Which PFU Role Fits You?

PFU AMBASSADOR

Open the Door to Family Office Education

Best suited for:
Business consultants, relationship builders, community connectors, centers of influence, experienced business development professionals, and others with a consultative approach to working with family business owners.

The PFU Ambassador is primarily an outreach and relationship-development professional.

Ambassadors identify Christian family enterprises that may benefit from family office education. They introduce families to PFU, help them understand the opportunities available to them, and assist them in determining appropriate next steps.

Working with PFU’s Family Office Readiness Assessment process and the appropriate PFU Facilitator, the Ambassador can help the family begin identifying educational needs and developing a customized learning pathway.

The Ambassador’s Role

An Ambassador may:

• Identify family enterprises that could benefit from family office education.
• Develop relationships with churches, professional organizations, business groups, and other centers of influence.
• Introduce business owners and their families to PFU.
• Explain PFU’s educational opportunities and pathways.
• Help families decide whether they should pursue individual courses, a complete School, or a broader educational curriculum.
• Coordinate the family’s introduction to PFU’s assessment and admissions resources.
• Remain an important relationship resource as the family enters the PFU community.

The Ambassador Is Not the Family’s Mentor

The Ambassador’s principal responsibility is discovery, introduction, consultation, and enrollment guidance.

Once a family has selected its educational pathway, the continuing developmental relationship may be transferred to a PFU Mentor.

Ambassador Professional Pathway

AMB 702 — Ambassador Outreach Certification

Plus the PFU Professional Foundation:

• FOF 101 — Understanding Family Offices
• FOQ — Family Office Readiness Assessment
• STC — Stewardship Calling

Ambassador Pathway Package

4 Courses

Designed to prepare an Ambassador to identify appropriate families, introduce the family office concept, understand PFU’s readiness process, and help connect families with the educational resources they need.

PFU MENTOR

Walk Beside the Family as They Learn and Grow

Best suited for:
Business coaches, executive coaches, leadership coaches, experienced mentors, educators, and professionals whose strengths include listening, accountability, personal development, and one-to-one relationships.

The PFU Mentor serves a fundamentally different role from the Ambassador.

The Mentor ordinarily begins working with a family after the family has decided to pursue its educational pathway.

The Mentor’s job is not primarily to sell, prospect, or develop new business.

The Mentor’s purpose is to help the student or family successfully navigate the educational experience.

Think of the Mentor much like a personal trainer.

The university provides the curriculum. The Mentor helps the individual remain engaged, apply what is being learned, overcome obstacles, reflect on important decisions, and move toward the family’s goals.

The Mentor’s Role

A PFU Mentor may:

• Help students navigate their PFU curriculum.
• Meet periodically with assigned students or families.
• Encourage completion of lessons and assignments.
• Help students reflect upon what they are learning.
• Encourage application of PFU principles to the family’s circumstances.
• Help family members identify questions requiring specialized professional advice.
• Recognize circumstances that should be referred to attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, consultants, or other subject matter experts.
• Encourage communication, accountability, and progress.
• Support the family’s development of shared purpose, stewardship, leadership, and continuity.

The Mentor Is Not the Family’s Financial Advisor

PFU Mentors do not replace the family’s attorneys, accountants, investment professionals, insurance professionals, or other technical advisors.

The Mentor helps the family learn, reflect, apply, and progress.

Mentor Professional Pathway

MTR/NAV 701 — Mentor/Navigator Certification

Plus the PFU Professional Foundation:

• FOF 101 — Understanding Family Offices
• FOQ — Family Office Readiness Assessment
• STC — Stewardship Calling

Mentor Pathway Package

4 Courses

Designed to prepare the Mentor to understand the family office environment and support families as they progress through PFU education and translate learning into meaningful action.

[Explore the Mentor Pathway]

PFU ADVISOR

Bring Your Professional Expertise Into the Family Office Environment

Best suited for:
Financial advisors, wealth managers, investment professionals, insurance professionals, accountants, attorneys, tax professionals, and other qualified professional advisors.

A PFU Advisor does not become an Ambassador or Mentor simply by completing Advisor training.

The Advisor continues to serve within his or her professional discipline.

What changes is the Advisor’s understanding of the larger family enterprise system surrounding the client’s financial, legal, tax, risk-management, business, and generational concerns.

Traditional professional relationships are often specialized.

The accountant addresses accounting and taxation.

The attorney addresses legal matters.

The investment advisor manages investment assets.

The insurance professional addresses risk.

But the family itself experiences all of these matters simultaneously.

PFU helps Advisors understand where their professional specialty fits within that larger picture.

The Advisor’s Role

A PFU Advisor may:

• Understand the principles and structure of a family office.
• Better recognize issues extending beyond the Advisor’s own professional discipline.
• Understand PFU’s educational approach to family enterprise continuity.
• Recognize when additional professional disciplines may be required.
• Work more effectively with other members of a coordinated advisory team.
• Help clients connect financial decisions with family purpose, stewardship, and multigenerational objectives.
• Continue serving within the Advisor’s own professional licensing, regulatory, compliance, and scope-of-practice requirements.

