At the Hubbis India Wealth Management Forum 2026, the panel examined whether the wealth management industry has developed a proposition capable of winning the next generation of wealthy Indian families, rather than simply inheriting relationships established with their parents and grandparents.
The discussion explored how expectations are changing as younger family members become more global, technologically capable and active in decisions around investments, businesses and family wealth. Panellists considered what genuinely differentiates an adviser, how trust is earned, why institutional-quality access matters, where technology can add value and how families can involve younger generations without forcing them into frameworks designed for their predecessors.
Chair: Vaanyasri Goel, Chief Investment Strategist, PACE Family Office
Panellists
- Zeherra Mecklai, CEO and Founder, Mecklai Wealth’s
- Priyanshu Gaurav, Senior Executive Director, Nuvama Private
- Munish Randev, Founder & CEO, Cervin Family Office
- Himanshu Kohli, Co-Founder, Client Associates
- Thomas Stephen, Director & Head – Anand Rathi Preferred, Anand Rathi Share & Stock Brokers Ltd. (ARSSBL)
Key Takeaways
- Relationships with the next generation cannot simply be inherited from their parents; advisers increasingly need to establish relevance and credibility independently.
- Wealth management propositions are moving beyond investment portfolios towards a more holistic view of the family balance sheet, including businesses, property, global assets, succession, insurance and other strategic needs.
- Younger clients are increasingly outcome-led rather than product-led and may expect access to opportunities, research and capabilities previously associated with institutional investors.
- Multi-generational families need clear decision-making frameworks that allow different risk appetites and investment interests to coexist without destabilising the wider family strategy.
- A credible adviser must be willing to reject an attractive product or idea when it does not fit the family’s objectives.
- Trust is strengthened by transparent business models, alignment of interests and sustained engagement rather than brand or an inherited relationship alone.
- Next-generation engagement works best when it starts early and develops gradually through exposure, participation and practical learning.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies can improve adviser productivity and access to information, but judgement, interpretation and relationship skills remain important differentiators.
- The next generation is generally more global in outlook, but not uniform in its appetite for risk, making individual understanding more important than generational assumptions.
The Relationship Has to Be Earned Again
A central question running through the discussion was whether a strong relationship with one generation gives an adviser any entitlement to the next.
The panel’s answer was effectively no.
Parents may have spent decades working with a particular private banker, wealth manager or family office, but younger family members increasingly undertake their own analysis, compare providers independently and expect advisers to establish their value afresh.
“Relationships are earned; they are not inherited,” said a panellist. “The next generation needs its own reason to believe that you are the right adviser.”
This changes the way firms think about both clients and advisers. Cultural fit, values and genuine client orientation can matter as much as an existing book of business. The panel described cases where firms had remained in contact with potential recruits for several years before bringing them into the organisation because philosophy and service approach needed to align.
The same patience applies on the client side. A relationship with the founder may create the introduction, but it does not automatically create trust with the next generation.
The Proposition Is Moving Beyond the Portfolio
The panel also revealed how broadly leading wealth firms now define their role.
Investment management remains central, but the proposition increasingly encompasses the family’s wider financial life: business assets, property, global investments, succession planning, insurance, financing and, where relevant, entrepreneurial or start-up interests.
One panellist described the approach as looking at the whole family balance sheet rather than individual products or accounts.
“The client does not experience their life as a series of financial products,” said a panellist. “The adviser has to understand how the pieces of the balance sheet fit together.”
For multi-family offices, this can extend further into governance, risk management, structuring and processes that might otherwise sit inside a dedicated single-family office.
The competitive question is therefore becoming less about the breadth of a product shelf and more about how much of the family’s financial architecture an adviser can genuinely understand and coordinate.
Different Generations Need a Common Framework
The challenge becomes particularly visible when several generations participate in investment decisions.
A founder, adult children and younger family members can have markedly different risk appetites. One may prioritise preservation, another may be interested in emerging businesses or private markets, while another is comfortable allocating capital to materially higher-risk opportunities.
