Stacie speaks to Onur Erzan about the evolving financial landscape and the crucial role of an experienced and forward thinking wealth management firm.
Transcript
This transcript has been generated by an A.I. tool. Please excuse any typos.
Stacie Jacobsen: Thanks for joining us today on The Pulse by Bernstein, where we bring you insights on the economy, global markets, and all the complexities of wealth management. I'm your host, Stacie Jacobsen.
When it comes to managing significant wealth, ultrahigh-net-worth families face unique challenges that go far beyond numbers on a balance sheet. The future of their legacy depends on more than just sound investments. It requires a trusted partner who understands the nuances of family dynamics, multi-generational planning, and adapting to an ever changing financial landscape.
The stakes couldn't be higher, making the role of an experienced and forward-thinking wealth management firm absolutely essential. I recently had the privilege of catching up with the head of Bernstein Private Wealth Management, Onur Erzan. As we approached the end of the year, it felt like the perfect time to sit down for a candid conversation about how Bernstein is positioning itself for the future.
Onur shared his insights into what drew him to the firm in 2021, how he envisions navigating the complexities of highly personalized investment strategies, the evolving role of advisors, and how Bernstein is striking a balance between maintaining a human touch and embracing the cutting edge technology, including AI.
Here's our interview. Onur, thank you so much for being here today.
Stacie Jacobsen: I want to get started by asking about your career switch. You made the decision to join the industry after 19 years at McKinsey back in 2021. And you chose AllianceBernstein as your landing place. Can you walk us through that decision and how you landed here at Bernstein?
Onur Erzan: Yeah, absolutely. It was a big change and a big decision. I had a phenomenal 19 years and change at McKinsey. Great to be a consultant and advisor to leading asset and wealth managers and broader financial services companies. But mid-career, I thought it would be exciting and a good challenge to move to the industry and see whether I can implement what I've been preaching during my career.
So sometimes you have an itch to get on the field, if you will. Uh, why AllianceBernstein? I think it's multiple reasons, but to keep it short, first of all, I really appreciate the long history, the deep research culture of the organization. And I really admired the investment capabilities and a phenomenal advisory business with a high touch business model.
So I thought it was a great platform with the right fit where I could hopefully make a difference as well.
Stacie Jacobsen: You joined Bernstein at a time when investors are really starting to seek advice beyond the investment management of their portfolios. What areas do you find clients are focusing on more and more now?
Onur Erzan: Financial decisions, as much as they are technical decisions, they are very personal decisions and it touches many aspects of people's lives and clients and individuals in general want to think about their financial and broader needs in a more holistic way at Bernstein as a result, we try to not only address the more technical investment needs and the allocation and optimization, which is very important, not to mention the tax planning aspects of it.
However, we enrich that with all the other elements, which is very valuable to families. It's really going beyond the asset allocation investment advice and touching on some of the more complex topics such as family governance, philanthropy, values, and how to integrate that wealth planning aspects, the holistic planning with investments.
That's something that we focus on.
Stacie Jacobsen: And we're talking at a time when there's a potential change in the estate tax 2025, which has certainly been keeping us busy as well.
Onur Erzan: A hundred percent. I mean, I think there's, if there's one thing that is common across all of the clients, taxes matter.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah. Right. What are some of the drivers that have been creating liquidity for clients?
Onur Erzan: U. S. is a very vibrant economy, and I think what one of the big engines of the economy is the entrepreneurs and the business owners. Obviously, when we had some disruptions in the M&A activity in 2022 with geopolitics, with some of the interest rate uncertainty, we have seen a little bit of a slowdown on exits and liquidations.
But, that picked up again and that's definitely a big driver of new capital formation and obviously that new capital creates new needs for the business owners.
Stacie Jacobsen: And then for many business owners, this may be the first time in which they've had a pool of liquidity. So, how do you think about investment strategy different for new liquidity than somebody who's been accumulating throughout their life?
