Book Club Speaker: Michael Cole, Author of 'More Than Money'

A new, more comprehensive approach to long-term family wealth management: 

Advising families in the ultra-high-net-worth class comes with unique challenges, including multiple living generations and as many legal entities, passive investments, operating businesses, interest, viewpoints, and opinions. The elite wealth management firms prepared to preserve a family's fortune needs to be equally proficient in the tactical aspects of legal and administrative procedures as well as the strategic considerations to ensure long-term existence of wealth for many generations to come. 

Whether you are in an ultra-high-net-worth family or serve clients who are, More Than Money takes you step by step through the conversations that need to happen to determine how to manage the family enterprise and resources, roles each family member should play, how various family groups can best communicate with each other, and more. Representative examples culled from actual family conflicts bring concepts to life in illustrative case studies, including a model of a firm and family that got it right. Written by an award-winning financial advisor whose firm exclusively services ultra-high-networth families, this authoritative resource enables you to act with confidence and conviction when you: 

• Implement dependable strategies for governance, risk management, education, stewardship, family leadership, and communication
• Draft a shared family vision and mission, complete with guiding questions to cover key details
• Properly balance strategic and tactical planning to generate the most wealth impact for the family

Earn a reputation for making wealth last by knowing it takes More Than Money to keep families affluent.

Author

A veteran in the wealth management industry with more than 30 years of experience building successful family offices, Michael A. Cole serves as CEO of Cresset Family Office, where he is building a deeply holistic approach to family office services that is best-in-class. 

When Cole was only 35, Merrill Lynch named him president of Merrill Lynch Trust after working at the firm for just two years. He then went on to additional success at Wells Fargo, where he held senior wealth management positions and was selected to serve as national leader of the Family Wealth Group and the Wealth Planning Center, which is now called Abbot Downing. Most recently, before joining Cresset, he served as president of Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank, an award winning multi-family office that he developed into one of the fastest growing MFOs in the industry.

Cole earned a bachelor’s degree from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a Certified Financial Planner and holds Series 7, 9, 10 and 66 licenses from the NASD.