The panel argued that these differences should be organised rather than suppressed.
One approach is to establish distinct investment buckets within a wider family framework: capital dedicated to preservation, allocations available for new ideas and a smaller pool explicitly designed for higher-risk opportunities. Responsibilities and decision rights can then be assigned around that structure.
This allows different generations to participate without requiring the entire family portfolio to reflect the preferences of one person.
“The framework comes before the exciting idea,” said a panellist. “Something can be interesting and still be wrong for that particular family.”
That ability to say no was identified as an important test of adviser value. The contribution is not simply finding opportunities, but determining which opportunities belong inside the family’s agreed objectives.
Access Has to Mean More Than Product Availability
Younger clients are also changing what they expect when advisers talk about access.
The panel described a generation of entrepreneurs and inheritors that is globally connected, financially sophisticated and increasingly familiar with approaches used by institutional investors.
Private markets, private equity, private credit and specialised transactions are therefore becoming more prominent in family-office conversations. But stating that these opportunities are available is not enough.
Advisers need the capability to originate, assess and structure investments that an individual family may struggle to access independently.
The discussion included institutional-scale commercial real estate as one example, with families potentially participating in large office assets or transactions that would ordinarily be difficult to source or execute on their own. The underlying point was broader: platform capabilities can allow private clients to participate in opportunities historically associated with institutional capital.
“For the next generation, access has to be a capability rather than a marketing word,” said a panellist. “They want to understand what you can genuinely bring them that they could not source themselves.”
That expectation also extends to research, capital markets and investment-banking capabilities. Younger family members increasingly want to understand how opportunities are created and analysed rather than simply receive the final recommendation.
Trust Is Increasingly Structural
If access attracts attention, trust determines whether the relationship lasts.
The panel distinguished between personal trust in an adviser and structural trust in the organisation itself.
For independent advisory firms in particular, business-model alignment can be an important differentiator. A fee-based model without internal products or distribution revenues can reduce concerns that recommendations are being influenced by incentives elsewhere in the organisation.
One panellist described trust as something that should be embedded in the firm’s structure rather than left entirely to the behaviour of an individual relationship manager.
“You cannot sit across the table and ask someone to trust you,” said a panellist. “The business model has to give them reasons to believe your interests are aligned with theirs.”
Transparency therefore becomes part of the proposition. Clear disclosures, regulatory oversight and the ability to explain precisely how the adviser is paid can matter increasingly to sophisticated families.
But structure alone is insufficient. Advisers may spend months getting to know a family before substantial investment work begins. Understanding individual priorities and family dynamics creates context that cannot be replicated through a product presentation.
Engagement Should Start Before the Handover
The discussion strongly favoured bringing younger family members into wealth conversations before they are expected to take responsibility for substantial assets.
That does not mean immediately disclosing the full scale of family wealth or placing teenagers inside formal investment decisions.
The panel instead described gradual exposure: attending selected meetings, spending time with advisers, understanding economic and investment principles, gaining access to institutional research and learning how wealth-management decisions are made.
“You do not need to expose the whole balance sheet on day one,” said a panellist. “The first objective is simply to make the next generation comfortable participating in the conversation.”
The panel acknowledged that compulsory family-office meetings are unlikely to create genuine engagement on their own. Advisers need to build relationships with each generation separately and understand what younger family members are interested in.
Practical exposure can also be more effective than abstract financial instruction. Research, capital markets and broader business activity can help younger family members understand how wealth is created and deployed.
The objective is not to turn every family member into a professional investor. It is to give them enough knowledge to ask informed questions, understand the responsibilities ahead and participate intelligently when their role expands.
Technology Raises the Bar for Human Advice
Technology was discussed not as a separate digital proposition, but as part of the changing economics of advice.
Younger clients can arrive at a meeting having already analysed an investment, searched company information and tested ideas using AI tools. Information that once differentiated an adviser is increasingly available before the conversation begins.
That puts greater pressure on advisers to add interpretation rather than simply data.