Onur Erzan: I think, first of all, the planning starts before the exit, so really thinking about the consequences of the exit, the form of exit, and getting that process early is critical. But from an investment allocation advice perspective, ultimately it comes down to, I think, the basics.
You know, the important thing is the individual's preferences and needs, liquidity, investment horizon, tax status, broader goals, uh, for the individual itself and for the family, and then the interplay with the future business plans.
So the good news is I think our planning approach takes all of those into consideration. And then when it comes to specific types of investments, obviously diversification is key to state the obvious, but with the broadening and deepening of the alternatives.
And I think we are able to offer not only great diversification across many asset classes, private and public, but also then we can think about different types of outcomes, whether it's income or capital appreciation.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah, the investment landscape has certainly gotten much more complex than just your traditional stocks and bonds.
So I'm glad that you brought up the alternative aspect. When you start to think about the appropriate allocation towards alts. What goes through your mind? How are you framing that exposure?
Onur Erzan: Yeah. I mean, look at the end, the good old, don't put all of your eggs in one basket holds for every investment.
So as a result, uh, diversification is key. So we would never recommend going a hundred percent into alternatives either given some of the liquidity implications as well as risk characteristics. But at the same time, we definitely believe, uh, you should really think about. the duration of your investment holdings, if you can tolerate longer holdings, if you don't have a lot of immediate liquidity needs, then in that scenario, I think alternatives have a lot to offer in terms of upsides if you want recurring income.
Similarly, so Income, liquidity, investment horizon are the three kind of big things that come to mind. And as I think about different asset classes, you know, you need to both think about the long term structural trends and then also the cyclical points in the economy.
So for instance, where the private equity has been in the last few years, secondaries is a big opportunity. Private credit became much deeper and broader given some of the bank balance sheet transitions and other drivers. And as a result, you can now use different flavors of private credit in your portfolios.
So you need to definitely think about your own preferences and needs and constraints, but also then take advantage of what is out there in the market.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah, that's important because as you mentioned diversification within the overall portfolio, there are also needs to be the appropriate diversification inside of that alternative sleeve.
Onur Erzan: 100%. I mean, maybe the word, um, alternatives will disappear soon, uh, given it's becoming much more mainstream, but within that it's like proteins, I guess.
There are different types of alternatives, whether it's private equity, real estate, infrastructure, venture. different types of private credit. So as a result, it's a catch all phrase, but you know, devil is in the detail, and you need to really understand the different dynamics, not only within those asset classes, and also the interplay between those asset classes.
And finally, some of the vehicles. Uh, matter. We're not, I'm not going to get too technical here, but depending on what vehicle you choose, you have different trade offs to make in terms of liquidity and, and other aspects.
Stacie Jacobsen: So we've talked about the current trends in the wealth management space, and I want to ask you more about the future.
So when you think about how we continue to add value to our clients, especially incorporating AI, as it seems that it's certainly here to stay, how do you think about the human aspect of adding value side by side with AI?
Onur Erzan: The way I think about it is it starts with, uh, how we service our clients and also goes all the way into how we invest the client's investments.
On the servicing side, obviously AI is a great tool to help with the automation, eliminate some of the tasks that can be done creatively with technology. Whether it's, you know, narrating product commentaries or automating some of the marketing tasks as examples. But then on the even more interesting side, when you think about investments, really understanding the impact of AI on different industries, identifying winners and losers in which industry, which companies will embrace AI in their business model and will create extraordinary value versus which are the ones where they will have disruption in their businesses and they will become less relevant.
And then finally, obviously carrying that impact of AI from sectors and companies to different investment instruments and really using that lens into it. I think we are still in the early innings, so I think we need to be constantly refreshing our views and really updating as a result our internal and external approach based on new learnings.
Stacie Jacobsen: And then do you think that AI will have a bigger impact on public markets than it will on private investments?
Onur Erzan: The short answer is yes and no. When ultimately, do I expect the investment decisions to be fully automated and it becomes just an AI machine? I don't believe so. I mean, there are certain very quantitative strategies that can be very AI led.
