Wealth Building and Management

In our latest Global Strategy Paper, "Investing in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, we map out the 'World Portfolio'—the sum of all investable assets globally, which we estimate at roughly US$250 trillion (or 200% of world GDP). The World Portfolio acts as a de facto benchmark for global investors, and its composition reveals powerful macro trends. Currently, we see a heavy dominance of US assets in both equities and bonds, a rising weight of equities relative to bonds since the GFC (but not at Tech Bubble levels yet), and growth in alternatives. These are not just abstract trends; they are directly reflected in how investors are allocating their capital today. Why does this matter? Simply following this benchmark is not always a good idea. Our analysis shows that the World Portfolio has seldom been optimal and its performance varies materially with structural macro regimes. Its current concentration in US assets, while a tailwind in recent years, now presents significant risks from a diversification and valuation standpoint. This report provides a framework for investors to actively improve upon this global benchmark. We offer strategies for: 1. Strategic Tilting: Actively managing the equity/bond/Gold mix to navigate different economic environments. 2. Managing US Dominance: Assessing the sustainability of US outperformance and managing the associated FX risks for non-US investors. 3. Broader Diversification: Harvesting benefits from smaller assets and alternatives that are often missed by value-weighted benchmarks. In today's complex market, understanding the limitations of global benchmarks is crucial for effective strategic asset allocation. #assetallocation #gsmacro Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/eGxqZizt

Women are earning less today - and paying for it tomorrow. On 21 August, retired women in the UK effectively “ran out” of their pension income for the year - 4.5 months early compared to men. That’s a £7,600 shortfall, and a 36.5% gender pension gap - nearly three times the current gender pay gap. Let that sink in. The link between today’s pay and tomorrow’s pension is linear, and compounding. Lower salaries. Slower progression. Career breaks for caregiving. Fewer leadership roles. They all add up over time. This isn’t just about monthly payslips - it’s about long-term financial security. For women, closing the gender pay gap is also about retirement security and dignity. The TUC has called for: 🔹 Stronger rights to flexible working 🔹 Fairer parental leave and affordable childcare and social care 🔹 Pension reform to support low earners and unpaid carers 🔹 Better valuing unpaid caregiving by protecting the pension entitlements of those who step out of the workforce to provide care. I couldn’t agree more - these are critical building blocks. To this list I would also add: 🔹 Address the workplace barriers to women’s career progression: the double bind, the double burden, development gap, and discrimination. 🔹 Reframe flexible work as a career and productivity enabler, not a career killer This Equal Pay Day, let’s look beyond the surface of pay gaps - and start designing equity that lasts a lifetime. Read more below https://lnkd.in/encxTaqB And tell me, what is your organisation prioritising to close both the pay and pension gaps? #GenderPayGap #PensionGap #GenderEquity

The future of the wealth-management industry will belong to the advisors who embrace technology—rather than fear it. Fresh off the floor at Wealth Management EDGE, that theme rang loud and clear. What struck me most wasn’t the buzz around “AI taking over,” but the astonishing progress of solutions built for advisors—tools that augment judgment, deepen client conversations, and automate the tasks that keeps many of us from higher-value work. - Tech that actually frees up time: Jump - Advisor AI showcased how to turn convserations with clients into workflows. Zocks | AI for Advisors demoed how advisors can save around 10 hours weekly with their technology. Mili won the best presentation, showing how AI Agents empower advisors. Dispatch impressed with synchronization across connected tools. Zeplyn demonstrated how to scale your practice with an AI assistant. Ai Funds discussed AI powered investment strategies. And so many more! - It’s not man versus machine—it’s advisor + machine “Will AI replace advisors?” is not the question. The right framing is “Will an advisor who uses AI replace one who doesn’t?” Every conversation, panel, and hallway chat underscored that clients still crave empathy, context, and nuanced judgment. Technology just clears the runway—so we can spend 60–70 % of the week advising instead of wrangling data. - Data plumbing comes first A quieter, yet critical takeaway: none of these tools sing without clean, well-governed data. Firms that invest early in unified data layers—think normalized custodial feeds, consistent client taxonomy, rigorous governance—will unlock exponential gains. Firms that don’t risk drowning in spreadsheets while competitors deliver real-time clarity. What’s next? Composable tech stacks. Open APIs are replacing monolithic “all-in-one” systems, letting RIAs curate best-of-breed components. Hyper-personal insights. AI models trained on holistic household data, not just portfolio metrics, will surface guidance on everything from college-aid optimization to philanthropic impact. In short, Wealth Management EDGE felt like a glimpse of practice management five years out. Advisors who embrace these tools—while doubling down on empathy and strategic thinking—will thrive in the future.

