Aug 24, 2026 · 47 min · 8 segments
**Show notes:** In this episode, Jamie McLaughlin sits down with David Salsberg (President and Founder, Gresham Partners) and Michael Zeuner (WE Family Offices) to explore what it really means to be…
Michael ZeunerGuest
David SalsbergGuest
Jamie McLaughlinHost
I'm gonna ask each of you, starting with Michael, just one initial question, and then I think we're gonna have a conversation that will follow on.
There's a lot of discussion, and in the fall of 2025, seven or eight months ago at our collegium, there was a lot of discussion about the integrated advisor.
I think there was a general acceptance that it's a noble idea, but remains for most of the industry an aspiration.
I, I think to answer that question about what's different about the integrated advisor is I wanna tee off of what I said a few minutes ago, which is that the ultra high net worth space and family is a different space and have a different set of needs, because I think that's what leads to the answer as to what, what is different about an integrated advisor.
And in its simplest sense, Jamie, when you're dealing with an ultra high net worth family, and I'm, I'm really thinking about centimillionaires and, and up, what, what is different about that kind of family, there are, there are a couple of things.
One is complexity on its face, okay? And I think, you know, if I go all the way back 25 years, Fox did a survey, Family Office Exchange, that looked at large centimillionaire families and how many different providers they tended to work with.
And by providers, it was law firms, accounting firms, investment firms, private banks, brokerage firms, uh, custodians, trustees, right? The list went on.
And I think the answer 10 or 15 years ago was, like, 26, something like that, and my guess is it's gotten even more, more complex.
And so when you are dealing with, when you're, you're a family and you're dealing with that many different providers, the question emerges, who's putting that all together? Who is helping the family make sure that the dots get connected across all of those different providers? That Provider X is working in conjunction with what Provider Y is doing, that the investments are reflecting the estate planning, that the tax implications are being reflected, right, throughout all the activities.
So to me, what gives rise to the integrated advisor in the ultra-high-net-worth space is this idea that there's connecting of dots across a very complex ecosystem of financial providers.
I think the other thing that's different about the ultra-high-net-worth space, and it gives rise to an integrated advisory approach, is that what differentiates the centimillionaire and up families from maybe a family with, you know, $5 million or $10 million, which is a lot, a lot of wealth, okay? But what that $5 or $10 million family might be mostly worried about is, "Do I have enough to sustain my lifestyle, my family's lifestyle while I'm here, right, during my generation?" What I think a centimillionaire family is often thinking about is, "No matter what I do in this generation, something is gonna outlive me.
There is a pool of capital that is going to outlive me and the decisions that I make, so therefore, the kinds of decisions I need to be making every single day have to take into account me and, and, and my generation, but also, what are the implications for the next generation and the generation after that?" And so there's this multi-generational complexity that comes into it.
So if I take the complexity of providers and the complexity of multi-generational wealth and I put that together, the, the rise of the integrated advisor has come about because in that space, connecting those dots, helping families think about these issues through a multi-generational lens, helping them make decisions that reflect today and tomorrow, helping them connect all of those providers, that's the role of an integrated advisor.
And what makes an integrated advisor different is not that they, they don't have technical expertise.
They typically do, right? Could be investment expertise, it could be trust and estate planning expertise, it could be tax expertise, but that that expertise is being used to work horizontally as opposed to vertically within one of those specific silos.
And the skill set that an integrated advisor has to bring to the table is someone who can think horizontally, who can ask questions, who can be thinking about frameworks and pulling all the pieces together and understanding what they mean.
"Hey, have you thought about this? If you make this decision, the implication could be Y.
Have you thought about that?" And that's a very different set of skills and activities on a day-to-day basis than I think advisors in other spaces, or even just someone in an investment management firm who's making decisions about which securities to buy and sell, right? A really important decision, right, and a critical decision for outcomes for the family, but a different decision than looking across and seeing how investment decisions connect with tax, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm gonna ask each of you, starting with Michael, just one initial question, and then I think we're gonna have a conversation that will follow on.
There's a lot of discussion, and in the fall of 2025, seven or eight months ago at our collegium, there was a lot of discussion about the integrated advisor.
I think there was a general acceptance that it's a noble idea, but remains for most of the industry an aspiration.
I, I think to answer that question about what's different about the integrated advisor is I wanna tee off of what I said a few minutes ago, which is that the ultra high net worth space and family is a different space and have a different set of needs, because I think that's what leads to the answer as to what, what is different about an integrated advisor.
And in its simplest sense, Jamie, when you're dealing with an ultra high net worth family, and I'm, I'm really thinking about centimillionaires and, and up, what, what is different about that kind of family, there are, there are a couple of things.
One is complexity on its face, okay? And I think, you know, if I go all the way back 25 years, Fox did a survey, Family Office Exchange, that looked at large centimillionaire families and how many different providers they tended to work with.
And by providers, it was law firms, accounting firms, investment firms, private banks, brokerage firms, uh, custodians, trustees, right? The list went on.
And I think the answer 10 or 15 years ago was, like, 26, something like that, and my guess is it's gotten even more, more complex.
And so when you are dealing with, when you're, you're a family and you're dealing with that many different providers, the question emerges, who's putting that all together? Who is helping the family make sure that the dots get connected across all of those different providers? That Provider X is working in conjunction with what Provider Y is doing, that the investments are reflecting the estate planning, that the tax implications are being reflected, right, throughout all the activities.
So to me, what gives rise to the integrated advisor in the ultra-high-net-worth space is this idea that there's connecting of dots across a very complex ecosystem of financial providers.
I think the other thing that's different about the ultra-high-net-worth space, and it gives rise to an integrated advisory approach, is that what differentiates the centimillionaire and up families from maybe a family with, you know, $5 million or $10 million, which is a lot, a lot of wealth, okay? But what that $5 or $10 million family might be mostly worried about is, "Do I have enough to sustain my lifestyle, my family's lifestyle while I'm here, right, during my generation?" What I think a centimillionaire family is often thinking about is, "No matter what I do in this generation, something is gonna outlive me.
There is a pool of capital that is going to outlive me and the decisions that I make, so therefore, the kinds of decisions I need to be making every single day have to take into account me and, and, and my generation, but also, what are the implications for the next generation and the generation after that?" And so there's this multi-generational complexity that comes into it.
So if I take the complexity of providers and the complexity of multi-generational wealth and I put that together, the, the rise of the integrated advisor has come about because in that space, connecting those dots, helping families think about these issues through a multi-generational lens, helping them make decisions that reflect today and tomorrow, helping them connect all of those providers, that's the role of an integrated advisor.
And what makes an integrated advisor different is not that they, they don't have technical expertise.
They typically do, right? Could be investment expertise, it could be trust and estate planning expertise, it could be tax expertise, but that that expertise is being used to work horizontally as opposed to vertically within one of those specific silos.
And the skill set that an integrated advisor has to bring to the table is someone who can think horizontally, who can ask questions, who can be thinking about frameworks and pulling all the pieces together and understanding what they mean.
"Hey, have you thought about this? If you make this decision, the implication could be Y.
Have you thought about that?" And that's a very different set of skills and activities on a day-to-day basis than I think advisors in other spaces, or even just someone in an investment management firm who's making decisions about which securities to buy and sell, right? A really important decision, right, and a critical decision for outcomes for the family, but a different decision than looking across and seeing how investment decisions connect with tax, et cetera, et cetera.
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