I'm not Ignoring the possibility or that subsleeve off investments. But I still believe there's a place for more fundamental research driven investing and I can be an enhancer for the fundamental research process to make the human. decision making more effective by augmenting the human investor with the AI tools, whether it's data tools, whether it's predictive tools or some efficiency tools.
So that's how I think about it. So from that perspective, AI's impact is going to be, I think, further encouraging and driving innovation. And then hopefully even leading to better investment outcomes. But like anything else, I think there's going to be winners and losers. I think the institutions that can continue to invest in AI capabilities and make their investors better investors will continue to deliver better outcomes versus the ones that are not able to do that will be left behind.
So to me, it's a little bit of a, it can be quote unquote. Weapon for the ones that want to use it in the right way, but if you don't use it, then it can be, uh, working against you.
Stacie Jacobsen: Onur, earlier this year, we announced the expansion of our Ultra High Net Worth offering, with the idea of really leaning into helping our clients with all of the complexities that come with having wealth.
Can you give us some of the highlights?
Onur Erzan: Absolutely. At the end of the day, wealth management, like any other business, is very bespoke depending on the different customer types and how we can address our client's specific needs. Within that context, we have been obviously getting more and more granular in terms of targeting the specialized needs of different client audiences.
Whether it's based on wealth level, whether it's based on the type of the background of the individual, like an entrepreneur, an entertainer, professional athlete, etc. But in the ultrahigh-net-worth space more broadly, our focus has been a number of things. One, we wanted to bring best of breed kind of capabilities for our clients and prospects in that context, we curated the best in class list of partners on different aspects off the ultrahigh-net-worth families needs, whether it's medical concierge, whether it's aviation, whether it's art.
We don't need to own every capability, but we can definitely vet and create easy access to these many of options. So that's one. Secondly, within ultrahigh-net-worth, we recognize with the trust structures, with at times with the global family nature of the ultrahigh-net-worth family or the family office extension of the ultrahigh-net-worth individual, you need to provide very specialized services, and we created dedicated capabilities to provide those services.
And then on top of that, we created person advisor services to be able to offer a number of these services on a bespoke basis for some of the sub segments of the clients as well. So it's a package of things, but ultimately it comes down to. Understanding the clients, knowing where the puck is headed and delivering those services in a very professional and specialized way.
Stacie Jacobsen: You mentioned some of the subsets of groups that we're focusing on in the ultrahigh-net-worth space. Now, women are increasingly becoming the financial decision makers in households for a plethora of different reasons. So how are we positioned to help support?
Onur Erzan: Absolutely. At the end of the day, women are the most important client segment in U.S. wealth management. I think it's a pretty easy statement to make because if you look at demographics, if you look at the growing role of women in households, whether through their own careers or the wealth they inherit from their families or spouses, they are increasingly the biggest decision makers.
And as a result, the service model, the advice model needs to be fine tuned to address the different preferences of women. Obviously, there are a lot of commonalities between men and women, but based on behavioral psychology and other research, we know there are some differences as well. And for us, it starts with really focusing on this sometimes underserved segment and having a very well-articulated, intentional approach to the audience and creating the forums and the communities to be able to best meet them where they want to meet us and having the internal talent including our own diversity to match the diversity of our clients.
Stacie Jacobsen: Another segment that you mentioned is global families. This can create high complexities depending on where families live and the movement of money across borders. How is it that we at Bernstein are set up to serve global families so well?
Onur Erzan: What I always like about our business is we always have the intimacy of a private wealth management boutique, even if it's a high touch business, it's very bespoke, but we are embedded in a large global financial services company, which means we have the presence and understanding of many different markets around the world.
We have more than 25 international locations country wise and that know how of understanding these jurisdictions, knowing the cultural differences, having that physical presence with the credibility it creates, I think positions us very uniquely with global families, particularly when they have a U. S.
component to their wealth. So we marry our global identity with our wealth management expertise and whether that is dealing with the migration issues, whether it's dealing with the tax planning issues, whether it's dealing with the multi jurisdictional asset allocation and wealth optimization. Those are the types of capabilities that we are able to bring in this context.
