FWR talks to a consultant to North American wealth managers who has a particular take on what the sector requires.

The consulting business comes in many forms and, as wealth management evolves in the US and wider world, new entrants, M&A takeovers, complex new asset classes create a need for guidance. Consultancy is as much as an art as a science. Some firms will undertake a project for a client, measure what they’ve delivered and move on. Others will make changes but be kept on as a retained source of expertise. 

Within the family offices sector, which is still professionalizing and adapting, a consultancy that has a particularly close on focus on providing good ideas is Wealth Matters Consulting. Its founder, Rosemary Denney (main picture), has written in these pages before on topics such as how wealth managers can improve their marketing strategy. Family Wealth Report recently interviewed Denney, who is based in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

FWR: Why did you found Wealth Matters Consulting?
Denney: I would love to say I started Wealth Matters Consulting with a big strategic vision, but honestly, I didn't. I worked for several years at a large well-known multi-family office, which is how I got into the financial industry in the first place. I came from politics; I used to do public relations for the mayor of Tampa. I joined a multi-family office as part of their in-house marketing team, and I was so lucky to be there because what they were doing was ahead by decades in the family office industry. I was part of their rebrand, part of a period of extraordinary growth where they went from under $10 billion to over $20 billion in assets. It was a tremendous time of learning.

When I decided to leave, there were some corporate changes happening, and it coincided with a very personal moment – I had just had twin baby girls and already had a 20-month-old at home. Three children under the age of two. I wanted to stay in the workforce, but it was impossible to do it the way I had been doing it. Working from home wasn't an option back then, so I launched Wealth Matters at my kitchen table.

If I'm being completely honest, my initial vision was just to make enough money to pay for childcare. But what I quickly discovered was that the wealth management industry was genuinely underserved from a marketing and communications perspective. There weren't many agencies that understood the sector. The firm grew organically, and around year five I started to see that it had real potential to grow exponentially – and we have.

What makes us really different is two things. Our mission is to serve wealth advisors with excellence in everything we do. And our vision is to create a place for female creatives in the wealth management industry to thrive – in a professional environment that gives them a real career path and a real future.

FWR: You mostly hire women. What is your strategy for meeting the challenges for women in wealth management today and what is moving in the right way, would you say? 
Denny: Being an all-female team gives us a lot of advantages. The wealth management industry is male-dominated – and that's fine, we love our male colleagues – but what it means is that a lot of these firms need a female perspective and they don't always have one internally. Women are becoming wealth creators, wealth inheritors, divorcees with significant assets. Women are suddenly in control of wealth because of death, divorce, or the incapacitation of a spouse. Being able to speak to a female audience has become critically important, and a lot of firms simply aren't prepared to do that.

This is a radical change from 10, 15, or 20 years ago when the female voice wasn't really part of the client relationship at all. Working with our firm makes it a very seamless experience for these firms – they can bring in a team of all-female professionals to help them communicate with and serve that audience in a way that feels authentic.

I've always felt that being a woman in wealth management was an advantage, not a disadvantage. When I'm sometimes the only one in a room with a female perspective, it makes me memorable. 

What I think is moving in the right direction is awareness. More firms now genuinely understand that this is a business imperative, not just a nice-to-have. What we offer is the practical solution to that need. Internally, I've also been very intentional about creating a workplace where women can build sustainable careers. 

FWR: Wealth Matters integrates deeply with the firms it works with. Can you elaborate?
Denney: I think the depth of how we integrate comes directly from my own background. I wasn't an outside agency person who learned about wealth management from the outside – I was inside for years, working as part of their in-house marketing team, living the day-to-day reality of how a major family office operates. I understand the culture, the client relationships, the sensitivities, the way decisions get made internally. That's a very different starting point from most agencies.

So, when we work with firms, we don't come in as vendors delivering a work product and stepping back out. We function much more like an embedded partner. We work primarily with RIAs, multi-family offices, and wealth management practices that are serious about their brand and their long-term growth – firms that want someone who already speaks their language and doesn't need to be educated about the industry from scratch.

