Private markets are moving from a niche allocation to a core part of wealthy families’ portfolios, and Michael Gold Westport sees the shift as one of the defining stories in wealth management this year.
About 83 percent of advisers now say offering a robust suite of private asset options has become essential to serving clients well, a marked change from just a few years ago. Gold, founder and CEO of Westport-based Gold Family Wealth, has watched that shift firsthand as more families ask for access once reserved for institutions and the ultra-wealthy.
Technology’s Limits
At the same time, AI-driven tools and digital platforms are making basic wealth management far more accessible across nearly every income bracket. Gold has taken a different path with his Westport firm, building what he calls a human-first family office model typically reserved for billionaires and extending it to families with $20 million to $150 million in net worth.
His approach relies on a network of specialists working on a fractional basis, giving clients access to what Gold describes as clarity, coordination, and governance traditionally reserved for the world’s most sophisticated families. Rather than replacing advisors with software, Gold positions technology as a supporting tool, useful for routine analysis but incapable of the anticipatory judgment he says defines good advisory work.
An Industry-Wide Shift
The ultra-high-net-worth population itself is expanding quickly, projected to grow 6.7 percent this year and push total global wealth to $59.8 trillion. Gold argues that growth alone will not solve the industry’s core problem, which he sees as a shortage of coordinated, senior-level judgment rather than a shortage of products or platforms.
“UHNW clients operate within a highly complex ecosystem, one influenced by legacy goals, intricate family dynamics, multigenerational coordination and the natural uncertainty of managing personal and business wealth,” Gold said. As private markets and personalization both accelerate this year, he expects firms that combine access with genuine human oversight to pull ahead of competitors relying on scale alone. Read this article for more information.
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