Stacie Jacobsen: Wealth management is certainly a dynamic business as you think about the investments that you want to make into the firm to meet our clients needs. What's top of mind?
Onur Erzan: Yeah, we touched on some of these. It comes down under three or four headlines. One is investments matter as we translate goals into ideas and investment solutions.
So we continue to really broaden Transcribed and expand our investment platform. We touched on alternatives. That's a great example. Uh, that's one that's a continuous evergreen area of focus. It matters to our clients and it's our DNA. Second, specialized capabilities for different client types is critical.
Whether it's the ultrahigh-net-worth segment, whether it's the athletes, entertainers, business owners, like really Getting very granular about understanding the different characteristics of these clients and meeting those characteristics with unique services is key. That's an evergreen investment area for us as well.
We touched on AI. AI, obviously, is here, but maybe expanding it more broadly. Technology, uh, most of us in our personal lives want to Have the convenience of the technology in every aspect and hence wealth management is not an outlier. Uh, integrating best in class technology with a high touch in person delivery with advisors that are cutting edge is critical.
So continue to invest in those technology capabilities to service the clients and make our advisors the best version of themselves is critical. And last not the least, and that's where I'm going to conclude. I mean, ultimately this is a relationship based business.
Personal finances, wealth planning is ultimately trust based and, you know, I really take great pride in having a very experienced group of wealth advisors that can really make that personal connection with our clients and really go the extra mile to meet their needs.
And obviously finding, continuing to develop a great wealth advisor pool is an evergreen focus area for us as well.
Stacie Jacobsen: And I agree. I think that's a great place to wrap. Onur, thank you so much for being with us today.
Onur Erzan: Thank you very much. I enjoyed it.
Stacie Jacobsen: Thanks again to our listeners for joining us today. Tune in for our final episode of the year next week on December 10th, when we'll bring you the year end outlook from Chief Investment Officer Alex Chaloff and Senior Investment Strategist Maura Pape.
I'm your host, Stacie Jacobsen, wishing you a great rest of the week.Stacie Jacobsen: Thanks for joining us today on The Pulse by Bernstein, where we bring you insights on the economy, global markets, and all the complexities of wealth management. I'm your host, Stacie Jacobsen.
When it comes to managing significant wealth, ultrahigh-net-worth families face unique challenges that go far beyond numbers on a balance sheet. The future of their legacy depends on more than just sound investments. It requires a trusted partner who understands the nuances of family dynamics, multi-generational planning, and adapting to an ever changing financial landscape.
The stakes couldn't be higher, making the role of an experienced and forward-thinking wealth management firm absolutely essential. I recently had the privilege of catching up with the head of Bernstein Private Wealth Management, Onur Erzan. As we approached the end of the year, it felt like the perfect time to sit down for a candid conversation about how Bernstein is positioning itself for the future.
Onur shared his insights into what drew him to the firm in 2021, how he envisions navigating the complexities of highly personalized investment strategies, the evolving role of advisors, and how Bernstein is striking a balance between maintaining a human touch and embracing the cutting edge technology, including AI.
Here's our interview. Onur, thank you so much for being here today.
Stacie Jacobsen: I want to get started by asking about your career switch. You made the decision to join the industry after 19 years at McKinsey back in 2021. And you chose AllianceBernstein as your landing place. Can you walk us through that decision and how you landed here at Bernstein?
Onur Erzan: Yeah, absolutely. It was a big change and a big decision. I had a phenomenal 19 years and change at McKinsey. Great to be a consultant and advisor to leading asset and wealth managers and broader financial services companies. But mid-career, I thought it would be exciting and a good challenge to move to the industry and see whether I can implement what I've been preaching during my career.
So sometimes you have an itch to get on the field, if you will. Uh, why AllianceBernstein? I think it's multiple reasons, but to keep it short, first of all, I really appreciate the long history, the deep research culture of the organization. And I really admired the investment capabilities and a phenomenal advisory business with a high touch business model.
