Late last year several industry leading advisors gathered with a select group of family office executives for our annual FOX Thought Leaders Council Summit. They tackled an interesting question: What separates the best wealth advisors from the merely average? What they found was that high performance was more a matter of how services were delivered than service menu. In the process, they identified several hallmarks of state of the art wealth management.

One such hallmark is an ability to integrate with other advisors and understand how all the pieces of the wealth management puzzle fit together. In other words, advisors in each discipline must take an integrated approach to the advice and service they offer. They must also proactively understand the roles and strategies of the other advisors who are on the team and know how and where their strategies impact one another.

Following are what some of the FOX Thought Leaders Council had to say about integration:

Mark Blumenthal, Plante Moran Family Office Services

“Best in class tax planning integrates with all personal, business, and investment functions of the family while recognizing that taxes are a significant drag on current returns and a family’s wealth legacy.”

 

 

Judith Pearson, ARIS Title Insurance Corporation

“The time has come for art to be treated like all other asset classes, but there is a disconnect between how collectors view current art transactions and evolving best practices. Factors like gaps in provenance history and other title defects that affect ownership rights of collectors should be examined so risk management tools can be used to protect tax and trust and estate plans.”

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.