Invitees to the June UBS confab had at least one thing in common: a family account with the bank well into—or above—the eight-digit mark. They arrived from around the world and included seven sets of siblings. The youngest was 21; the oldest, 34. UBS executives agreed to speak about the gathering, and allowed a reporter to attend all but the evening activities, on the condition that participants not be named.
Fusty these affairs are not. For one cocktail reception, UBS chose a penthouse with a terrace atop the Beekman Hotel, a renovated Gilded Age office building. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.—about as old-school as it gets, with a history going back to 1818—hosted 40 offspring of its best clients at the chic Soho Grand last year. Morgan Stanley’s private-wealth management business went for a different hipster vibe, taking over the bowling lanes at Lucky Strike in Manhattan for the 100 attendees of its Next Gen program in May.
Since many millennials want to run their own businesses and like to learn from peers, Morgan Stanley included a “Shark Tank”-style session with young social entrepreneurs pitching to a panel of three attendees.
“Socially responsible investing is a theme that really resonates,” said Mandell Crawley, head of private wealth management at the bank.
Personal branding also clicks with the younger generation, so Crawley headed up a discussion on “Defining Your Narrative.” Breakout talks included creating “a powerful package called ‘you’” and “how to communicate like a leader.”
Another popular theme is innovations in philanthropy, and wealth managers are increasingly keen to offer strategic advice. Checkbook charity doesn't appeal, but impact philanthropy does, because the results can be measured. The poster child for this may be Scott Harrison, 42, founder of Charity: Water, who spoke at the Morgan Stanley event and UBS’s June gathering.
Harrison’s story stretches from life as a nightclub promoter to head of a wildly popular nonprofit creating access to clean water in developing countries. His presentation showed photos of the grueling journeys many women and girls take to fill jerry cans with 40 pounds of water that isn’t even fit to drink.
Millennials are said to value experiences over things, so UBS had the group walk a mile with a similar can, switching off among themselves as they headed to a chic townhouse for cocktails. There, to get a different perspective, they donned virtual-reality goggles. The next morning, UBS announced it had donated $12,000 in the YSP group’s name to build a well.
Jesse Bongiovi shared some thoughts during one of the lunches, along with the wine he launched with his Grammy-winning father. The 23-year-old got some inspiration on marketing the rosé when he was an attendee at last year’s program, after hearing a presentation on disruptive innovation from Luke Williams, a professor of entrepreneurship and marketing at New York University Stern School of Business and regular speaker at the UBS workshops. Fast cars—really fast ones—entered the mix, too. Nico Rosberg, a 33-year-old Formula One champion, spoke about his new focus on cutting-edge startup investing. Silicon Valley technologist and venture capitalist Evangelos Simoudis, of Synapse Partners, also spoke.
Networking breaks punctuate the sessions, and the food can be as trendy as the venues. At the UBS event, attendees could try out a La Colombe draft latte machine or grab a fresh bottle of Voss water to wash down artfully arranged, freshly baked mini-doughnuts and pretzels with cheese dipping sauce, or a healthier concoction involving chia seeds, dried papaya bits and mint.