The ultra-high-net-worth population in the United States has reached nearly 200,000 families, a 20.5% increase from 2023 according to research firm Altrata. Globally, that figure now exceeds 484,000 individuals, with projections pointing to 676,970 by 2030. For Michael Gold, founder and CEO of Gold Family Wealth in Westport, Connecticut, the numbers tell only part of the story. The more pressing question is whether the advisory industry is equipped to serve these families at all.
Gold says the growth of UHNW wealth has not been gradual. It has been structural. Entrepreneurial liquidity events, private equity, venture capital, and founder-led businesses have accelerated wealth creation at a pace few anticipated. Many families now manage operating companies alongside complex investment portfolios, with assets spread across multiple jurisdictions, entities, and generations. The planning decisions made today can shape outcomes for family members not yet fully involved, and in some cases, not yet born.
"In my experience, complexity is not the exception for UHNW families," Gold says. "It is the operating environment."
From Reactive Portfolios to Coordinated Family-Office Services
Traditional wealth management was built on a different premise. Portfolio reviews, a handful of separate advisors, and mostly reactive planning served clients well enough when their financial lives were simpler. For families with assets above $30 million, that model has stopped working.
The Westport advisor describes a pattern he has seen repeatedly: advisory relationships that were technically competent but structurally fragmented, where advice was delivered in silos rather than as part of a unified plan. Tax, legal, philanthropic, and succession decisions were handled by separate professionals with little coordination between them. Over time, this can produce blind spots, missed opportunities, and, ultimately, a loss of confidence in the advisory relationship itself.
Gold's practice at Gold Family Wealth is built around a coordinated family-office model, one designed to integrate legal, tax, philanthropic, and multigenerational succession planning across a single advisory framework. This approach reflects a broader industry recognition that UHNW families cannot be served effectively with generalist tools. Firms without the capacity to collaborate across disciplines, he says, could lose their most demanding clients to private banks, multi-family offices, and specialized boutiques.
A Structural Gap at a Pivotal Moment
The timing of this shift matters. The largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history is currently underway, with $84 to $120 trillion projected to move between generations over the next two to three decades, much of it concentrated within UHNW families. Simultaneously, the advisory industry faces a capacity problem: nearly half of all financial advisors plan to retire by 2035, leaving very few practitioners with the depth of experience needed to guide families through complex liquidity events, multigenerational governance structures, and cross-disciplinary planning.
"This creates a structural gap at the precise moment UHNW families need the highest level of judgment, coordination, and leadership," Gold says.
Russ Alan Prince, an authority in the private wealth industry and co-author of Making Smart Decisions: How Ultra-Wealthy Families Get Superior Wealth Planning Results, has framed the risk plainly: "Significant wealth turns families into enterprises, whether they acknowledge it or not. And enterprises without governance rarely fail all at once; they fragment over time."
Michael Gold, who holds CFP® and CEPA® designations alongside an MBA in Quantitative Finance from NYU Stern, says that what UHNW families ultimately want is not a more elaborate product shelf. They want judgment rooted in experience, advisors who have navigated liquidity events, succession challenges, and governance decisions before, and who understand that technical skill must be paired with discretion.
Governance and Judgment Over Fragmented Advice
The question families are asking has changed. Gold says UHNW clients are no longer content to ask whether their portfolio is performing. They are asking who is actually responsible for the whole picture, who has managed this scale of complexity before, and who will remain engaged as the family moves through inevitable transitions.
When advisory relationships are designed to answer those questions, Gold says, the impact extends beyond portfolio returns. Governance frameworks can improve how families make decisions together. Education programs can prepare the next generation for stewardship rather than passive inheritance. Scenario planning can allow families to anticipate change rather than simply absorb it.
"For UHNW families, the right advisory relationship is about more than managing wealth," he says. "It is about helping to plan for wealth that benefits the family today and for future generations."
The Westport-based advisor says his practice was intentionally built to operate in this space, providing the depth and discipline that wealth creators require when navigating the most consequential financial and legacy decisions of their lives. With advisory talent aging out and the volume of complex transitions increasing, Gold argues the gap between what UHNW families need and what most advisors can deliver will only widen in the years ahead.
Investment advisory services offered through CWM, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Russ Alan Prince is not an affiliate of CWM, LLC. Opinions expressed by Russ may not be representative of CWM, LLC.
