New rules requiring clearer disclosure of fees, data practices, and AI-driven investment recommendations have pushed wealth management firms into a compliance sprint this year. Michael Gold, founder and chief executive of Westport-based Gold Family Wealth, argues the industry is missing the bigger issue entirely.
Disclosure forms, Gold says, tell a family what an advisor is doing but nothing about whether that advisor is coordinating with the other professionals managing the family’s broader affairs. Families can read every document in the stack and still have no visibility into whether their team is actually working toward the same goals.
Beyond the Paperwork
Gold has spent 25 years watching technically competent advisors at his Westport firm and elsewhere work at cross purposes simply because no one was coordinating their efforts. Estate attorneys, accountants, and investment managers often operate with a full picture of only their own narrow piece of a family’s finances, missing how decisions ripple elsewhere.
Michael Gold Westport view is blunt access to capital is no longer limited for most wealthy families, but access to good judgment remains scarce. That distinction, he argues, is exactly what regulatory transparency requirements consistently fail to address in their current form.
A Different Standard
At Gold Family Wealth‘s ultra-high-net-worth practice, transparency means something closer to visibility into the whole picture, clarity on who is responsible for coordinating it, and a plan for what happens when circumstances change. Gold believes families are increasingly asking for that higher standard rather than another disclosure document to simply file away and forget.
Reaching that standard, Gold argues, requires firms to rethink what they measure. A Westport practice built around orchestration tracks whether specialists are actually talking to one another, not merely whether every required disclosure form has been signed and filed on schedule. He considers that shift the harder, more meaningful version of transparency the industry still needs to adopt. Follow this page on Instagram, for more information.
Learn more about Michael Gold Westport on https://exit-planning-institute.org/member-detail/michael-gold