Europe's pension gap starts at birth. And some governments are finally doing something about it. 👏 🏆 👏 A child born in Germany today doesn't just have easier access to an investment account than a child born in Italy. The German government is now literally paying into that account. The new German coalition agreement introduces the Frühstartrente — a state contribution of €10/month into every child's individual investment account from age 6 to 18. Sweden already pays parents €125/month in universal child allowance they can invest directly. The UK offers a zero-tax Junior ISA that takes 10 minutes to open online. Poland and Lithuania are both introducing tax-free individual savings accounts in 2025. Italy 🇮🇹 ? No dedicated junior investment account. No government contribution. And in some cases, opening an investment account for a minor requires notarised parental consent and court authorisation — a process that can take weeks and that most parents simply abandon. A parent investing €150/month from birth at a 6% average annual return gives their child €299,000 by age 40 — before that child has made a single contribution themselves. Start at age 10 instead — because the court process beat you — and that number drops to €151,000. A €148,000 wealth gap, created not by income or discipline, but by policy failure. This isn't just about wealth. It's about the pension gap Italy is already staring at. Closing it requires building the right habits early — and that requires both the right policy environment and the right financial products. Governments and financial institutions need to work together. Fintech has a role to play in making these products frictionless, accessible, and cross-border. Germany is paying €10/month per child into investment accounts as explicit pension policy. The UK made junior investing zero-tax and zero-friction. Eastern Europe is catching up fast. So here's my question for the Italian policymakers, banks, and fintechs reading this: should Italy introduce a zero-tax junior investment account and a €10/month state contribution for every child? And if not now — when? Fintech District ItaliaFintech #Burocracy #FinancialInclusion #WealthManagement #Fintech #EuropeanFinance #RetirementPlanning #FinancialLiteracy #ItalianFintech #OpenBanking #Pension

A $10 trillion economy means nothing if 77% of wealth remains with just the top 10% of Indians. Despite projections of India becoming a $10 trillion economy by 2035, the reality on the ground tells a different story: The richest 10% of our people hold 77% of the country’s wealth, while the poorest 50% share just 4.1%. This isn’t just because of how much individuals earn or save. It’s because many people are kept out of opportunities due to how the system is built. Here’s how these systemic barriers keep the gap wide and make it harder for millions of Indians to move up economically: 1️⃣ Let’s start with awareness. - A 2019 survey by the National Centre for Financial Education (NCFE) found that only 27% of Indians are financially literate, with less than 20% understanding basic concepts like inflation or risk diversification. - Without this knowledge, people often make poor financial decisions, delay investments, or remain financially inactive, which widens the wealth gap across generations. 2️⃣ Then comes access. - Financial literacy programs and professional advice are still heavily concentrated in metro cities. - As of 2023, approximately 3% of the Indian population actively invests in the stock market, indicating limited access to formal investment platforms. 3️⃣ Our tax base tells a different story: - Only 2% of Indians paid income tax in FY23. - Whereas in the US, it’s 43%. In China, 10%. - This difference reflects both income inequality and challenges in our tax collection system. So how do we tackle this wealth inequality? I believe we need to simplify finance for the masses not just through apps, but through habit formation like: - Offering income-based financial planning frameworks for first-time earners. - Introducing state-supported investment schemes with automatic enrollment for gig and informal workers. - Building a publicly accessible library of case-based financial lessons in regional languages. We can’t fix income overnight. But we can challenge the systems that widen the wealth gap. What’s one mindset or financial habit you believe should be taught to every Indian by age 21? #FinancialHabits #TaxSystem #MakingEquityEasy #AdvisorZaruriHai

