What better to compare wealth management to than growing crops? The account manager, like a sharecropper equipped with the plough that he will use to till the soil, receives parcels of wealth that he will endeavour to preserve and use to bring forth harvests.
The hazards of the markets can be likened to those of the countryside. Storms, drought and pests alternate with periods of plenty. Some plants mature quickly and have to be replaced often. Olive trees, in contrast, can live a hundred years and are even fire-resistant. An account manager knows how to accommodate each client's needs and wishes; he will find solutions suited to their particular circumstances. He will attend to the members of each generation, from the spring to the autumn of their lifetime, intent on understanding their situation and expectations.
Men and women with hands-on experience, artisans who know their craft
Perpetuating wealth means more than anything else preserving it. Gauging risks is a vital part of the process, but wealth management must deliver returns as well. Some clients prefer merely to consult their banker while others give him full rein to invest on their behalf under a discretionary mandate. The wealth management profession rests above all on a bond of trust, making the manager-client relationship fundamental. But it is also a technical profession governed by performance and volatility, where the ability to explain simply what has been done is indispensable. Like a craftsman working with ultramodern composite materials, the account manager has to adhere to tried-and-trusted traditions while adapting them to a constantly evolving world. Everything moves. Everything changes hands.
Even at Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA, where our teams stay in place and provide continuity, nothing is static. Each generation brings renewal, with the veterans passing on their skills to the up-and-coming who in turn contribute their openness to fast-changing technologies. This way, clients belonging to different generations of the same family find people on our staff to whom they can easily relate.
The men and women at our Bank's wealth management desks possess wide-ranging experience and sensibilities. We allow senior managers the latitude they need to build an entrepreneurial relationship with our clients, based on genuine confidence. We are not theorists looking down from a cloud. We do not have blind faith in statistical models that betray their weaknesses when the markets tank. Our teams have impeccable, state-of-the-art training. But in addition they have accumulated numerous years of hands-on experience in an industry where this is and will remain of overarching importance.