Opportunity 1
Demographics

Demographic change is a constant in wealth management. Each new generation creates and inherits wealth, then spends and invests it in different ways. Different categories of individuals get rich quicker at different times. An industry or region may experience a boom, which will lift the net worth of the people working in it. A particular group or segment of people may acquire greater access to money or opportunities, which then translates into greater financial success.

During our own era, global demographic trends continue to shape wealth across the world. Millionaires and billionaires hold around half of global wealth (see Figure 1.1). Younger as well as older entrepreneurs are creating unprecedented international fortunes in fast-growing industries like technology. In turn, technology has digitized the business of wealth management and expanded access to new financial tools and alternative investments, as well as information on platforms like social media. Women are also projected to control a growing share of wealth as they fight for greater professional opportunities and inherit money from aging spouses. This next generation of wealth is not only more youthful and more female, but it is also looking for a purpose to guide its approach to wealth management.

Figure 1.1 Visualizing the global wealth pyramid.

Source: UBS Global Wealth Report 2023/with permission of Visual Capitalist.

"This generation that will inherit wealth - millennials and upwards - think differently about it," says Margaret Franklin, president and CEO of the CFA Institute. "They grew up witnessing incredible income and wealth inequality, and so they think about both meaning and impact. I can think of many clients where an older generation might have said, 'Make as much money as you can, and then philanthropically apply it to areas that you want to support.' But now, the younger generation is saying, 'Actually, the portfolio should express some of my values within it, so I want to consider risk, return and impact.'"

Research shows the scale of this shift is unprecedented. In the United States alone, more than $80 trillion is expected to pass to younger individuals over the next two decades, according to Cerulli Associates, mostly from baby-boomers and the generation before them. Bank of America estimates $30 trillion will pass to younger women specifically.1 "Twenty to twenty-five years ago, we didn't talk so much about wealth transfer. We were talking more about wealth creation - dealing with entrepreneurs building up their business and sometimes selling it," says Pierre Ramadier, CEO of international wealth management at BNP Paribas. "Now we are seeing the new generation come up, along with new trends around wealth transfer and family governance."

Even without that wealth transfer, assets controlled by younger generations have been growing as they enter their peak earning years, build successful businesses, and save for retirement and other expenses. In the United States, Federal Reserve data2 shows that wealth held by Gen X, the generation after the baby boomers, has more than doubled in less than seven years, from $20.35 trillion in the first quarter of 2018 to $41.67 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Millennial wealth increased over twofold from $3.94 trillion in the third quarter of 2019 to $8.11 trillion in the first quarter of 2021, then more than doubled again to $16.26 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024. (For a visualization of these trends, see Figure 1.2.)

Figure 1.2 US wealth by generation.

Source: Federal Reserve. Dala as of May 2004/with permission of Visual Capitalist.

Baby boomers, who are currently wealth managers' core audience in terms of assets, held $82.48 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024, a record high. However, retirement and the transfer of wealth to the next generation will put downward pressure on that total in coming years. According to the Fed, wealth held by the pre-baby boomer generation peaked in 2007, the year its youngest members turned 62. Although that peak was partly induced by the global financial crisis, which began that year, that generation's wealth continued to decline in value during the recovery that began in 2009. By way of comparison, the youngest members of the baby boomer generation will turn 62 in 2026.

For wealth managers, global demographic trends that have felt theoretical and incremental for decades are suddenly becoming even more real and demanding urgent action. Clients who were once saving for retirement are now focused on ways to manage it and pass down their wealth, while a new wave of clients is demanding a different approach to their finances. However, for wealth managers who can adapt quickly to these trends, they also represent a significant opportunity to develop relationships with clients and drive business success.

Furthermore, generational and demographic change is a key driver of many other business opportunities in the wealth management industry. Those that are explored in this book include retirement, technology, digital, purpose, international wealth management, and alternative investments. To capitalize fully on these opportunities, wealth managers will need to appeal to this new wave of clients where demand for these growing areas is highest. Client, generational, and business success will become even more intertwined.

FlexGen

The next generation of wealth contains three distinct groups - Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z. These generations are sandwiched between two older generations, the Silent Generation and the baby boomers, and two younger ones, Gen Alpha and Gen Beta (see Figure 1.3). All of them were raised amid an IT revolution. Roughly speaking, Gen X was born in the later 1960s and 1970s and grew up during the advent of personal computing and the internet. Millennials were born in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s and helped drive the growth of social media and digital assets. Gen Z were born between around 1997 and 2012 and are coming of age amid a boom in AI. Digital platforms have also made these generations even more aware of developments and issues in the world around them and how they can use their money to explore new types of investments and drive change.

Figure 1.3 How generations will shape the global population by 2035.

Source: Meridie Petarul Reserve Citas Ms 2004/with permission of Visual Capitalist.

These groups have also lived through massive international shifts. When most Gen Xers were in their teens and twenties, the Cold War ended, accelerating globalization and wealth creation around the world. When most millennials were the same age, the global financial crisis and its aftermath refocused those opportunities. In some quarters, technology and innovation drove massive wealth creation and helped bring the world closer together. In others, resistance to globalization grew. Finally, Gen Z is acclimatizing to an even more complex post-COVID era. Some professionals have used tech to embrace remote working, moving around between various locations and countries. Others have become even more focused on their home markets.

As our book will explore, these clients, who are mostly Gen X and millennials, want flexibility when it comes to managing their wealth - and in some cases have accumulated vast sums that require even more customized attention. They want to use tech and digital tools, but they also value talking about money in person. They invest in traditional assets but also a broad set of alternatives, from private markets to cryptocurrency. They want to save for their retirement but also put their money to work in wider ways, from fulfilling a higher purpose to moving it and spending it overseas. Wealth managers have an opportunity to put the right talent and resources in place to build relationships with them and meet their demands.

Marielle Schurig is a millennial financial advisor and a partner at Lindbrook Capital in the United States. She says the sheer range of choice available to younger clients can be one of the factors prompting them to seek an advisor. "It gets to a point where it feels really overwhelming. There's so much information out there. Some of these younger people are frozen because the options are endless," she says. "A lot of investors from the younger generation just want to work with someone that they trust - that can steer them in the right direction, be proactive, give them good guidance, and provide them with education instead of them going online."

Courting these clients may require a different approach. Golfing days and some other traditional activities will likely continue to become less central. Building dialogue on the right social media channels will grow in importance. Joining non-profit boards has become even more relevant in an age where clients are trying to find a higher purpose for their wealth. As they navigate this new landscape, wealth managers may also have to hire a wider range of advisors and train their existing advisors to handle a broader set of clients. Partly because younger generations currently have fewer assets than older ones, they may need to be patient in waiting for those efforts to pay off.

As time passes, older clients - baby boomers and the generation before - have also become familiar, and in some cases comfortable, with the more flexible...