Roundtable Series - Market Challenges, Portfolio Resilience & the Role of OCIO - Insights for Family Offices

1. Market Outlook 2026: A More Divergent Landscape for Families

Throughout the discussions, participants noted that today’s investment environment is shaped by fragmentation, persistent inflation and deeper geopolitical shifts. While markets continue to hold up in many areas, structural forces point to heightened uncertainty reiterating the importance of data-led and evidence-based updates to capital market assumptions over time.

2. What Resilient Portfolio Construction Looks Like for Family Offices

Across conversations, the focus returned to preserving capital and enhancing resilience, particularly through:

• True multi-asset diversification, both across public and private markets
• Scenario-based analysis together with traditional stress testing to prepare for a broader range of outcomes, as available through Anthos’ proprietary scenario-based analysis 
• Broader access to high quality building blocks, including private equity, private credit, and selective emerging market opportunities
• Potential use of AI in helping unearth and leverage alternative data sets to distinguish noise from meaningful early signals
• It was noted that in a more complex macro backdrop, diversification and evidence-led, empirically supported forward looking insight remain essential foundations for robust long term outcomes.

3. Stewardship & Values as Anchors in Uncertain Times

For family offices - where capital serves long term missions and multi generational purposes - values-based investing and active stewardship continue to play an enduring and stabilising role.
Key reflections included:

• Values-based investing and responsible investing are not constraints, but rather drivers of long term investment impact and portfolio resilience
• Clear values help maintain direction when short term signals conflict
• Purpose led organisations tend to show greater clarity and conviction during periods of volatility
• Stewardship, expressed through thoughtful engagement and clear expectations, was seen as a practical way to not only navigate markets through time, but essential for environmental, social and governance (ESG) related outcomes.

4. OCIO: A Partnership Model That Preserves Control

As portfolio, governance and operational demands grow, we believe family offices can benefit from exploring how OCIO support can enhance capacity without compromising control.
The discussion highlighted:

• Tailored and bespoke structures, with custom mandate design from full to partial delegation
• Open architecture to avoid conflicts of interest
• Implementation assistance and more complex risk oversight with added governance
• Access to global expertise, scalable execution with potential cost benefits

Anthos’ OCIO model was discussed as a values aligned partnership, integrating ESG and impact considerations, multi-asset expertise and institutional grade implementation - while ensuring family offices retain strategic direction and decision making authority.

5. Looking Ahead

Uncertainty is unlikely to dissipate, hence family offices must consider many important dimensions including organizing portfolios, governance, partnerships and decision processes in ways that enhance clarity and confidence.
Across the roundtable, four themes stood out: diversification, data-supported scenario-based insights for all-weather portfolios, the importance of stewardship and partnerships with alignment - all being essential to building enduring resilience across portfolios and for generations.

We look forward to continuing these conversations at future roundtables in our series.

Read more about Anthos’ Outsourced Chief Investment Officer solution