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆: 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲? Fidelity’s latest figures are hard to ignore. A woman who takes one year out of work around menopause could retire with £𝟮𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 less in her pension. Five years out? That loss climbs beyond £𝟴𝟲,𝟬𝟬𝟬. That’s not a “gap” - it’s a long-term wealth divide, and for many single-income households it’s the difference between comfort and insecurity later in life. 𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲? The case for the status quo says pensions are deferred pay. Less work means less in. Menopause isn’t an illness; it’s part of life. Plenty of women work through it and don’t want to be singled out or patronised by policy. Employers can’t absorb every biological variable, and over-engineering fairness can create fresh unfairness elsewhere. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀. Menopause isn’t random. It’s a predictable, universal stage that hits half the population at the same life point that careers peak. It quietly drains savings, promotions, and pensions. You can call it biology, but the scale of its financial impact makes it systemic. The real issue isn’t that women are taking time out, it’s why they’re forced to. Because symptoms go untreated, workplaces aren’t designed for midlife health, and medical systems still misdiagnose or minimise what’s happening. By the time someone steps away, it’s often after months or years of struggle, not choice. 𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺? 💰𝗙𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁: structured, time-limited flexibility should be the default, not a favour. 💰𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆: access to clinicians who understand menopause, fast. 💰𝗣𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘀: simple mechanisms that top up or match contributions during temporary adjustments, so women don’t lose compounding power for decades. 💰𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮-𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: earlier identification and personalised care, giving women the right support at the right time, so fewer are forced out of work in the first place. This isn’t about “paying women not to work.” It’s about designing a system that stops punishing them for having bodies that age predictably. Because when you zoom out, the question isn’t whether menopause should be subsidised. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗲’𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻. Where do you land - fair trade-off or structural failure? #Menopause #Perimenopause #PensionGap #MenopauseGap #WomensHealth

In 2024, 9,615 experienced financial advisors changed firms — almost 800 per month according to Financial Planning. The takeaway for wealth management leaders at banks, insurance companies, and credit unions: advisor loyalty is no longer guaranteed. Advisors today are more empowered, discerning, and strategic than ever before. Why advisors are moving: • Pain points push decisions. Advisors often stay until operational inefficiencies, cultural mismatch, or lack of support exceed their “pain tolerance,” as noted by Jodie Papike of Cross-Search. • Desire for superior technology and operational support. Advisors expect platforms that enable efficiency, flexibility, and client-first service — not legacy systems and red tape. • Client-driven motivations. Above all else, advisors cite the desire to deliver better client outcomes and create a sustainable business for their teams. • How advisors make their decisions: Moves are deliberate and researched. Advisors typically spend months — sometimes years — evaluating multiple platforms, prioritizing operational capabilities, cultural alignment, and long-term growth opportunity over pure financial incentives. Building a Durable Advisor Value Proposition: 1. Technology Investment Strategy: Wealth management leaders must decide whether to build proprietary capabilities, buy best-in-class platforms, or partner via outsourced managed services. Winning firms recognize that modern advisors demand integrated, scalable, and intuitive systems — no matter how they are delivered. 2. Flexibility and Advisor Autonomy: Offering advisors choice in how they brand, operate, and serve clients — without sacrificing core support — is critical to both recruiting and retention. 3. Operational and Compliance Excellence: Seamless transitions, reliable service models, and proactive risk management are table stakes, not differentiators. 4. Culture of Partnership: Advisors are looking for true collaborators — not corporate mandates. Leadership transparency, field accessibility, and advisor-driven innovation must be real and actionable. Advisors are no longer simply changing firms — they are choosing partners who will invest in their future. Is your institution positioned to be that partner?

A private wealth client told me recently that their family has had the same travel advisor for fourteen years. JPMorgan just acquired a luxury travel firm to try to compete with her. The Wall Street Journal ran it as a strategy story. We read it as a warning. We just published a case study on our experience architecture work inside private wealth management. We know this space from the inside. Here is what is actually happening. The Great Wealth Transfer is moving $100 trillion between generations. Private banks know that when assets move, clients move. They are racing to create stickiness before that moment arrives. Lifestyle services, concierge platforms, travel acquisitions — all of it is designed to deepen the relationship before the heir decides to start fresh with someone new. The instinct is correct. The execution is not. Entering a saturated concierge model is not a retention strategy for UHNW clients. It is a commodity play in a market that does not respond to commodities. Here is what the Wall Street Journal didn't say: the UHNW client already has all of this. Estate managers. Private household staff. Travel advisors whose entire practice is built around clients with $800,000 annual vacation budgets. Concierge medical access. Vendors on retainer. When a private bank builds a platform to offer what these clients already have, they are not entering the experience space. They are entering a space their clients already occupy — at a lower level of capability than what those clients have already assembled. The race to add lifestyle services assumes the problem is access. It isn't. What these clients do not have is coherent experience architecture. Experiences designed with intention. Continuous, not episodic. Built around who this client actually is, not what category they belong to. There is a critical difference between offering services and designing experience. Services can be replicated. A vendor network can be built by anyone with a budget. Experience architecture is a competitive differentiator precisely because it cannot be platformed, packaged, or acquired. It has to be designed for resonant competitive advantage, and most firms do not know how to do that. The firms that figure this out will not be the ones who built the best concierge vendor network. They will be the ones who understood that experience is a strategy, not a feature.

