Family Wealth Report is holding the inaugural North America and Canadian awards for outstanding performance - at the institutional and
individual level - in wealth management in March 2014 (see full details here).

A crucial part of the process of course is having a panel of
expert judges with the experience and knowledge to assess the entries.
We will therefore be profiling the judges taking part in coming weeks.

Here is Jamie McLaughlin, founder and chief executive of J H McLaughlin & Co. McLaughlin founded J H McLaughlin & Co, a strategy and
practice management consulting firm serving the wealth management
industry and family offices, in 2010. 

He has over 20 years of experience
in senior operating and client-facing roles in the family office and
ultra high net worth industry, and has a history of building organizations
across a variety of private wealth management models.

Previously, he was CEO of Geller Family Office Services; a partner at
Convergent Wealth Advisors (formerly Lydian Wealth Management), where he
built the firm's New York office; and regional
president of Mellon Private Wealth Management's New York region.

"I see the full arc of wealth management and family offices over a long continuum and in all its variations across channels of delivery, presumptive wealth and demographic segments, regulatory regimes, and capital structures.  We are in the very early innings of a shift in demand where few, if any, existing business models meet the current demand from families of great wealth and complexity," McLaughlin says.

"Families are yearning for investment and non-investment (largely, planning and data assimilation) advice largely free of conflicts.  Perversely, they have been unwilling to pay the true costs of these services and firms have socialized them that they can get these services at discounted fees or below their true cost.  Separately, wealth management businesses depend on top line growth where performance and compensation management systems often favor asset gathering over client service delivery.  Consequently, the discovery process is not disinterested and often has a sales bias where persuasion trumps analysis and the more nuanced feathering out of the true client need is often overlooked or neglected."

He added: "In summary, there is a great tension between firm business economics and the client experience.  In this environment, clients will increasingly seek to disintermediate manufacturers and distributors and should be willing to pay the true costs for advice.  Firms need to commit capital to staff at appropriate levels to provide this advice and or confederate with other advisors to meet this demand and, importantly, need to have the derring-do to test clients willingness to pay.  Discounting and pricing concessions in this environment is a race to the bottom.  Firm business economics are weakened and families remain unserved."