Coordinating Wealth. Protecting Legacy

Your family office should do more than manage investments. It should help coordinate every important financial decision

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A family office built around your life, not just your portfolio.

As wealth grows, so does the number of decisions. Investment portfolios expand across public and private markets. Tax considerations become more significant. Estate plans evolve. Risk exposures increase. The consequences of a mistake become larger. Most affluent families accumulate a collection of advisors over time. What they often lack is a single trusted partner responsible for seeing the entire picture. Our role is to serve as the central coordinator for your financial life, helping ensure decisions related to investments, taxes, estate planning, philanthropy, insurance, business interests, and family governance are aligned with your broader goals.

Our Practice Provides

  • Investment Oversight
  • Tax Strategy
  • Estate & Wealth Transfer Planning
  • Insurance & Risk Management
  • Family Governance
  • Day-to-Day & Concierge Support

The greatest risks to family wealth often occur in the gaps between advisors — when tax, estate, investment, insurance, and family decisions are not coordinated."

Douglas Nardi, Partner

Who We Serve

Designed for families with complexity.

  • Business owners and entrepreneurs
  • Executives with concentrated stock positions
  • Multi-generational families
  • Individuals experiencing significant liquidity events
  • Family foundations and charitable organizations
  • Families seeking institutional quality oversight

Meet the Practice

Our practice delivers value and personalized service to clients through integrity, professionalism, and results-driven performance. We work collaboratively to help clients navigate life’s milestones and achieve their financial goals.

Meet Our Full Practice Request an Introduction
(312) 715-3803

320 South Canal Street

Chicago, IL 60606

Cameron Burke

Senior Associate

Rebecca Hilchey

Senior Associate

Erica Bunnell

Partner

Douglas Nardi

Partner

Complex wealth requires more than individual solutions—it requires an integrated plan in which every decision works together."

Erica Bunnell, Partner

What You Can Expect

Cerity Partners clients benefit from a team of specialists working in concert on every aspect of their financial plan.

Independence

Our advisors draw upon the universe of available solutions to the extent they can be leveraged in your interest. We are not bound to any one solution.

Exceptional Talent

Our collaborative culture, broad capabilities, and commitment to high standards have helped us attract experienced professionals from across the wealth management industry.

Stewardship

We explain relevant wealth management issues and solutions, providing full transparency on all terms, risks, and expected outcomes.

Thought Leadership

Our firm's specialists provide timely insights on the most opportune and challenging financial topics of the moment.

Scale with Personalization

Cerity Partners is proud to be one of the fastest-growing RIAs. We create economies of scale across our practice-lower cost structures on investments, exclusive access to private investing, and advanced research and technology. Our rich resources enable advisors to do their best work.

Diversity

The diversity of our perspectives enables us to work with a wide variety of needs and meet our clients where they are.

Moments that Matter

Every family's situation is different, but many share the same questions about coordinating investments, taxes, estate planning, and the details of daily life.

What does day-to-day and concierge support actually cover?

Cerity Partners helps coordinate the administrative and financial details that come with significant wealth — so your time goes to family, business, philanthropy, and personal pursuits rather than logistics. This includes bill pay oversight, cash flow management and recordkeeping; household payroll and staff administration; coordination with your attorneys, CPAs, and insurance professionals; banking, lending, and account administration support; document organization and secure recordkeeping; and a single point of contact connecting you to your entire team.

Why does risk management matter beyond investment performance?

For many affluent families, the greatest financial risks have little to do with market volatility. A liability claim, property loss, inadequate coverage, or an outdated ownership structure can affect family wealth more than a temporary market decline. The goal isn't to sell insurance products — it's to help families determine whether their coverage remains aligned with their current balance sheet, lifestyle, estate plan, and long-term objectives.

What areas of insurance and risk does the team help review?

Coverage areas include life insurance (coverage, ownership, and beneficiary structure), property and casualty insurance for homes, vehicles, and personal assets, umbrella and excess liability, business-owner and executive liability, trust-owned property and entity ownership issues, and cybersecurity and identity theft considerations.

Why do "moments that matter" require coordinated planning?

Significant wealth is often created or reshaped during a handful of pivotal moments. These events can present opportunity, but also costly mistakes if tax, investment, estate, insurance, and philanthropic planning aren't coordinated.

What happens when decisions are made in isolation?

The biggest problems often occur when one decision is made without considering its impact on the rest of the family's financial life — for example, a tax strategy disconnected from investment decisions, an estate plan that no longer reflects family objectives, a liability exposure that exceeds available insurance, or a business sale completed without integrating tax, estate, and charitable planning. The role of the family office is to help close those gaps between advisors.

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Our Practice Provides

Family Office >

Our family office services free you to focus on what matters most, providing a coordinated team of specialists dedicated to preserving, growing, and protecting your family's prosperity.

Wealth Management >

The financial lives of high-net-worth individuals are complicated. We understand the unique challenges you face and offer integrated planning solutions to grow, protect, and preserve your wealth across generations.

Investment Solutions >

Investing is a long-term commitment to your financial well-being. It’s about growing and safeguarding your wealth. Our disciplined, goal-oriented approach ensures your portfolio remains resilient in the face of market and economic fluctuations.

Tax Planning & Preparation >

We design and implement tax optimization strategies, including the creation of detailed tax projections and the preparation of personal, trust, and business tax returns.

Estate & Gift Planning >

Our sophisticated estate and wealth transfer strategies help you preserve your legacy while helping minimize tax burdens. Every recommendation is tailored to your specific needs, leveraging our extensive knowledge of estate, trust, gift, and tax regulations.

Insurance Planning & Risk Management >

Safeguard the financial security you and your loved ones have built. We assess your current risk exposure and develop customized strategies designed to protect the most vulnerable areas of your financial life.

Latest Insights

Joseph Matus

Principal

Economic and Market Outlooks

What’s on Our Minds

July 20, 2026 - June’s Consumer Price Index fell 0.4% as a 23% drop in WTI crude oil prices combined with unusually broad-based cooling in core inflation and encouraging…

Joseph Matus, Principal

James Lebenthal and Amita Schultes

Economic and Market Outlooks

Webinar Recording: Q3 2026 Market & Economic Outlook

July 24, 2026 - Join our Investment Office as they review key market trends from the second quarter and share their outlook for the remainder of the year. This…

James Lebenthal and Amita Schultes

Scott Lenet

Partner

Corporate Venture Capital

Startups Should Not Wait to Hire CFOs

July 15, 2026 - In our experience having funded more than 200 startups as of the second quarter of 2026, venture-backed businesses often treat the CFO hire as a…

Scott Lenet, Partner

Your Trusted Financial Partner Awaits

Connect with Our Practice

Let’s get to know each other. Schedule your discovery session to discuss your financial planning needs, learn more about what we offer, and determine whether we’re the right fit for you.

Douglas Nardi's headshot

Douglas Nardi

Partner

Call us to Schedule: (312) 715-3803

Connect with Our Practice

Call Us: (312) 715-3803

Let’s get to know each other. Schedule your discovery session to discuss your financial planning needs, learn more about what we offer, and determine whether we’re the right fit for you!

Request an Introduction

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