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Listening to the UnspokenListening to the Unspoken

How enterprise families evaluate and select wealth advisors

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G. Scott Budge, Gregory T. Rogersand 1 more

February 23, 2015

14 Min Read
Listening to the Unspoken

The selection of a wealth advisor isn’t often a top-of-mind priority for enterprise families actively managing operating businesses. Most of the family’s energy is concentrated on the business as the engine of financial growth—as, in most cases, it should be. However, at some point, many families need to find the right wealth advisory partner. Our experience tells us that it’s critical that these families adopt a thoughtful approach for the following reasons:

 

• To counter the tendency to simply select friends who’ve likely followed the growth of the business from when account sizes were modest and the wealth management issues relatively simple. If larger liquidity events are on the horizon, families may outgrow the advisor over the years...

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About the Authors

G. Scott Budge

Managing Director, RayLign Advisory LLC

 

G. Scott Budge's clinical career has spanned several settings, including Post-Graduate Center-West (New York) and Manhattan State Psychiatric Hospital, as well as on the staff and leadership team of the Pace University Counseling and Personal Development Service for 8 years, where he delivered individual and group psychotherapy services to students and the university community at large, as well as played a key role in training doctoral psychology interns in their APA-Accredited Internship Program.  In addition, Scott worked recently for Southampton Psychiatric Associates (Southampton, PA) and previously with Edward Monte at the Marriage Council of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine). 

Scott is also a Managing Director of the Greenwich, CT-based consulting firm, RayLign Advisory, where he applies his expertise in the dynamics of wealthy families based on over two decades of working directly with dozens of entrepreneurs, corporate executives and their families.  Ancillary to this has been his work over the past decade as a developer and educator of wealth advisors, which is the focus of his recent book, The New Financial Advisor: Strategies for Successful Family Wealth Management.  (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).  Scott has also taught graduate courses in behavioral finance at Widener University. 

Scott also co-founded two companies focused on delivering internet-based management services to single- and multi-family offices, and financial advisors throughout the US and Canada.  Prior to this worked at SEI Investments where he co-developed their family wealth management unit and supported several, multi-year strategic projects.  Scott has published several articles, including works on the psychology of investments, family wealth and family businesses, and has served on the editorial board of the Family Business Review and is currently on the Family Business Editorial Committee of Trusts & Estates Magazine.  He has also spoken at numerous industry conferences in the US, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America.  In addition, Scott was a founder and member of the creative team at Shaking the Tree Foundation, a professional theater group whose productions focus on challenges faced by families of wealth.  Scott is a Fellow and holder of the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising at the Family Firm Institute, a founding member of the Money and Family Life Project at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, and holds a PhD in Psychology from New York University.  He is a licensed psychologist in New York and Pennsylvania. 

His most recent articles include “Handling the Democratization of Dynasty: Helping Families Shift Decision-Making Regimes” and “Grief and Estate Settlement: Mitigating a Challenging Risk to Families,” both of which were published in Trusts & Estates Magazine.

Gregory T. Rogers

Founder & President, Raylign

Prior to founding RayLign, Greg was Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at John A. Levin & Co., a publicly‐traded asset management company that included a family office and over $13 billion in assets under management; Managing Director and builder of a strategic consulting practice called BARRA Strategic Consulting Group (currently used by leading strategic consulting firm Casey Quirk & Associates) utilizing the world’s leading risk management tools to serve the global asset management community; and Managing Director of his family business, RogersCasey, engaging in asset manager due diligence, asset allocation and investment program monitoring on behalf of Fortune 500 institutional investment sponsors.

Business projects spanned the globe including the US, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America. In addition to his current corporate responsibilities, Greg is a General Partner for Rogers Investment Partners; a Director of the Rogers Family Foundation; President of the RayLign Foundation; Chairman of the Board at the Ackerman Institute for the Family; TIGER21 member; Fairfield County Community Foundation advisors council member; Collaboration for Family Flourishing member; and IPI Wharton Private Wealth Management Program adjunct professor.

Greg’s multi‐disciplinary roles contribute to his comprehensive perspective and leadership as a facilitator of family, business and financial matters. Greg earned an MBA in International Finance from the New York University Stern School. He graduated from Brown University with a BA in Economics, Organizational Behavior and Management, with coursework in Psychology.

Lauris S. Lambergs

Managing Director, RayLign

Lauris is responsible for the business development of RayLign. RayLign’s client engagement approach provides partner firms best practices in business development, client service and business management learned over years of strategically working with a variety of RIAs, family offices and private wealth advisors.

Previously, Lauris was Director at StrategicPoint Investment Advisors, one of New England’s leading wealth managers, where he was responsible for business development. While there, Lauris affected center of influence and direct client outreach strategies to win family clients with greater wealth resulting in significant new asset growth after the market crash of 2008‐2009.

Additionally, he served clients ranging from institutions to independents as Vice President, Global Business Development at AllianceBernstein, and Vice President, Sales Director at Columbia Management. He started his career as a Consultant with Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

He holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA®) designation as well as the FINRA Series 3 and 65 licenses. Lauris earned his B.A. in French & Political Science from Duke University and his M.B.A. from the Riga Business School in Riga, Latvia. Lauris speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency.