\n When a client arrives having already run the analysis, the adviser’s traditional advantage of superior access to information has gone. India’s next generation of wealth owners is the first to turn up with the research already done, and the question that follows is uncomfortable: what exactly is being paid for.
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\nAt the Hubbis India Wealth Management Forum 2026 in Mumbai, the opening panel discussion, chaired by Vaanyasri Goel, Chief Investment Strategist at PACE Family Office, put that question to senior industry leaders. Himanshu Kohli, Co-Founder of Client Associates, has spent longer than most thinking about it. His firm helped introduce the multi-family office model to India in 2002 and has been an early adopter of technology throughout, yet his answer placed the emphasis somewhere other than the platform. Technology, in his account, is what makes talent productive. It is not a substitute for it.\n <\/p>\n
Key Takeaways<\/p>\n
\n\tFour Ts Define the Business: Trust, talent, transparency and technology, with talent the most important and technology the multiplier that makes it productive.
\n\tProductivity, Not Headcount: Rather than asking how many roles artificial intelligence removes, Kohli asks how much more the same team could do with it.
\n\tThe Hiring Bar Has Moved: An adviser could once be hired without technology skills. Today comfort with systems is a threshold requirement.
\n\tJudgement Is the Differentiator: When a client has already run the analysis, the adviser’s value shifts to what talent adds on top of the data.
\n\tReach the Next Generation Early: The firm positions itself in the forums and learning platforms where younger owners are already active, deliberately without a sales agenda.
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\u00a0<\/p>\n
Client Comes First, and We Are Their Associates<\/p>\n
Kohli opened by recalling how unfamiliar the model was at launch. \u201cWe pioneered the concept of multi family office way back in 2002, when it was slightly unheard of,\u201d he said, noting that the firm explained itself to families in more familiar language, as their suthradhar and marg darshak, their munshi or munimji, or simply as their private Chief Financial Officer. In the firm’s twenty-fifth year, that concept has become an established part of the market.<\/p>\n
Asked to state the proposition without reciting a website, Kohli found it in the firm’s own name. \u201cClient comes first, and we are their associates,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s a model which is client-centric, a client-first approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then offered a phrase that captures the breadth of the mandate. \u201cWe are holistic balance sheet bankers,\u201d he said, listing financial, property, global and business assets alongside succession, immigration, mortgage, insurance and startup requirements. The intention is to \u201coccupy 100 per cent mind share, and provide solutions on 100 per cent of the balance sheet of any wealthy family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Four Ts<\/p>\n
Goel noted that Kohli has been more precise in public than almost anyone about where technology sits inside a wealth business. His answer began with a framework. \u201cThis business is about a couple of Ts,\u201d he said. \u201cTrust. Talent, which is the most important. Third is transparency in the relationship, because that also further brings up the relationship of trust. And technology, which makes the talent very, very productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ordering matters. Technology appears last and in a supporting role, and transparency is presented not as a compliance obligation but as an input into trust.<\/p>\n
Kohli illustrated how far the baseline has shifted by reference to his own start in the industry. \u201cI started my career in ’95. That time, I could have been hired without understanding technology, Excels, emails,\u201d he said. \u201cBut today you would not hire anyone who can’t work on systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Productivity Rather Than Replacement<\/p>\n
On artificial intelligence, Kohli was neither dismissive nor alarmed, answering the question the industry keeps circling with an analogy from medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I be replaced by AI? This is a view which is very different,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s like going to a doctor. Technology and AI can make doctors far more productive, so that doctors can advise far better.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then worked through the arithmetic for his own firm, reframing a debate usually held in terms of job losses. \u201cWe feel AI is going to make our organisation far more productive. If we are 300 of us, will it cut down 100 jobs and still we can do the same amount of work? That is one way to look at it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut maybe 300 can do double the work. That’s also another way. Maybe adding another 100 can make us do four times work. That’s also possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The distinction is between treating productivity gains as a cost saving and treating them as capacity. For a firm serving families whose balance sheets are becoming more complex and more international, the second reading has clear commercial logic.<\/p>\n
Building the Plumbing Early<\/p>\n
Kohli pointed to a track record here rather than an intention. Client Associates seeded one of India’s wealth technology platforms in 2004, and it is today a preferred partner across the country’s asset management and wealth advisory community.<\/p>\n
The firm is now doing something similar with artificial intelligence, partnering with a global provider building AI capability for wealth businesses as that provider’s first client in India. Kohli described a twelve-month implementation covering eleven separate workstreams, and said three large institutions have since signed up with the same provider.<\/p>\n
He then turned the argument back to the questioner. Goel, he observed, is exactly the kind of client who arrives having already used AI tools to run her own analysis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can I bring extra beyond that?\u201d he asked. \u201cThat is where the talent, that T, comes into picture. How talent is adapting the technology and still staying relevant in the system. That is the main thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meeting the Next Generation Where They Already Are<\/p>\n
Asked what firms have built specifically for the children of existing clients, Kohli described an approach closer to presence than to programme design. The firm embeds itself in the organisations, forums and learning platforms where next-generation individuals are already establishing themselves, and does so deliberately without a commercial agenda. \u201cIt is not really sales driven,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is more to do about knowing these people. What are they thinking? How do they look at their business? What is their mindset about investments?\u201d<\/p>\n
The second element is access to the wider capability set. Younger family members are exposed to the group’s capital markets and investment banking work and to its institutional research, where they see how wealth is actually created across sectors. From there the conversation moves to bringing institutionalisation and structure into how the family manages its own wealth.<\/p>\n
A Little Trust to Start With<\/p>\n
Closing the session, Goel asked each panellist what the next generation gets wrong. Kohli’s answer was gently put, and asked something of the client rather than the firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens is, today the next generation takes a lot of time to understand what you’re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes it’s also important to understand that we’ve been doing this business for a long period of time, and the reason why we have clients, and the clients are associated, is because we’ve been helping them with what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
His ask was modest. \u201cThey should have some bit of trust that can start the relationship with, which these days I see takes a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a fair point, and it sits in productive tension with the rest of the panel. Trust may no longer be inherited, but nor can it be built from a standing start at zero. For a generation that arrives having already checked the work, the opening credit is smaller than it once was, and the talent brought to the relationship has to be visible rather than assumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a client arrives having already run the analysis, the adviser’s traditional advantage of superior access to information…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[139517,139521,139529,139525,139516,139520,139528,139524,139518,139522,139530,139526,139515,139519,139527,139523,138,35665,246,111,139,69,244,245,8812],"class_list":["post-580885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-asia-private-banking","tag-asia-private-banking-news","tag-asia-private-banking-online-training","tag-asia-private-banking-training","tag-asia-wealth-management","tag-asia-wealth-management-news","tag-asia-wealth-management-online-training","tag-asia-wealth-management-training","tag-asian-private-banking","tag-asian-private-banking-news","tag-asian-private-banking-online-training","tag-asian-private-banking-training","tag-asian-wealth-management","tag-asian-wealth-management-news","tag-asian-wealth-management-online-training","tag-asian-wealth-management-training","tag-business","tag-e-learning","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}