Waterloo Family Office Approach
At Waterloo Capital Family Office Services, we exist to empower families and multi-generational legacies by bringing together the depth of institutional-level financial thinking with the fine-grain sensitivity of a dedicated family office. We believe that true wealth isn’t just measured in dollars. It’s measured in the freedom to act, meaningfully engage, and leave a lasting legacy.
We partner with families who seek more than portfolio management. You want a trusted ally who can help you coordinate the many moving parts of your financial life. This could include tax, business structure, succession, philanthropy, reporting, and family governance. That’s what we deliver.
Our Approach: Integrated, Intentional, Intergenerational
Integrated
Our services are not siloed. Family engagement and education, estate planning, philanthropic planning, financial and performance reporting, risk management and insurance solutions, tax planning strategies, banking and lending solutions and financial strategy are all part of one unified framework.
Intentional
Every family we work with has a unique story, set of goals and legacy aspirations. We start by listening: Where are you now? Where do you want to go? What matters most for this generation; and the next? Then we build, coordinate and execute a plan aligned with your values, timeline and risk tolerance.
Intergenerational
We work beyond a single horizon. We help families think in terms of generations: how to protect, grow and transition wealth; how to engage and educate the next generation; how to structure for both continuity and flexibility.
Why Choose Us
Decades of Experience
Our senior team brings deep experience working with business owners, closely-held companies, family offices and multi-generational families. (See our leadership section for bios.)
Fiduciary Mindset
We prioritize your family’s best interests in all of our decisions and recommendations. This mindset ensures that decisions are made with integrity and transparency.
Comprehensive Capabilities
Many firms manage investment portfolios and may provide one or two additional services. We support a full suite of services: from tax solutions, business structuring, estate planning and philanthropic engagement to strategic financial oversight. Investment portfolio management can also be provided through Waterloo Capital (an SEC-registered investment advisor).
Personalized Service
You are not “just another account”. We seek to understand and align with your family’s ethos, complexity, and purpose. And we commit to ongoing review, adaptation and coordination across your advisors, entities and family stakeholders.
Legacy Orientation
Protecting your capital is necessary, but sometimes not sufficient. We focus on preserving optionality, enabling purposeful action, and transferring wealth responsibly.
Our Commitment & Vision
We promise:
To act as a single-point coordinator for your wealth ecosystem, reducing complexity, coordination burdens & fragmentation.
To bring clarity and discipline to decisions, especially in times of change or volatility.
To maintain institutional quality in service, process and sophistication, but delivered with the attentiveness and intimacy of a family office.
To build relationships based on trust, transparency and open communication. The strongest plans flourish only when the family is aligned and engaged.
To measure success not just by returns, but by the advancement of your family’s life goals, legacy aspirations and generational vision.
Our Team
Mark McAdams
Family Office Services Managing Director
With over 3 decades of experience working with closely held business owners, shareholders or partners of mid-sized companies and family offices, Mark has assisted in legal, financial, and investment planning, His personal work experience includes being a business owner himself and attorney. In 2001, Mark decided to move out of the full-time practice of law make his focus proactive client planning and the financial services industry. Currently Mark oversees Waterloo’s Family Office Services division. Mark’s expertise in all areas of wealth management, specifically business, tax, estate and transition planning, helps families manage, maintain and grow their wealth across multiple generations. In addition to this role, Mark is the co-founder of Ironclad Strategies (Powered by Waterloo), a multi-family office. Mark is sought after by business owners as they transition from the active growth of their companies into exit or transition planning and wealth building for their families and other interests.
As a financial advisor, Mark brings a thoughtful understanding of clients wants and needs in addition to complex strategy and product knowledge to his work. Mark’s experience and resources have enabled him to advise and add value to a variety of clients from diverse backgrounds and industries while helping them focus on Risk Management, Asset Coordination, Small Business Planning and Multi-generational Wealth Planning. Mark is a graduate of Stanford University and the University Of Texas School of Law. He speaks regularly, connecting with audiences on topics of benefits, business transfer /transition strategies, protection planning and financial independence.
Michelle Kultgen
Family Office Services Managing Director
Michelle Kultgen is Managing Director at Waterloo Capital Family Office Services. She is responsible for delivering comprehensive advice, management and strategic planning to family offices with a focus on integrating investment, tax, legal, asset protection and philanthropic goals into each client’s wealth plan. In her role, Michelle manages the overall client relationship while providing deep expertise on gift and estate tax planning and wealth transfer strategies. Michelle brings more than 20 years of experience advising high-net-worth individuals, families, closely held business owners and charitable organizations through roles in the financial services and legal industries.
Prior to joining Waterloo, Michelle was Executive Director and Senior Trust Advisor at Wells Fargo Bank in Austin, Texas. In that position, she served as a subject matter expert on gift and estate tax issues, wealth transfer planning, fiduciary advice, and trust and estate solutions and managed fiduciary relationships with high-net-worth clients. Previously, Michelle was an attorney representing ultra-high-net-worth clients as Counsel at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in their Trusts and Estates practice group in Washington, District of Columbia, and Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in their Trusts and Estates practice group in New York, New York. Michelle began her career with Paloma Partners Management Company, a Greenwich, Connecticut hedge fund.
Michelle is a graduate of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree in Civil Engineering and Operations Research with a concentration in Engineering Management Systems. She also earned a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University Law School in New York, New York. Michelle is a licensed attorney in the State of New York, State of Texas and District of Columbia and a member of the Estate Planning Council of Central Texas.
Jordan Goforth
paraplanner
Jordan is a Client Service Associate and Paraplanner. With extensive experience in Client Services & Financial Planning, Jordan strives to meet clients’ needs and takes pride in providing a personalized client experience. Jordan holds a BBA in Finance from University of Arkansas at Monticello where she was a Division II All American.
John Chatmas
chief executive officer
Mr. Chatmas previously held the position of Senior Vice President, Private Client Group, with Smith Barney in their world headquarter office in NYC during the early 90’s. In 1999 Mr. Chatmas agreed to head a team for Morgan Stanley’s Private Client Group in Dallas, Texas. In 2005 Mr. Chatmas founded Caddie Central Inc, which would become the second largest company of its kind. The Chatmas family ultimately sold Caddie Central to Troon Golf. In 2011 Mr. Chatmas assumed the role of CEO for Virtus Private Wealth. He then acquired the controlling interest in 2012 and rebranded the firm as Waterloo Capital.
