Luminary is Technology Transforming Wealth Transfer, FWR Acclaim Magazine

What is your vision for the future of wealth management?

There are several structural changes taking place in the wealth management industry today that will shift how leading advisors serve their clients and compete with each other in the future.

The main driver is the commoditization of the investment product deliverable that the industry has been built on, shifting wealth management service emphasis and differentiation towards tax efficiency and more bespoke, family office-like services.

Trust & estate planning sits at the intersection of these trends where financial assets, legacy goals, and tax opportunities form a powerful foundation for advisors to add significant value and connect more deeply with their clients across generations.

Can you share the story behind the founding of Luminary?

I’ve had a front row seat to the changes happening in the industry over the last 25 years where I worked first in investment research, and more recently led a wealth management business with more than $100b in assets, serving thousands of clients.

The best advisors I worked with were ahead of industry trends and long made the delivery of trust & estate services a central part of their practices. However, doing so was always a grind due to the absence of any technology purpose-built for the task. At the heart of the problem is trust & estate information stuck in documents. And outdated tools used for simulating and presenting tax and beneficiary outcomes, and tracking tax-value created, which don't work together.

The idea behind Luminary is to solve this problem by digitizing planning data with AI assistance, connecting it with modeling and visualization applications on one platform, and enabling advisors to serve wealth owners in a more personal and bespoke way, at scale.

How should wealth advisors assess new technology? 

There are three broad categories that should generally be considered for any type of technology change.

First is driving efficiency: does the technology help you do things faster, replace manual, mundane tasks, and/or decrease the risk of error?

Number two is increasing impact: does the technology improve output, leading to higher quality, more differentiated engagement or experiences – either from a user or client perspective?

And I think number three is the most exciting, which is this idea of unlocking new capabilities: doing things that are impractical if done manually. In wealth management, the most obvious opportunity here is reporting out tax-value created, alongside investment alpha.

What are the drivers behind Luminary’s traction? 

The cross currents in the industry, including practice consolidation and a more digitally native wealth owner, are beginning to create a sense of urgency – and opportunity – for technology to help modernize businesses, and make them more competitive and differentiated. We’re benefiting from being in the middle of this, and thrilled to be partnering today with tomorrow’s industry leaders.

It’s a really exciting time to be a wealth advisor. But it's a bad time to be complacent.