The Advisor Does Not Need to Become an Ambassador or Mentor

A financial professional may have regulatory, licensing, employer, or compliance restrictions that make an Ambassador or Mentor role inappropriate.

PFU respects those boundaries.

The Advisor pathway is therefore designed as a stand-alone professional role.

Advisor Professional Pathway

ADV 703 — Advisor Scope Orientation

Plus the PFU Professional Foundation:

• FOF 101 — Understanding Family Offices
• FOQ — Family Office Readiness Assessment
• STC — Stewardship Calling

Advisor Pathway Package

4 Courses

Designed to help professional advisors understand the family office environment, PFU’s assessment framework, stewardship principles, and their appropriate place within a coordinated Family Stewardship Team.

[Explore the Advisor Pathway]

The Three Roles at a Glance

	Ambassador	Mentor	Advisor
Primary Purpose	Find, introduce, and guide prospective families into PFU	Help enrolled families navigate learning and development	Provide professional expertise within an appropriate scope
Typical Background	Consultant, connector, relationship developer	Coach, mentor, leadership professional	Financial, legal, accounting, tax, insurance or other professional advisor
Primary Orientation	Consultative	Developmental and integrative	Professional and technical
Works Primarily With	Prospective and entering families	Enrolled students and families	Clients requiring the Advisor’s professional expertise
Business Development Role	Yes — an important part of the role	Generally no, other than natural referrals	Determined by the Advisor’s normal practice
Core PFU Training	AMB 702	MTR/NAV 701	ADV 703
Common Foundation	FOF 101 + FOQ + STC	FOF 101 + FOQ + STC	FOF 101 + FOQ + STC

Different Roles — Working as One Team

The distinction among these three roles is intentional.

So is their ability to work together.

Consider a family business owner who has spent 30 years building a successful enterprise.

The Ambassador may be the first PFU relationship.

The Ambassador introduces the family to family office thinking and helps the family explore its educational needs.

The PFU Readiness process helps identify priorities.

The family begins discovering gaps, opportunities, concerns, and areas requiring education or professional attention.

The Mentor helps the family travel the educational journey.

Once the curriculum has been selected, the Mentor encourages progress, reflection, accountability, and application.

Professional Advisors address matters requiring professional expertise.

Accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, insurance professionals, consultants, and other specialists continue serving within their respective disciplines.

No one professional is expected to be everything to the family.

That is the point.

PFU encourages specialization — and teaches collaboration.

A Common Foundation for Every PFU Team Member

Although the three professional roles are different, we believe every Ambassador, Mentor, and Advisor benefits from understanding three foundational areas.

FOF 101 — Understanding Family Offices

Understand what a family office is, why families create them, how they are structured, and how different professionals contribute to the family office environment.

FOQ — Family Office Readiness Assessment

Understand the PFU framework for examining a family’s readiness, priorities, educational needs, and areas requiring further exploration.

STC — Stewardship Calling

Explore the relationship among wealth, responsibility, faith, family, enterprise, community, and the responsibility to steward resources wisely.

These courses create a shared language among PFU team members without requiring everyone to perform the same job.

Choose Your PFU Professional Pathway

You do not have to become all three.

In fact, most PFU professionals will select one primary role.

Ambassador Pathway

AMB 702 + FOF 101 + FOQ + STC

For professionals who want to identify, introduce, and help families begin their PFU journey.

[View Ambassador Pathway]

Mentor Pathway

MTR/NAV 701 + FOF 101 + FOQ + STC

For coaches and mentors who want to walk beside families during their educational journey.

[View Mentor Pathway]

Advisor Pathway

ADV 703 + FOF 101 + FOQ + STC

For professional advisors who want to understand how their expertise fits within a larger family office and stewardship environment.

Can I Qualify for More Than One Role?

Possibly.

Some professionals have experience and capabilities that cross traditional boundaries.

PFU does not prohibit an individual from completing more than one professional pathway.

However, each designation represents a different responsibility, and PFU does not assume that someone completing one pathway should automatically perform another role.

We encourage each professional to begin with the role that most closely matches:

• Your experience
• Your professional training
• Your behavioral strengths
• Your licensing and compliance requirements
• The way you prefer to work with families
• The contribution you most want to make

Additional pathways can always be considered later.

The Goal Is Not to Create One Super-Advisor

The family office model works because families can draw upon different people with different abilities.

PFU’s objective is therefore not to turn an Ambassador into a financial advisor, a financial advisor into a Mentor, or a Mentor into a salesperson.

Our objective is to help each professional become exceptionally effective in his or her appropriate role — while understanding how that role contributes to the success of the entire family.

That is how a Family Stewardship Team is built.

Find Your Place on the Team

Whether your strength is:

Opening doors…

Walking beside families…

or

Providing professional expertise…

there may be a place for you within the PFU community.

Choose the pathway that best reflects the contribution you want to make.