Helping build the next generation of investment firms and family offices.
Cressida Collaborative is a boutique advisory firm focused on providing institutional-quality interim management services, human capital consulting, and coaching to family offices and investment managers. We serve as an advisor to firm and family office leaders, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, next-generation family members, and their teams.
Today, family offices manage more assets and larger teams than many investment management firms, often with more security, headline and personal risk. We bring our significant institutional investments and human capital expertise to clients, leveraging established best practices, in a confidential, safe space.
The families and firms we support are busy changing the world. We ensure clients are working with the right people, and help manage those teams, so clients can focus their efforts where they are best suited.
Our Team
James McAvey
James founded Cressida Collaborative in 2020. He brings more than fifteen years of strategic talent advisory experience in the asset and wealth management space to some of the largest and most complex family offices in North America.
Prior to founding Cressida, James served as Head of Human Resources for BlackRock’s $1.7 trillion U.S. and Canada Institutional business. He managed the organization’s human capital processes, including recruiting, leadership development, executive coaching and education, promotion and compensation processes, and succession and talent planning. James worked extensively with the family office client team, and frequently heard from families about their needs to professionalize their offices. The idea for Cressida was born as he heard how those families needed help building distinct cultures within their family offices and portfolio companies, struggled to build best-in-class teams using the same high bar across their organizations, and aimed to generate alignment between family members and leadership teams.
James spent the first decade of his career as a recruiter at leading boutique asset management-focused executive search firms, helping investment firms and asset allocators hire investors, business leaders, and sales professionals. He graduated from Regis University in Denver, Colorado.
When James isn’t helping clients, he can most likely be found searching for great coffee, spending time with his nieces and nephew, restoring cars, or skiing.