Northern Trust taps Candice Nakagawa to lead family office push in the West

Northern Trust Wealth Management has named Candice Nakagawa as Family Office Solutions managing director for the West Region, placing a veteran private wealth executive in Los Angeles to serve families whose finances have grown as complicated as a corporation's.

According to a Monday morning announcement from the firm, Nakagawa will report to Pam Lucina, head of Family Office Solutions, and will work to coordinate the tangle of advisors, tax specialists and fiduciary experts that ultra-wealthy families increasingly need as their assets span generations, businesses and jurisdictions.

Jason Tyler, president of Northern Trust Wealth Management, framed the hire as a bet on the region's wealth-creation boom. He pointed to "the decades of value creation" that has taken place in the West, with many entrepreneurs and multigenerational families now seeking the institutional coordination once reserved for the largest single-family offices.

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Nakagawa joins Northern Trust from Wilmington Trust, where she served as executive vice president and Western Region president. She previously led private wealth management markets at U.S. Bank and held several leadership posts at MUFG Union Bank. She holds an MBA from the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, a bachelor's degree from the University of California, San Diego, and is a graduate of Pacific Coast Banking School.

“Candice has spent her career advising sophisticated clients and is exceptionally well positioned to help families navigate that evolution while growing our presence in many of the country’s most dynamic wealth markets," Tyler said.

Northern Trust Wealth Management held $534 billion in assets under management as of June 30, while its parent, Northern Trust Corporation, reported $18.6 trillion in assets under custody and administration as of March 31.

The latest move adds to a string of leadership additions built around the growing complexity of Northern Trust's wealthiest clients. In April, the firm named Beata Kirr as chief investment officer of its Global Family Office division, a unit that serves more than 550 families with an average net worth above $1 billion and that ranks as Northern Trust's fastest-growing wealth management segment. Kirr arrived after 17 years at Bernstein Private Wealth Management and an earlier stint at Goldman Sachs.

Weeks prior, Northern Trust brought on Alyssa Quinlan as head of advisor relationships and strategic partnerships, a role built to deepen ties with outside professionals as wealthy families fold fine art and other passion assets into their estate and tax planning. Quinlan previously served as chief executive of Freeman's Auctions & Appraisals.

Cresset, a multifamily office overseeing more than $260 billion in AUA and AUM as of July, has also been in full recruitment mode over recent months. Over the summer, the Chicago-based firm announced it had hired Cory Boggs as a managing director and wealth advisor in the West Coast, before which came Bessemer Trust alum Mark Tremblay, who stepped as executive managing director, head of Family Office Services in New York.

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Northern Trust's leadership buildout is also taking place as more registered investment advisors spin off dedicated family office platforms to serve ultra-high-net-worth clients whose needs – from liquidity events to multigenerational governance – have outgrown what standard advisory models are able to meet.