What Family Office and High-Net-Worth Clients Should Ask Before Choosing an Adviser
Choosing a financial adviser is an important decision for anyone.
For family offices and high-net-worth individuals, the decision carries even greater weight.
At this level of wealth, advice is rarely just about investments. It often sits across family, business, succession, governance, tax, legal structures, liquidity, philanthropy, intergenerational wealth and the personal decisions that shape a family’s future.
The right adviser should not only understand markets. They should understand complexity. They should be able to help clients make decisions with understanding, context and confidence, particularly when the answer is not obvious, the family dynamics are layered, or the financial implications extend well beyond a single portfolio.
So how should family offices and UHNW clients think about choosing the right adviser?
The answer begins with asking better questions.
Start with judgement, not just performance
Many people begin the adviser selection process by asking about investment performance.
Performance matters.
But it should not be the only starting point.
The better question is not simply, “What returns can you deliver?”
It is, “How do you think?”
An adviser’s judgement, process and decision-making framework often matter more than a single performance number. Wealthy families and individuals need to understand how an adviser assesses risk, responds to uncertainty, evaluates opportunities and makes recommendations when conditions change.
Markets move. Businesses get sold. Families expand. Generations change. People relocate. Priorities evolve. Good advice needs to be able to move with those realities.
The right adviser should be able to see those connections. This is especially important for family offices and UHNW individuals, where decisions are rarely isolated. An investment decision may affect liquidity. A liquidity decision may affect tax. A tax decision may affect succession. A succession decision may affect family relationships.
Ask how they respond when things do not go to plan
Karam Singh, Managing Partner at ek Private Advisory has often spoken about the importance of accountability when assessing the people responsible for managing capital.
The most valuable conversations are rarely the ones where someone suggests they have never made a poor investment decision. They are the ones where they can explain what happened, what they learned, how they responded and how their process has evolved as a result.
That same principle applies when choosing a private wealth adviser.
No adviser, investment manager or professional can control every outcome. What matters is whether they have a clear process, whether they understand risk, whether they can communicate honestly and whether they are accountable when conditions change.
For clients with wealth, this is particularly important because the cost of poor advice can extend beyond short-term investment performance. It can affect family confidence, governance, relationships, legacy planning and long-term wealth preservation.
A strong adviser should be willing to speak openly about difficult decisions, not to dwell on mistakes, but to demonstrate how they think under pressure.
Look beyond the portfolio
Beyond the portfolio may include operating businesses, investment entities, trusts, foundations, property, offshore structures, family governance arrangements, estate planning, risk management, lending, tax considerations and relationships with other advisers.
It may also include the human side of wealth: different priorities across generations, differing levels of financial literacy within the family, family members living in different jurisdictions, or the emotional weight of selling a business, inheriting wealth or transferring responsibility to the next generation.
For family offices and high-net-worth individuals, the portfolio is only one part of the picture.
A good adviser should be able to work within the wider context.
The right adviser should understand the broader ecosystem surrounding a client’s wealth.
They should also know when to bring in the right specialists.
For complex wealth, no single adviser should pretend to have every answer. The value often lies in knowing how to coordinate the right people, ask the right questions and keep the client’s overall strategy aligned.
Understand how they work with your existing advisers
Many wealthy families and individuals already have accountants, lawyers, investment managers, bankers, trustees, insurance specialists and other professional advisers involved in different parts of their affairs. The question is not only whether a financial adviser is technically capable. It is whether they can work effectively with the wider advisory team.
For family office clients, this becomes even more important. Good advice often requires coordination across multiple disciplines, jurisdictions, entities and decision-makers.
Before choosing an adviser, it is worth asking:
How do you work with accountants, lawyers and other advisers?
How do you help ensure different recommendations are aligned?
Who takes responsibility for seeing the full picture?
How do you communicate when multiple stakeholders are involved?
The best adviser relationships are not built around isolated recommendations. They are built around coordination, understanding and trust.
Test whether they understand more than the wealth
For many HNW and UHNW clients, wealth is deeply personal.
Wealth may represent decades of business building. It may be tied to a family legacy. It may involve responsibility to children, employees, charities, future generations or communities. It may create opportunity, but it may also create pressure.
That is why adviser selection should not be based on technical expertise alone.
The right adviser should be interested in the story behind the wealth.
What matters to the family?
What are they trying to protect?
What are they trying to build?
What does success look like beyond financial return?
How should the next generation be involved?
Where might conflict arise?
What decisions need to be made now to avoid complexity later?
For complex families, they are often the questions that determine whether advice can be implemented successfully.
Questions worth asking before choosing an adviser
When selecting a financial adviser, private wealth adviser or family office adviser as a HNW and UHNW client, you may want to ask questions such as:
What types of clients do you work best with?
How do you define good advice for HNW individuals, UHNW families and family offices?
What is your investment philosophy?
How do you approach strategic asset allocation?
How do you assess risk beyond market performance?
Can you talk through a difficult investment decision and what you learned from it?
How do you respond when an investment or strategy does not go to plan?
How do you work with accountants, lawyers, trustees and other advisers?
How do you help families make decisions when priorities differ?
How do you support next-generation education and involvement?
How are potential conflicts managed?
What would make you advise against an opportunity?
What does ongoing advice look like after the initial strategy is built?
How do you help clients balance wealth preservation with opportunity?
Who is responsible for seeing the full picture?
These questions are not designed to find a perfect adviser.
They are designed to reveal how an adviser thinks.
The right adviser helps you make better decisions
Choosing the right adviser is not simply about appointing someone to manage investments. It is about finding someone who can help you make better decisions across the full picture of your wealth. That requires technical capability, but it also requires judgement, accountability, discretion, emotional intelligence and the ability to bring clarity to complexity.
The right adviser should be able to challenge thinking respectfully. They should be able to explain risk clearly. They should be able to coordinate with other professionals. They should be able to help families move through difficult conversations with structure and perspective.
Most importantly, they should understand that wealth is never just financial.
At ek Private Advisory, we believe good advice begins with understanding the full picture: the wealth, the family, the structures, the decisions and the story behind them.
For people with stories.
Important
Karam Singh, Authorised Representative of Capella Advisory Pty Ltd ABN 54 669 300 163 AFSL no. 550125. He can be reached at ksingh@ekprivate.com.au or 1300 193 136
The information in this publication is factual information, and not financial advice. The information is objectively ascertainable information and is not tailored to your personal circumstances. You should consider obtaining financial advice before making a decision in relation to this information.