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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.

How are wealth owners managing the investment process? Who is making investment decisions, and what kind of results did those decisions yield in a year where the S & P 500 returned 32%? Using recent FOX research, Sara Hamilton will answer these questions and share 2013 asset allocation and performance data for survey participants. She will review the challenges and successes of 2013 and preview wealth owner investment plans and priorities for 2014.

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.

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.

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.

In today’s increasing complex global investment marketplace there is an incredible diversity of investment opportunities—each with their own underlying risk/reward characteristics. The Optimal Advisor is now more challenged than ever to assimilate the most effective strategies for the families they serve while continuing to minimize the inherent risk.

While the concept of discussing the values and expectations surrounding philanthropy aren’t new and advisors are tasked with satisfying the gifting expectations of the families they serve, as indicated in the 2013 U.S. Trust and The Philanthropic Initiative research on philanthropy—there is a significant disconnect between advisor approach and client expectations.