So I thought it was a great platform with the right fit where I could hopefully make a difference as well.
Stacie Jacobsen: You joined Bernstein at a time when investors are really starting to seek advice beyond the investment management of their portfolios. What areas do you find clients are focusing on more and more now?
Onur Erzan: Financial decisions, as much as they are technical decisions, they are very personal decisions and it touches many aspects of people's lives and clients and individuals in general want to think about their financial and broader needs in a more holistic way at Bernstein as a result, we try to not only address the more technical investment needs and the allocation and optimization, which is very important, not to mention the tax planning aspects of it.
However, we enrich that with all the other elements, which is very valuable to families. It's really going beyond the asset allocation investment advice and touching on some of the more complex topics such as family governance, philanthropy, values, and how to integrate that wealth planning aspects, the holistic planning with investments.
That's something that we focus on.
Stacie Jacobsen: And we're talking at a time when there's a potential change in the estate tax 2025, which has certainly been keeping us busy as well.
Onur Erzan: A hundred percent. I mean, I think there's, if there's one thing that is common across all of the clients, taxes matter.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah. Right. What are some of the drivers that have been creating liquidity for clients?
Onur Erzan: U. S. is a very vibrant economy, and I think what one of the big engines of the economy is the entrepreneurs and the business owners. Obviously, when we had some disruptions in the M&A activity in 2022 with geopolitics, with some of the interest rate uncertainty, we have seen a little bit of a slowdown on exits and liquidations.
But, that picked up again and that's definitely a big driver of new capital formation and obviously that new capital creates new needs for the business owners.
Stacie Jacobsen: And then for many business owners, this may be the first time in which they've had a pool of liquidity. So, how do you think about investment strategy different for new liquidity than somebody who's been accumulating throughout their life?
Onur Erzan: I think, first of all, the planning starts before the exit, so really thinking about the consequences of the exit, the form of exit, and getting that process early is critical. But from an investment allocation advice perspective, ultimately it comes down to, I think, the basics.
You know, the important thing is the individual's preferences and needs, liquidity, investment horizon, tax status, broader goals, uh, for the individual itself and for the family, and then the interplay with the future business plans.
So the good news is I think our planning approach takes all of those into consideration. And then when it comes to specific types of investments, obviously diversification is key to state the obvious, but with the broadening and deepening of the alternatives.
And I think we are able to offer not only great diversification across many asset classes, private and public, but also then we can think about different types of outcomes, whether it's income or capital appreciation.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah, the investment landscape has certainly gotten much more complex than just your traditional stocks and bonds.
So I'm glad that you brought up the alternative aspect. When you start to think about the appropriate allocation towards alts. What goes through your mind? How are you framing that exposure?
Onur Erzan: Yeah. I mean, look at the end, the good old, don't put all of your eggs in one basket holds for every investment.
So as a result, uh, diversification is key. So we would never recommend going a hundred percent into alternatives either given some of the liquidity implications as well as risk characteristics. But at the same time, we definitely believe, uh, you should really think about. the duration of your investment holdings, if you can tolerate longer holdings, if you don't have a lot of immediate liquidity needs, then in that scenario, I think alternatives have a lot to offer in terms of upsides if you want recurring income.
Similarly, so Income, liquidity, investment horizon are the three kind of big things that come to mind. And as I think about different asset classes, you know, you need to both think about the long term structural trends and then also the cyclical points in the economy.
So for instance, where the private equity has been in the last few years, secondaries is a big opportunity. Private credit became much deeper and broader given some of the bank balance sheet transitions and other drivers. And as a result, you can now use different flavors of private credit in your portfolios.
So you need to definitely think about your own preferences and needs and constraints, but also then take advantage of what is out there in the market.
Stacie Jacobsen: Yeah, that's important because as you mentioned diversification within the overall portfolio, there are also needs to be the appropriate diversification inside of that alternative sleeve.
Onur Erzan: 100%. I mean, maybe the word, um, alternatives will disappear soon, uh, given it's becoming much more mainstream, but within that it's like proteins, I guess.
