The US organization is entering the family office space, recruiting a former Rockefeller figure to spearhead its development. We take a look at Wealthspire Advisors' strategy.

Wealthspire Advisors continues to flex its corporate muscles, poaching a top executive from Rockefeller Capital Management as the cornerstone for a new family office division.

Heather Flanagan, former managing director and head of trust fiduciary and family office services for Rockefeller, will assume those roles at Wealthspire. The new position is the fourth major move Wealthspire has made in just over three months.

In late November, Wealthspire acquired Private Ocean, a $2.7 billion California RIA led by Greg Friedman; in December the RIA bought Private Capital Group, a $1 billion wealth manager based in Connecticut; and in January Wealthspire integrated Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York onto its advisory platform.

Both Lenox and Wealthspire, which now has over $17 billion in AuM, share a parent company, insurance broker NFP.

Flanagan plans to launch a de novo corporate trust company and add specialized services to Wealthspire’s offering for ultra-high net worth clients, she told Family Wealth Report in an exclusive interview.

“Becoming a corporate trustee and with a broader service level is a big priority,” she said. “We want to add specialization for tax planning, family dynamics for multi-generational clients, philanthropy and donor-advised funds. These kind of highly-valued services make a big difference to clients.”

Looking for talent
Flanagan also plans to go on a hiring binge and said that she’s looking for wealth strategists, administrators, and specialists who “can be partners to advisors and help with the new trust company.”

She also previously worked for HSBC Private Banking, PNC Wealth Management and was a trusts and estates attorney in private practice as well as a philanthropy advisor.

The well-publicized talent shortage doesn’t faze her, Flanagan maintained. Wealthspire will pay competitive market rates and seek out employees from what she called “a large group of professionals who want to serve clients.”

Wealthspire already has most of the moving parts for a family office, Flanagan asserted; she was brought in to “operationalize” existing services, add resources, and allow advisors to “utilize their skills in a scalable way.” 

Flanagan is targeting UHNW clients with over $25 million in investible assets and business owners in a “pre-liquidity” stage who can use the trust companies’ services.

Odds of success?
What are Wealthspire’s’ odds of succeeding in an extremely competitive market not known for its high margins?

While the RIA has “all the component parts needed” to deliver family office services, according to industry consultant Jamie McLaughlin, it nevertheless “will need to be disciplined in their pricing and service delivery.”

In the former case, Wealthspire will need to “rationalize and test a non-asset-based pricing model,” McLaughlin said. “In the latter case, they’ll need to delineate what services they will and won’t provide, be cautious in adding under-utilized staff, and prepared to outsource services they can’t deliver profitably.”