We've been particularly active in South Florida, which has seen an enormous influx of financial firms relocating from the Northeast. That shift began before Covid, but Covid certainly accelerated it. West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami – they've all become genuine financial hubs. The firms moving here tend to be forward-thinking; they're hyper-aware of the need for marketing and communications to stay competitive. For us, being already based in West Palm Beach has been a serendipitous advantage.

FWR: What does success look like from your point of view? 
Denney: Success has two dimensions for me – one external, one internal. Externally, success means that the firms we work with are genuinely better positioned because of our partnership. They're more visible, more credible, better able to attract the clients they want and communicate with an evolving client base. That's measurable in terms of the work we produce, the relationships we help them build, and the growth they experience.

Internally, success means that Wealth Matters has become the place where I set out to build – one where talented women can have serious, sustainable careers in an industry that hasn't historically made that easy. We've had growth year-over-year since founding, entirely organically without any outside capital. That's a meaningful marker. But the deeper measure is whether we're delivering on the vision: a professional home for female creatives in wealth management with a real future.

I'll also say that I've had to redefine what success looks like along the way. Around years seven and eight I realized that the structure I had built organically wasn't scalable – I had to dismantle some things, rearrange others, and build a proper architecture for growth. That willingness to step back and rebuild, rather than just push forward, is part of how I think about staying on the right track. 

FWR: There is a lot of change in the sector (consolidation, use of AI, intergenerational wealth transfers, arrival of new wealth in different parts of the US, etc). What sort of issues do your clients ask for your help with? 
Denney: The most consistent theme I hear is the need to communicate through change – whether that change is happening inside the firm or across the industry.

The geographic shift to South Florida is a vivid example. Firms arriving here from New York or Chicago are walking into a new market without local recognition. They need to establish themselves quickly, build credibility with a new professional community, and make sure that their brand translates in a very different environment. We've helped several firms navigate exactly that transition – introducing them to the local ecosystem, refreshing their positioning for a new audience, and building the communications infrastructure that supports their growth here.

The generational wealth transfer is another enormous issue. Firms that built their practices around one generation of clients are now facing the reality that the next generation has very different communication preferences and a very different relationship with financial services. Reaching them requires a completely different approach – more digital, more personal, more attuned to the values and concerns they bring to the relationship.

Consolidation is also driving a lot of work for us. When firms merge or are acquired, the brand and communications challenges are significant. How do you maintain client trust? How do you introduce a new name or a new ownership structure without unsettling relationships that have taken years to build? How do you unify two firms with distinct cultures? These are questions we help clients work through and getting them right matters enormously for client retention.

FWR: While many wealth management firms understand the need to have a digital presence, this can still be uneven. What's holding firms back?
Denney: Honestly, a lot of it comes down to the history of how this industry built itself. Wealth management was referral-driven for a very long time – personal networks, introductions, word of mouth. That model worked extremely well, and a lot of firms built very successful practices without ever really investing in a public-facing presence. The inertia from that is real.

What I've seen consistently since, is that the firms moving fastest are the ones that recognized early that marketing and communications are competitive necessities – not optional investments you make when everything else is sorted. The firms relocating to South Florida tend to be exactly those kinds of forward-thinking operators. They're here because they're looking to the future, and they're already thinking about how to stay competitive in a more crowded market.

For the firms that are lagging, it's usually a mix of things. There's genuine unfamiliarity with digital channels. There's concern about regulatory compliance in a heavily regulated industry – what can you say, how can you say it, who needs to approve it. There's sometimes a genuine belief that existing client relationships make it unnecessary. And there's a cultural resistance to visibility that runs deep in parts of this industry – discretion has always been a core value, and being publicly present can feel at odds with that. Part of what we do is help firms get comfortable with visibility in a conversational way that still feels true to their culture and appropriate for their clients. 