There are different types of alternatives, whether it's private equity, real estate, infrastructure, venture. different types of private credit. So as a result, it's a catch all phrase, but you know, devil is in the detail, and you need to really understand the different dynamics, not only within those asset classes, and also the interplay between those asset classes.
And finally, some of the vehicles. Uh, matter. We're not, I'm not going to get too technical here, but depending on what vehicle you choose, you have different trade offs to make in terms of liquidity and, and other aspects.
Stacie Jacobsen: So we've talked about the current trends in the wealth management space, and I want to ask you more about the future.
So when you think about how we continue to add value to our clients, especially incorporating AI, as it seems that it's certainly here to stay, how do you think about the human aspect of adding value side by side with AI?
Onur Erzan: The way I think about it is it starts with, uh, how we service our clients and also goes all the way into how we invest the client's investments.
On the servicing side, obviously AI is a great tool to help with the automation, eliminate some of the tasks that can be done creatively with technology. Whether it's, you know, narrating product commentaries or automating some of the marketing tasks as examples. But then on the even more interesting side, when you think about investments, really understanding the impact of AI on different industries, identifying winners and losers in which industry, which companies will embrace AI in their business model and will create extraordinary value versus which are the ones where they will have disruption in their businesses and they will become less relevant.
And then finally, obviously carrying that impact of AI from sectors and companies to different investment instruments and really using that lens into it. I think we are still in the early innings, so I think we need to be constantly refreshing our views and really updating as a result our internal and external approach based on new learnings.
Stacie Jacobsen: And then do you think that AI will have a bigger impact on public markets than it will on private investments?
Onur Erzan: The short answer is yes and no. When ultimately, do I expect the investment decisions to be fully automated and it becomes just an AI machine? I don't believe so. I mean, there are certain very quantitative strategies that can be very AI led.
I'm not Ignoring the possibility or that subsleeve off investments. But I still believe there's a place for more fundamental research driven investing and I can be an enhancer for the fundamental research process to make the human. decision making more effective by augmenting the human investor with the AI tools, whether it's data tools, whether it's predictive tools or some efficiency tools.
So that's how I think about it. So from that perspective, AI's impact is going to be, I think, further encouraging and driving innovation. And then hopefully even leading to better investment outcomes. But like anything else, I think there's going to be winners and losers. I think the institutions that can continue to invest in AI capabilities and make their investors better investors will continue to deliver better outcomes versus the ones that are not able to do that will be left behind.
So to me, it's a little bit of a, it can be quote unquote. Weapon for the ones that want to use it in the right way, but if you don't use it, then it can be, uh, working against you.
Stacie Jacobsen: Onur, earlier this year, we announced the expansion of our Ultra High Net Worth offering, with the idea of really leaning into helping our clients with all of the complexities that come with having wealth.
Can you give us some of the highlights?
Onur Erzan: Absolutely. At the end of the day, wealth management, like any other business, is very bespoke depending on the different customer types and how we can address our client's specific needs. Within that context, we have been obviously getting more and more granular in terms of targeting the specialized needs of different client audiences.
Whether it's based on wealth level, whether it's based on the type of the background of the individual, like an entrepreneur, an entertainer, professional athlete, etc. But in the ultrahigh-net-worth space more broadly, our focus has been a number of things. One, we wanted to bring best of breed kind of capabilities for our clients and prospects in that context, we curated the best in class list of partners on different aspects off the ultrahigh-net-worth families needs, whether it's medical concierge, whether it's aviation, whether it's art.
We don't need to own every capability, but we can definitely vet and create easy access to these many of options. So that's one. Secondly, within ultrahigh-net-worth, we recognize with the trust structures, with at times with the global family nature of the ultrahigh-net-worth family or the family office extension of the ultrahigh-net-worth individual, you need to provide very specialized services, and we created dedicated capabilities to provide those services.
