Skip to main content
Now available ·
Order The Canadian Family Office Advantage →
Marvin J. Schmidt, formal editorial portrait in a dark suit against a charcoal background.

About Marvin

About Marvin J. Schmidt

What Sets Him Apart

Marvin J. Schmidt is a pioneer of the modern Canadian family office model and one of the country's foremost advisors to families of significant wealth. As Founder, Principal, and Senior Wealth Strategist of Schmidt Family Office, he has spent more than three decades helping ultra-high-net-worth families navigate the complex realities of multi-generational wealth — work that began in 1995, when he assembled one of Canada's first dedicated family-office advisory teams, long before the model had a name here.

What distinguishes Marvin is not only technical expertise, but perspective. He has lived the complexity he advises on — building businesses, overseeing investment portfolios, structuring estate plans, and navigating the realities of family, governance, and legacy in his own life, not only in his clients'. That combined perspective is what became The Canadian Family Office Advantage, his complete guide for the most affluent families and their advisors.

Philosophy

Wealth is not an end. It is a responsibility. Marvin's work is guided by a simple conviction: wealth should serve life — never the other way around. Life-altering experiences early on reinforced the fragility of time and the importance of intentional leadership, and from them came a lifelong commitment to helping families not only grow wealth, but steward it with clarity, purpose, and unity.

The Three-Legged Stool

At the centre of that commitment sits The Three-Legged Stool, the framework at the heart of the book: a true family office exists only when three elements operate as one. Core Advisory Services — investment, tax, estate, insurance, philanthropy — is the technical engine. Supporting Services — family, governance, legacy, next-generation preparedness — is the family support engine. Coordination & Integration is the one-point-of-contact hub tying the other two together. Remove one leg, and what remains is an advisory model, not a family office. It's the same question Marvin asks every family and advisor he works with: who owns the whole picture?

Professional Credibility

  • 30+ years advising ultra-high-net-worth families across Canada and internationally
  • Founder, Principal, and Senior Wealth Strategist, Schmidt Family Office
  • 2020 Canadian Advisor of the Year (Wealth Professional Awards); 2021 Top Wealth Advisor (The Globe and Mail); 2025 Advisor of Excellence (Family Enterprise Canada)
  • Background spanning finance, technology, real estate, and philanthropy
  • CIMA, CIM, CFP, FEA, TEP, B.Comm
Marvin J. Schmidt smiling in a gray windowpane blazer against a white background.

Beyond the Office

Beyond the office, Marvin is Founder and Chair of Expand Hope, the Canadian charity he and his wife Leah founded in 2016. Schmidt Family Office directs 100% of the investment-management revenue from every new client family's first 18 months to Expand Hope, which builds schools in Guatemala in honour of that family and whoever referred them — a tangible expression of the same belief that runs through the book: that significant wealth carries both opportunity and responsibility.

Through the book, through speaking and through the ideas gathered on Insights, Marvin shares the most comprehensive framework available in Canada for families and advisors seeking to operate at the highest level of wealth stewardship.