Recently key figures from leading advisors in the private wealth management industry gathered with executives from several sophisticated family offices for our annual FOX Thought Leaders Council Summit. The attendees met to discuss what constituted state of the art wealth management. What they determined was that service offerings varied little from one advisor to another and what truly differentiated the state of the art from the state of the industry was service delivery.

The attendees identified several hallmarks of state of the art service delivery. One such hallmark was that the best firms have a tendency to ask why before asking how. In other words, they approach their work by first ensuring that they understand their clients’ goals. They realize that without that context, they cannot effectively apply their knowledge and expertise to grasp the big picture and assist their clients long term.

Following are what some of the FOX Thought Leaders Council members had to say about understanding their clients:

David Bokman, GenSpring Family Offices

“You have to ground the entire governance exercise in values – the core values of individuals and how they align and don’t align with other family members. From there you can determine the common mission, structures, policies and decision-making frameworks. While this is challenging work, it is a very rewarding process and essential to the successful transfer and sustainability of multi-generational wealth”.

David Hubbard, AIG

“We prefer to take the holistic approach rather than the piecemeal approach. To do that, we have to sit down with the client to understand their need set and the different needs by generation. Then we can talk about how much premium to spend, how to manage the risk, how we communicate, and how we will know it’s working.”

Michael Cole, Ascent Private Capital Management

"Successfully managing wealth today involves so much more than managing money and families that are taking a strategic and dynamic approach are making an amazing impact on themselves and the world around them."

 

This blog post draws on content from the new FOX report, The State of the Art in Family Wealth Management, which outlines the family enterprise concept and leading practices in the delivery of wealth management services.