Maria Lagomasino

Maria Elena “Mel” Lagomasino is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of WE Family Offices. The firm describes itself as a global family office serving ultra-high-net-worth families; as of its public firm profile, WE served around 100 families in U.S. and international markets and advised on or reported on $17.6 billion in total assets.

Lagomasino has worked with financially successful families for more than three decades. Before WE Family Offices, she was CEO of GenSpring Family Offices. Earlier, she was Chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan Private Bank, which WE says had more than $300 billion in client assets under supervision. Her banking career began at Citibank in 1977; she joined Chase Manhattan Private Bank in 1983 and was named head of Chase’s worldwide private banking business in 1997.

She serves on the boards of The Walt Disney Company and The Coca-Cola Company, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and became a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York in March 2019. She is also a founder of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard.

Lagomasino earned a B.A. from Manhattanville College, an M.S. from Columbia University, and an M.B.A. from Fordham University. Her public recognitions include Private Asset Management’s 2015 list of 50 influential women in wealth management, the NACD Directorship 100 in 2012, American Banker’s 2012 Top 25 Women in Finance, and Hispanic Business Magazine’s 2007 “Women of the Year.”

• WE Family Offices’ public materials frame the investment approach around client control and customization: “families should stay engaged and in control of their investments.”
• The firm provides asset allocation, portfolio construction, sourcing and due diligence, fee evaluation and negotiation, values-aligned investments, oversight, market updates, and consolidated reporting.
• WE says each family portfolio can include a “bespoke combination of public and private market investments” curated for long-term goals.
• The firm’s target client profile is ultra-high-net-worth families and family offices, not founders seeking a standard venture capital or angel check.
• Private-market access appears to be evaluated through a family-office lens: diligence quality, fit with long-term objectives, fees, reporting, risk monitoring, and alignment with each family’s wealth enterprise.
• The firm’s contact flow includes a dedicated “For Manager Inquiries” path with asset-class choices for Public Markets and Alternative Assets.