The wealth management industry is sitting on a $167 billion operational time bomb. Here's the uncomfortable math: Global alternatives AUM crossed $25 trillion — headed toward $43 trillion by 2030. Retail capital into alts doubled to $204 billion in 2025. Semi-liquid fund structures doubled to 455 in four years. Every one of these transactions generates capital calls, distribution notices, subscription documents, performance calculations, and compliance requirements. They're all being processed manually. PDFs. Emails. Spreadsheets. Copy-paste. The average ops employee manages 200-250 alternative investment positions. Technology-enabled firms manage 3,000+ per person. That's a 10-15x leverage gap — the largest efficiency divide I've seen in 20 years of building financial technology. Three tectonic forces are converging: → 100,000-advisor shortage by 2034 (McKinsey) → $84-124T wealth transfer creating massive new volumes → Next-gen clients demanding digital-first access to alternatives The industry's response? Hire more people. Except ops headcount already grew 30% since 2020 while costs per FTE rose 25%+. PwC projects 16% of firms will be acquired or shuttered by 2027. Traditional automation isn't the answer either. 30-50% of RPA projects fail outright. Only 3% of organizations have scaled beyond pilots. RPA bots break when formats change — and in alternatives, every GP uses different formats. The industry doesn't need better band-aids. It needs new infrastructure. What I believe is coming is an AI-native approach to wealth operations. Not AI bolted onto legacy systems. Infrastructure rebuilt from the ground up with AI at the foundational layer. Think about what the DTCC did for public securities settlement. Private markets need the same — shared digital rails where capital calls, subscriptions, reconciliation, and compliance flow automatically. The most powerful model isn't a traditional vendor play. It's a consortium. Every document extracted trains a model benefiting all participants. Compliance interpretations propagate across the network. An investor onboarded once can subscribe anywhere. I've seen this work. A project I recently led compressed private fund settlement from 47 days to under a week. Not incrementally better. Fundamentally different. The firms that solve this first won't just survive — they'll build the platform the rest of the industry runs on. What's the single most broken operational process at your firm? #WealthManagement #AI #AlternativeInvestments #FinTech #PrivateMarkets #FutureOfFinance #ArtificialIntelligence #OperationsTransformation #Leadership #Innovation #DisruptiveInnovation #WealthTech #DigitalTransformation #PE #VentureCapital InvestCloud, Inc. Jeff Yabuki Andrew Tarver Creation Technologies

Wealth management is a top 10 fastest-changing industry right now. Firms that adapt (the right way) will press forward. Firms that stagnate will die. Here’s how myself and my team at Lifeworks adapted to build a 21st-century RIA firm: First, we dove headfirst into digital marketing to bring in new clients. Let's face it, the days of relying solely on referrals are over. We started creating content that our ideal clients would actually want to read and share — blog posts, videos, social media, the whole nine yards. By consistently putting out valuable content, we started attracting leads like clockwork. Next, we shook up our pricing model by introducing subscription-based planning. “But what would that even look like for an RIA?” Instead of just charging based on assets under management (which can be confusing and breed mistrust), we separated planning into its own transparent service. Clients pay a flat subscription fee based on the complexity of their situation, and in return, they get access to our top-notch planning platform. This has allowed us to profitably serve a wider range of clients and incentivizes our team to keep delivering value year after year. To make our high-touch planning possible, we had to get serious about systematizing our processes. We went through every step of the client journey with a fine-tooth comb, looking for ways to make things more efficient and impactful. We started using powerful planning software to automate repetitive tasks. This freed up our advisors to focus on the meaty, high-value work. We also started regularly reaching out to clients with goal updates, educational resources, and more to keep them engaged and on track. The results have been pretty incredible. Our digital marketing efforts have led to a big jump in qualified prospects coming through our (virtual) doors. Our subscription model has helped us grow our client base substantially. And our systematized service model has driven a noticeable boost in planning fees and growth in assets under management. But most importantly, our clients tell us they feel more confident they’ll reach their financial goals. I won't sugarcoat it — this transformation was painful. It took months of work. We know we're not done evolving — far from it. The wealth management firm of the future will be tech-savvy, planning-obsessed, and, above all, relentlessly focused on the client. And that's exactly what we're building, one step at a time.