FWR: Wealth managers that want to attract talent know – or they should – that without having suitable tools and a flexible approach, they won't attract and keep people. How do you make that point to partners and other owners of firms?
Denney: If I look at what wealth management firms should know if they would like to attract and retain talent, it is that advisors today are looking for a path to growth. This means that a firm needs not only operational resources, but also resources that are focused on marketing and growth, and relationship development. This is in every conversation that I have with clients when we are focused on MNA or lift-outs, mergers or an acquisition. Resources like a marketing engine, content production, a path toward increasing visibility, public relations. 

Exposure for them to build their personal brands and also strengthen the firm’s brand is critical. Resources to deepen client relationships through thought leadership, a strong business development process and infrastructure are key to supporting active growth. These have gone from being nice-to-haves to being must-haves for any firm looking to attract and retain talent.

FWR: We see a lot of external capital coming into the industry, for example from private equity – how do you think that has affected the sector overall?
Denney: It's had a significant effect, and I see it in the work we're asked to do. When institutional capital enters a firm – whether from private equity or through a merger or acquisition – it brings a very different set of expectations around growth, brand, and market positioning. These investors are not patient capital in the traditional sense; they want to see the firm grow in a deliberate, scalable way, and that changes how leadership thinks about everything from client acquisition to communications.

For us, that shift has created new types of engagements. Firms going through ownership changes have real communications challenges – how do you hold client relationships together through a transition? How do you tell the story of a change in a way that builds confidence rather than triggering anxiety? How do you integrate two firms that have distinct cultures and identities? These are questions that require both deep sector understanding and genuine communications expertise, and that's exactly where we operate.

I've also noticed that the arrival of institutional capital tends to accelerate the professionalization of marketing functions. Firms that had been running with minimal marketing infrastructure suddenly have investors who expect something much more sophisticated. That creates real opportunity for a firm like ours. Wealth Matters has grown entirely without outside capital. We've been bootstrapped from day one, and everything we've built has been through organic growth. That independence has shaped how I think and how we operate.

FWR: A significant number of RIAs and family office folk are nearing retirement and thinking of succession, and a younger generation is moving into the hot seat – how are you working with them to help make the switch and handle their branding and communications?
Denney: Succession is one of the most communications-intensive moments a firm can go through, and it's one where the stakes are very high. Clients who have had decade-long relationships with a founding partner need to be carefully brought through that transition. They need to understand who is stepping into that role, why that person is the right steward of the relationship, and what – if anything – is going to change for them. Getting that wrong can cost a firm clients it has spent years building trust with.

The generational shift also brings real differences in how the incoming generation communicates and what their clients expect. The next generation of advisors tends to be far more comfortable with digital channels and a more visible personal brand. They're often working with clients who are younger, who include more women, who have grown up with a completely different relationship to information and to financial services. Bridging those two worlds – for both internal audiences and external ones – is exactly the kind of work we're well-suited to help with.

In practice, this means helping firms think through their narrative around the transition: what continuity looks like, how to introduce new leadership with real credibility, and how to use the succession moment not just to manage optics but as an opportunity to genuinely refresh and reposition. South Florida has been an interesting environment for this work – there's a mix of newer firms still in their founding chapter and more. 

FWR: What is your business philosophy?
Denney: At the heart of it, there are two things I've believed since the beginning.

The first is that wealth management deserves genuinely excellent marketing and communications. For too long, firms in this space treated those functions as secondary – nice to have, not essential. I came to see that as a real gap, and one that created meaningful opportunity for a firm that took the work seriously. Our mission – to serve wealth advisors with excellence in everything we do – comes directly from that conviction. And that mission feels more urgent now than ever. We're at an inflection point: AI and the tools emerging around it are rewriting what's possible in how we work, how we communicate, and how we serve clients. The firms that figure that out early will have a real advantage. That's a space we intend to occupy.

The second is that this industry represents an enormous opportunity for women – both as professionals and as clients. The intergenerational wealth transfer already underway is shifting trillions of dollars toward female control. The firms, and the people, who are positioned to serve that shift well will define what this industry looks like for the next generation. Wealth Matters was built with that future in mind.