Practice Leader, Family Business Group
Posted Sep 30, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026
Likely interview questions for this role
Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.
About your past
Your team has attorneys, accountants and valuation professionals. Tell me about a time you led a group of specialists who each knew their field better than you did.
What they are checking: Whether they can lead experts by setting direction and making calls rather than by out-knowing everyone in the room.
Tell me about a time you had to tell a business owner or family something they did not want to hear about their company.
What they are checking: Whether they can deliver hard news to emotionally invested families without damaging the relationship or softening the facts.
Describe a time you changed how a professional team worked, such as its review process or workload split, and how people responded.
What they are checking: Whether they can improve an established group of 16 professionals without losing experienced people or their goodwill.
What would you do
The group manages about 900 interests in closely held businesses held in trusts and estates. How would you get your arms around a portfolio that size in your first 90 days?
What they are checking: Whether they can triage a huge book by risk and value instead of trying to review every interest equally.
A trust holds 100 percent of a manufacturing company that has been losing money for three years, and the family beneficiaries want to keep it. Walk me through how you'd decide what to do.
What they are checking: Balancing the prudent investor duty against family wishes and trust terms, and documenting the reasoning so it holds up later.
Beneficiaries from two branches of a family disagree on whether to sell the business the trust owns. One branch works in the company and one doesn't. How do you handle that?
What they are checking: Duty of impartiality among beneficiaries and the ability to stay neutral when one side has more access and influence.
You report to the Director of Business Services. What would you want your boss to hear from you every month about this book of business?
What they are checking: Whether they know which risks and metrics matter upward and can report without burying leadership in detail.
About the work
When Northern Trust is trustee and the trust holds a controlling interest in a family company, what does our fiduciary duty require of us that a passive shareholder wouldn't owe?
What they are checking: Whether they understand that control brings active oversight duties, including board seats, management review and a duty to diversify or justify holding.
How do you approach valuing a minority interest in a closely held business for an estate, and where do disputes usually come from?
What they are checking: Fluency with discounts for lack of control and marketability, and awareness that these numbers draw IRS and beneficiary challenges.
What are the warning signs that a closely held company held in trust is heading for trouble, and how would your team catch them early?
What they are checking: Whether they have a monitoring discipline for private companies where financial information is thin and often late.
How do you think about conflicts of interest when a family member serves as both company CEO and co-trustee alongside Northern Trust?
What they are checking: Recognizing self-dealing risk and knowing how a corporate trustee protects other beneficiaries without paralyzing the business.
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Practice this out loudThe full job description
As published by Northern Trust.