragility in the market. For family offices, it’s important to focus on and communicate the importance of diversification and quality in portfolios, “to address the fact that we’re sometimes giving up a little bit of return because we’re not sitting only in gold or in Magnificent Seven stocks,” she says. “We have to make sure we balance preservation with having some growth for the future.”
The 2025 Canadian Family Offices survey also focuses on the trend of single-family offices turning to MFOs for access to services they don’t provide themselves, with 73 per cent of MFOs saying they serve SFOs.
We’re seeing more family offices take a closer look at how they operate, investing in governance, process, systems and talent to support long-term continuity.”
Yannick Archambault, president of private wealth, Nicola Wealth
Kerr, who sits on the multi-family office council of the Family Office Exchange, a membership organization based in Chicago that brings together family members, family office executives and professional advisors, notes that MFOs and SFOs have long looked at ways they can partner, a discussion that is newer but advancing in Canada.
“Sometimes we can act as a sounding board for best practices,” she explains, while MFOs can help their counterparts with governance work and non-investment functions.
She notes the family office industry in Canada is continuing to expand and “catch up with other geographies, but there’s a real diversity in what’s being offered.” Some families may be looking just to pay their bills or manage investments, while others “want the full-service breadth,” she says.
“It’s great to see an increased awareness and increased maturity of the industry, but it means that firms need to be clear on what makes them unique,” she adds.
This is especially important given heightened complexity, she says. Families, for instance, are “living very cross-border lives,” facing changing geopolitics, deficit levels and tax rates. “They want somebody to help them navigate that complexity.”
Archambault says Canada’s family office industry “is still in its early days,” estimating it is five years behind the U.S., but he sees encouraging trends.
“We’ve seen a continued push toward professionalization: stronger governance, improved processes and better operating discipline. This is a healthy evolution for the family office sector overall,” he comments. Meanwhile pressure points for family offices include talent recruitment and retention, scalability, operational excellence and cost control.
Robbie Pryde, CEO of Forthlane Partners, an independent outsourced chief investment officer with offices in Toronto and the Cayman Islands, sees family offices in 2025 “at the intersection of patience and change.” The long-term horizon, typically the family office advantage, remains core, he says, including direct investments, comfort with illiquidity and generational thinking.
“On the other hand, the world around us is accelerating with technology, globalization, new asset classes, rising complexity and generational turnover,” he says. “Families and their advisors who learn how to combine operational excellence with strategic agility will be the most successful.”
Pryde sees the family office sector in 2026 evolving “along several interconnected fronts,” with private markets and alternative investments continuing to expand while liquidity and downside risk management remain top priorities, given persistent macro and geopolitical uncertainty.
“Technology and operational infrastructure are becoming table stakes, enabling client engagement, transparent reporting and globalized investment strategies,” he says. “Regulatory complexity, multi-jurisdictional structuring and cost pressures are driving greater adoption of outsourced and multi-family office models.”
For families investing globally, currency volatility and regulatory changes remain risks, but “heading into 2026, I feel cautiously optimistic,” Pryde adds. “Families who combine diversified investments with robust investment diligence and operational infrastructure are well-positioned to navigate these risks successfully.”
Kerr acknowledges an ever-greater interest among wealthy families in alternatives, “and there is a good reason to include assets that are not correlated with traditional markets. But you’ve got to do it in a way that suits the objectives and the liquidity needs of the family, so it’s got to be in a manageable way, and you’ve got to do a lot of due diligence.”
She says economically in the coming year, “we could be in a position where we see a bit of a pullback.” Families with long time horizons can weather that, “but how do you build in safety across portfolios and some liquidity that’s necessary so that you don’t feel threatened by volatility?”
Archambault expects that, in 2026, the lessons of the past year will guide a lot of decision-making.
“Geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty remains elevated. Some asset classes are facing valuation pressure. And I expect continued momentum behind private markets as families look for diversified return sources.”
Families and their advisors who learn how to combine operational excellence with strategic agility will be the most successful.
Robbie Pryde, CEO, Forthlane Partners
Real estate and infrastructure should see more activity and competition as markets stabilize and capital begins to flow back, Archambault says. “We’re also seeing more family offices take a closer look at how they operate, investing in governance, process, systems and talent to support long-term continuity.”
Succession planning, philanthropy and engagement with the next generation will continue to influence how families set priorities for the year ahead, he notes, especially as global risks remain elevated. “For many families, the challenge is balancing long-term planning with near-term uncertainty.”
The coming year promises more clarity than a year ago, though. “Inflation is moderating, rates are easing and markets feel much more rational. At the same time, growth is slower and the world is more complex,” he says. “This is a year to stay diversified, protect liquidity and take advantage of select opportunities. Quality matters more now than ever.”
Mary Gooderham is a writer, editor and communication advisor based in Ottawa. She leads Cohen Gooderham Communications and has worked as a journalist for more than 40 years at The Globe and Mail, as a recording officer at the International Monetary Fund and as a custom content creator for online and print media. She’s been a contributing writer at Canadian Family Offices for four years, focusing on investment strategy, trusts, philanthropy, women in finance and estate planning.
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