A large family office in the US has brought in an industry luminary to drive its growth.

(An earlier version of this item appeared on Family Wealth Report, a sister news service to this one.)

Family office sector specialist Ronald Macleod has joined New York City-based Flynn Family Office as a director in Santa Barbara, CA, tasked with guiding the multi-family office and advanced planning firm's national expansion.

Macleod – who is formerly of Rockefeller & Co – will focus on engaging regional concentrations of entrepreneurs, athletes, entertainers, and other ultra-wealthy communities.

With nearly 25 years of related industry and family office management experience, Macleod was previously a senior vice president at Rockefeller, serving family offices, trusts, foundations and endowments. Before that, he was a managing partner at a private family investment firm, responsible for restructuring and succession plan implementation.

Earlier in his career, Macleod served as senior vice president for both Nuveen Investments’ global family office group and US Trust's family wealth group.

“The advantages of the FFO model are obvious to technology executives, hedge fund managers, entertainers and an emerging generation of ultra-wealthy inheritors,” said Rick Flynn, managing partner at FFO.

“The latent demand is obvious across the country, from technology executives in San Francisco to celebrity families in Hollywood to an emerging generation of ultra-wealthy inheritors,” Flynn said.

Flynn Family Office was created last year by the former family office principals at Rothstein Kass, which was acquired by KPMG.

In other recent developments at FFO, last month the firm hired two new directors at its New York headquarters in the shape of Robyn Trani – previously controller at Ziff Brothers Investments – and Esma Deljanin, formerly director of personnel at Pretium Partners.