The panel identified trust, talent, transparency and technology as mutually reinforcing elements of the modern proposition. Technology should make advisers more productive, improve their ability to process information and allow firms to serve clients more effectively.
“Technology can give the adviser more information and make the organisation more productive,” said a panellist. “The question is what judgement the adviser adds on top of it.”
AI was viewed largely through this lens. The discussion did not present it as eliminating the need for skilled wealth professionals, but as a tool that can improve productivity and expand the amount of analysis teams can perform.
As analytical tools become more widely available, the differentiator shifts towards the ability to interpret information, understand the family and recognise when an apparently attractive conclusion does not fit the client’s circumstances.
The Next Generation Is More Global — but Not Uniform
The phrase “next generation” can itself be misleading if it implies a single client type.
Panellists cautioned that younger family members vary considerably. Some are aggressive investors willing to embrace private markets, entrepreneurship and new asset classes. Others remain strongly preservation-oriented.
What has changed more consistently is their frame of reference.
Where earlier generations may have been predominantly regional, and the current generation became more nationally mobile, younger family members are increasingly comfortable thinking internationally across education, careers, businesses and investments.
Investment patterns are changing alongside this mobility. Family wealth that was once concentrated in fixed deposits, property or the operating business may now be considered alongside alternatives, private investments and global assets.
“The next generation is not simply taking a larger amount of the same portfolio,” said a panellist. “Its world is wider, and the way it thinks about the family’s capital is wider as well.”
That does not mean every younger client wants more risk. The requirement remains individual understanding rather than generational stereotyping.
The Family Is Increasingly Bigger Than the Business
One of the more significant shifts discussed was in how entrepreneurial families conceptualise the relationship between the family and the operating business.
Historically, a founder’s identity and wealth could be inseparable from the company. The business sat at the centre, with family wealth and personal assets developing around it.
The panel argued that this hierarchy is changing.
As families diversify, the operating company increasingly becomes one asset within a broader family balance sheet. Alongside it may sit other businesses, start-ups, global portfolios, private investments, property and succession structures.
“The business used to sit at the top and the family underneath it,” said a panellist. “Increasingly, families are turning that around: the family sits at the top, and the business is one of the assets it owns.”
That transition has important consequences for wealth advisers.
The role is no longer merely to invest surplus capital generated by the family company. Advisers may need to help families institutionalise wealth outside the operating business, diversify risk and create a financial architecture capable of continuing whether or not future generations remain involved in the original enterprise.
It can also give younger family members more freedom to define their role without assuming that stewardship requires them to reproduce the founder’s career.
Adaptability Must Be Balanced With Experience
The panel closed by considering what advisers and next-generation clients misunderstand about one another.
For advisers, the message was adaptability.
Firms cannot assume that practices which worked successfully with founders will automatically resonate with their children. Younger family members may expect more transparency, broader capabilities, global exposure and a more participatory relationship.
At the same time, the panel cautioned against dismissing experience simply because information has become easier to access.
Investment cycles, market stress and complex family decisions create lessons that cannot always be replicated through research alone.
“Adaptability does not mean agreeing with everything the next generation wants,” said a panellist. “It means understanding what they are trying to achieve and having enough experience to explain when something may not work.”
The strongest proposition therefore combines both qualities: willingness to evolve alongside the client, and sufficient judgement to challenge them when necessary.
The Next Generation Will Choose, Not Simply Inherit
The discussion made clear that generational wealth transfer does not automatically imply generational relationship transfer.
Younger family members have more information, more providers to choose from and a broader view of what wealth management can encompass. They are likely to question business models, test advice independently and expect meaningful participation in decisions affecting their capital.
For wealth managers and family offices, the implication is simple. Wealth may be inherited, but the advisory relationship is not.
The firms best positioned to retain the next generation will be those that engage early, operate transparently, offer genuine capabilities beyond product distribution and remain adaptable without surrendering professional judgement.
Winning the next generation therefore depends less on preserving an old relationship than on proving, repeatedly, why the new one is worth keeping.