And then on top of that, we created person advisor services to be able to offer a number of these services on a bespoke basis for some of the sub segments of the clients as well. So it's a package of things, but ultimately it comes down to. Understanding the clients, knowing where the puck is headed and delivering those services in a very professional and specialized way.
Stacie Jacobsen: You mentioned some of the subsets of groups that we're focusing on in the ultrahigh-net-worth space. Now, women are increasingly becoming the financial decision makers in households for a plethora of different reasons. So how are we positioned to help support?
Onur Erzan: Absolutely. At the end of the day, women are the most important client segment in U.S. wealth management. I think it's a pretty easy statement to make because if you look at demographics, if you look at the growing role of women in households, whether through their own careers or the wealth they inherit from their families or spouses, they are increasingly the biggest decision makers.
And as a result, the service model, the advice model needs to be fine tuned to address the different preferences of women. Obviously, there are a lot of commonalities between men and women, but based on behavioral psychology and other research, we know there are some differences as well. And for us, it starts with really focusing on this sometimes underserved segment and having a very well-articulated, intentional approach to the audience and creating the forums and the communities to be able to best meet them where they want to meet us and having the internal talent including our own diversity to match the diversity of our clients.
Stacie Jacobsen: Another segment that you mentioned is global families. This can create high complexities depending on where families live and the movement of money across borders. How is it that we at Bernstein are set up to serve global families so well?
Onur Erzan: What I always like about our business is we always have the intimacy of a private wealth management boutique, even if it's a high touch business, it's very bespoke, but we are embedded in a large global financial services company, which means we have the presence and understanding of many different markets around the world.
We have more than 25 international locations country wise and that know how of understanding these jurisdictions, knowing the cultural differences, having that physical presence with the credibility it creates, I think positions us very uniquely with global families, particularly when they have a U. S.
component to their wealth. So we marry our global identity with our wealth management expertise and whether that is dealing with the migration issues, whether it's dealing with the tax planning issues, whether it's dealing with the multi jurisdictional asset allocation and wealth optimization. Those are the types of capabilities that we are able to bring in this context.
Stacie Jacobsen: Wealth management is certainly a dynamic business as you think about the investments that you want to make into the firm to meet our clients needs. What's top of mind?
Onur Erzan: Yeah, we touched on some of these. It comes down under three or four headlines. One is investments matter as we translate goals into ideas and investment solutions.
So we continue to really broaden Transcribed and expand our investment platform. We touched on alternatives. That's a great example. Uh, that's one that's a continuous evergreen area of focus. It matters to our clients and it's our DNA. Second, specialized capabilities for different client types is critical.
Whether it's the ultrahigh-net-worth segment, whether it's the athletes, entertainers, business owners, like really Getting very granular about understanding the different characteristics of these clients and meeting those characteristics with unique services is key. That's an evergreen investment area for us as well.
We touched on AI. AI, obviously, is here, but maybe expanding it more broadly. Technology, uh, most of us in our personal lives want to Have the convenience of the technology in every aspect and hence wealth management is not an outlier. Uh, integrating best in class technology with a high touch in person delivery with advisors that are cutting edge is critical.
So continue to invest in those technology capabilities to service the clients and make our advisors the best version of themselves is critical. And last not the least, and that's where I'm going to conclude. I mean, ultimately this is a relationship based business.
Personal finances, wealth planning is ultimately trust based and, you know, I really take great pride in having a very experienced group of wealth advisors that can really make that personal connection with our clients and really go the extra mile to meet their needs.
And obviously finding, continuing to develop a great wealth advisor pool is an evergreen focus area for us as well.
Stacie Jacobsen: And I agree. I think that's a great place to wrap. Onur, thank you so much for being with us today.
Onur Erzan: Thank you very much. I enjoyed it.
Stacie Jacobsen: Thanks again to our listeners for joining us today. Tune in for our final episode of the year next week on December 10th, when we'll bring you the year end outlook from Chief Investment Officer Alex Chaloff and Senior Investment Strategist Maura Pape.
I'm your host, Stacie Jacobsen, wishing you a great rest of the week.