We find that the affluent want to work with the best professionals in all areas of their lives—especially when it comes to the areas of personal and (for entrepreneurs) business financial management.
One type of advisor who has the potential to be extremely beneficial to your financial life is an elite wealth manager. As you may be aware, lots of advisors these days call themselves wealth managers. But in our view, only a small percentage really provide comprehensive wealth management expertise that puts them at the elite level.
So how can you tell you’re looking at an elite wealth manager? The first step is to understand the two main componentsof true wealth management: investment management and advanced wealth planning
Investment Management. Investment management addresses preserving or growing your liquid wealth—assets that (in most cases) can be readily converted to cash. Of course, you may also have wealth that is illiquid—such as real estate (including your home), private equity investments, equity you have in your own business (if you are an entrepreneur) and certain hard assets, such as artwork (if you are a collector).
This aspect—dealing with the investments, the asset allocation and related issues—is what immediately comes to mind for most people when they think about the concept of wealth management. And that makes sense: Advisors, including elite wealth managers, generally will create and oversee a portfolio of investable assets.
Almost all self-identified wealth managers provide investment management, in our experience. But it might be all that they provide. In those cases, we would argue, the “wealth managers” aren’t wealth managers at all. Providing just investment management doesn’t go far enough to warrant using that title. Wealth planning expertise is also required in order to be a wealth manager—and certainly an elite wealth manager.
Advanced Planning. Under the broad umbrella of wealth planning is a range of specialties. A few of the more common among true wealth managers are tax planning, estate planning, business succession planning, asset protection planning and charitable planning.
A high-quality wealth manager is unlikely to be expert in all the aspects of investment management and wealth planning. However, that professional should be able to readily access the requisite expertise on behalf of clients via a group of other professionals who focus on individual components—such as an attorney specializing in estate planning. Therefore, it’s useful to think about wealth management as being provided by a cohesive team that is coordinated by the wealth manager.
Fidato Wealth LLC is a Registered Investment Adviser. Please note that the use of the term “SEC Registered Investment Adviser” and description of Fidato Wealth LLC and/or our associates as “registered” does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This brochure is solely for informational purposes. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Fidato Wealth LLC and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. No advice may be rendered by Fidato Wealth LLC unless a client service agreement is in place. If you are not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any review, copying, distribution or use of this transmission is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please (i) notify the sender immediately by e-mail or by telephone and (ii) destroy all copies of this message. Please note that trading instructions through email, fax or voicemail will not be taken, as your identity and timely retrieval of instructions cannot be guaranteed. If you do not wish to receive marketing emails from this sender, please send an email to sayhello@fidatowealth.com. This article was published by the VFO Inner Circle, a global financial concierge group working with affluent individuals and families and is distributed with its permission. Copyright 2025 by AES Nation, LLC. Fidato Wealth is not affiliated with AES Nation, LLC. AES Nation, LLC is the creator and publisher of the VFO Inner Circle Flash Report.
DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE HERE
