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Family Office Exchange and guests reflected on today’s “new breed” of advisory service. While options are plentiful, obtaining and maintaining an optimal client experience remains dependent on integrating the unique needs of the family with the individual knowledge, skills and talents of advisors and the systems and processes that surround performers in their job environment. The Forum examined what skills and services are necessary today…and on into the future…to exceed family expectations and become... The Optimal Advisor.

Peter Drucker has famously stated that "management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." The challenge of that statement of course is identifying what should be done and your capacity to accomplish the ‘right things’. The Family Office Exchange in partnership with Vantage Leadership has initiated a study to identify a framework for assessing key family leadership responsibilities.

Gen Y, or the Millennial Generation (those people born from 1982-2000), present some very specific challenges for wealth advisors. While wealth advisors have spent most of their careers successfully building and managing relationships primarily with their Baby Boomer clients, these same wealth advisors stand to witness the greatest transfer of wealth from those Baby Boomer clients to their Gen Y children. These same Gen Y children have different values and priorities than their Boomer parents.

Critical to the work of FOX’s Knowledge Center is identifying the global trends and issues that have immediate and future impact on families of wealth.

In today’s burgeoning Family Office Industry marketplace, the key word is “Integration”, yet, many firms have not yet learned how to deliver true Integrated Family Wealth Management. Firms often silo their offerings creating tremendous inefficiencies and costs for the client while simultaneously missing tremendous opportunities.

In his most recent book, To Sell is Human, author Daniel H. Pink indicates that according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. More than fifteen million people earn their keep by convincing someone else to make a purchase. But that if you dig deeper, a startling truth emerges: “Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales—but so do the other eight out of nine.

There is both a science and an art to functioning as a wealth advisor. Most, if not all, wealth advisors have the technical know-how to serve their clients – that’s the science of it. The art refers to orchestrating the efforts of disparate experts into a coherent approach that serves the family client and, in the long run, the team of wealth advisors, too. The Optimal Advisor goes beyond coordinating the activities of others.