Wealth Management

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A Wealth manager (WM) is a type of financial advisor that primarily serves high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. And as the name states, they usually manage large amounts of wealth for these clients.

Wealth managers work closely with their clients to offer a variety of services that best meet their specific needs. Some examples of services include:

Investment management
Financial planning
Tax services
Retirement planning
Legal planning
Philanthropic planning (such as charities)
Estate planning and more.

However, not all of these services are necessarily the WM’s responsibility. A client’s needs are the determining factor for which services a wealth manager will provide.¹

What Do Wealth Managers Do?

The purpose of a wealth manager is to make the client’s life easier. Not everyone wants to spend a lot (if any) of their time managing and making sure their money/finances are in good shape. The job of a wealth manager is to help the client manage all of these (sometimes complicated) issues.

Wealth managers typically specialize in topics that relate to highly affluent people with slightly complex financial needs. Rather than seek out multiple professionals, you can work with a wealth manager who coordinates with other experts on your behalf. For example, a wealthy individual who has been married and divorced, owns multiple houses, and has many investments and financial accounts to manage likely needs expertise in topics like: legal matters, property taxes and investments. A wealth manager creates a financial plan that takes each of those needs into consideration, either on their own or with outside help.²

What do you do as an Entry-Level Wealth Manager?

The main responsibilities of an entry-level individual in wealth management varies depending on the company and/or the team you work on. Younger members of a wealth management team support the more senior managers (who are ultimately responsible for the client(s)). Typically the responsibilities can be divided into into two types:

Work related to managing the client’s portfolio (aka a collection of investments and money they have)
Business-Related Tasks

Client Portfolio Work

This typically entails:

Understanding the client’s financial needs and desires
Communicating closely with necessary experts that can help the client accomplish their desires (for example, if they wish to invest in real estate, working with a real estate investment expert).
Closely monitor the investments and financial accounts of your client(s)
Create presentations and reports for your manager and/or the client(s)
Help address client’s concerns and questions as they arise (can sometimes be rather frequent)

Business-Related Wealth Management Tasks

These tasks are anything non-finance related that help the team be successful. Some examples include:

Prospecting and finding new clients and opportunities – this is very important because the more clients they have –> the more money the wealth manager’s manage –> the wealth management team makes more money.
Prepare presentations for prospective clients – explaining why your team/company should be trusted managing their money.
More administrative duties for the team – doing things like binding books, paperwork for onboarding clients, making sure paperwork does not violate any rules, etc.

How do wealth manager’s find new client’s and opportunities?

This can happen in a number of different ways. The prospecting process (aka looking for new opportunities) includes:

Researching, via google or other channels, big events, such as a company being bought -there is usually an individual who benefits from their company getting acquired and now needs their money to be managed
Researching wealthy people in the region and reaching out (either directly or through a connection you may have)
Networking
And any other way you can think of to find more potential business!

What is the difference between Financial Advisors and Wealth Managers?

“Financial advisor” is a general term for many different financial professionals who provide advice on finance-related subjects. A wealth manager usually refers to a specific kind of financial advisor who focuses on topics that concern very wealthy individuals. In other words, a wealth manager usually has a significantly higher investment minimum than other financial advisors.

Furthermore, wealth managers often offer more services than other financial advisors, and aim to be a one-stop shop for a wealthy individual to manage all of their finances, investments, etc.³

What types of skills are necessary to be a successful Wealth Manager?

Communication skills and Personable
Knowledge of different types of investments that your client may need or desire
Research skills
Honest and Trustworthy
Organized
Reliable

What are some challenges of working in Wealth Management?

There can be high turnover since it is competitive to get and keep clients happy
It is important to build relationships with client’s and even their family, so if you do not enjoy socializing like that it can be overwhelming
Results-oriented work, can be rewarding but sometimes stressful and challenging
Client’s can be demanding and get upset if you make a mistake
At the entry-level, the administrative work can get repetitive

What are some benefits of working in Wealth Management?

If you work your way up to being a manager, the compensation is very generous
Build strong, close relationships with clients, and other experts in the finance world
Results-oriented, which can be motivating and rewarding if you perform well
Get to work with and learn from many different types of individuals, across many different teams/specializations.
Work-life balance is usually very good

Typical Salary?

The salary of someone in wealth management varies a lot depending where you work, your experience-level, etc. The typical salary can range anywhere between $65k-$94k, according to salary.com.

According to glassdoor, associates (who are typically entry-level or a few years in) make, on average, ~$60k.

Should I go into wealth management?

If you enjoy working with others, and want to get involved in finance, you should consider a career in wealth management. It is a great opportunity to build many strong relationships and get exposure to different areas of finance, investing, etc. Additionally, it can be extremely rewarding to have the trust of many individuals, their families, and help them accomplish their financial needs/goals.

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Investment Banking

Business Development

Account Executive

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