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Selecting a wealth manager rarely gets the scrutiny families apply to selecting a surgeon, even though both decisions can shape the outcome of a family’s future. Michael Gold, CFP®, founder and CEO of Gold Family Wealth in Westport, Connecticut, says that gap matters most for families facing a business sale, a complex estate plan or a transfer of wealth across generations. Gold argues those families owe more scrutiny to the legal standard binding their advisor than to any single investment recommendation.
A Standard With Teeth
A fiduciary standard means an advisor is legally obligated to put a client’s interests ahead of their own, Gold writes in his forthcoming book on family wealth planning, The Goldprint. A fiduciary “must strive to minimize conflicts of interest, and disclose them if they arise,” presenting “the best options for you, not just any option that fits.” The suitability standard that still governs many broker-dealer recommendations sets a lower bar, he notes: an advisor only has to recommend something “suitable for your situation,” not necessarily the strongest option, even a product that pays a higher commission when a cheaper alternative exists.
The SEC draws roughly the same line. Under Regulation Best Interest, broker-dealers must disclose or manage conflicts of interest through written policies. Investment advisers held to a fiduciary duty face a stricter bar: they must eliminate a conflict outright or secure a client’s informed consent after full disclosure, according to SEC staff guidance. For families managing the $124 trillion in wealth projected to change hands through 2048, that difference in obligation decides whose interests actually come first at the table.
Diagnosis Before Prescription
Gold says the difference shows up in ordinary moments most clients never see. When his investment team suggested adding gold to client portfolios because “clients like to see that,” Gold’s answer was direct. “That’s a hard no,” he says. “It’s not our job, from the investment standpoint, to make people feel good because they saw something on CNBC,” he says. “Our job is to invest accordingly based on whatever outcomes or results that they need”.
He traces that discipline to his own experience with three spine surgeries. “Not at one point was the surgeon like, so what do you think about this or that,” Gold says. Before recommending anything, his surgeons ran a full battery of tests and “laid out all the options, from conservative to aggressive”. “He led with, let’s find out what’s wrong with you and weigh out all your options,” Gold says. His Westport-based practice runs on the same sequence: diagnose the family’s full financial picture before prescribing a product.
Four Questions Before You Sign
That sequence breaks down when a family’s advisors work in isolation. Gold and co-author Jerry Prince write in the firm’s Radical Ownership white paper that “a collection of advisors is not automatically an advisory team,” adding that “the key question is not whether each professional is excellent. It is whether the right professionals are solving the same problem together.”
To test whether an advisor clears that bar, Gold lays out four steps in The Goldprint. Get a second opinion from an independent source. Ask the advisor what standard of care they’re held to, and get the answer in writing. Ask directly what conflicts of interest exist and how the advisor gets paid. Trust the instinct that says something feels off, because it usually is.
For families weighing a liquidity event, an estate plan or a transfer of wealth to the next generation, Michael Gold’s argument centers on who actually sits on the same side of the table with them, not on paperwork. A fiduciary standard, he suggests, is the floor beneath every other decision a family makes.
Investment advisory services offered through CWM, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor.