Amy Hart Clyne, who has advised wealthy women for most of her career, said she “hears the silence” of women when they first come to her and works “to give them a voice.”
Clyne believes most advisors for wealthy women are approaching them incorrectly and are in danger of losing them to other, more astute, advisors.
Clyne is chief knowledge and learning officer at Pitcairn, a family office firm with offices in New York City and Philadelphia, and the author of “Finding Her Voice & Creating a Legacy,” for which she interviewed 40 ultra-wealthy women, most of whom were part of families with more than $500 million in assets, to see what they wanted in an advisor and what many advisors lack. Pitcairn oversees $7 billion in assets and specializes in multigenerational planning.
Some advisors know how to tailor their planning and advice to wealthy women, but many do not and instead create fear and resentment by being judgmental and frustration by discussing “only numbers,” Clyne said in a recent interview. “They do not take the time and interest to understand the bigger issues” that are important to wealthy women and female family leaders.
Successful advisors to wealthy women clients “take the time to help clients understand all aspects of the family enterprise, including its wealth structures and financial implications,” and they “empower these women to make their own decisions,” Clyne said. “Ultra-wealthy women are looking for an advisor who honors the family and its dynamics, sees and shares their future, represents other like-minded female leadership, and capitalizes on coaching” that is available.
An advisor does not have to be female to accomplish this, she said. “It is not a male or female attribute for the advisor,” she said.
Some wealthy women inherit advisors from other family members, which can create uncomfortable situations, she said. The advisor who cannot treat wealth as a tool, rather than an end in itself, is going to lose the wealthy female client, she said.
Clyne said she had one female client who inherited the family business and wanted to distribute the assets to her children. She needed an advisor to help with that task, not a traditional advisor to just help her invest. She succeeded in finding someone at Pitcairn to help her deal with transferring wealth to heirs who spanned the age range of 15 years old to 27 years old, which involve two distinctly different skill sets.