Ep 460: Establishing The Operational Systems It Takes To Truly Serve Ultra-HNW Clients Effectively with Stephanie Hughes

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News

4.8 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While many financial advisory firms seek to move 'upmarket' and serve high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, these clients typically require (and often demand) a different level of service—and can benefit from a more integrated experience across legal, tax, and financial domains. For these firms, creating efficient operational systems is paramount, particularly when it comes to the processing and security of their frequent high-dollar transactions.

Stephanie Hughes is the CEO of Wiss Family Office, a multi-family office based in Florham Park, New Jersey, that oversees approximately $1 billion in AUM for 220 households. Listen in as Stephanie shares how her firm delivers a “one-stop shop” experience that reduces client stress by consolidating financial, tax, and legal services under one roof. We talk about the importance of integration and internal communication across service lines, the tools her team is building to monitor client activity and prevent fraud, and how internal workflows support the firm’s high-volume, high-stakes client transactions. Stephanie also explains the value of being affiliated with a tax firm, and how that connection drives both strong referrals and immediate client trust.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/460

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with
0:07.1	financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading
0:12.4	financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success
0:17.4	and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next
0:22.2	level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.
0:28.9	Welcome to the 460th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success podcast. My guest on today's
0:34.3	podcast is Stephanie Hughes. Stephanie is the CEO of WIS Family Office, a multi-family office based in Florham Park, New Jersey,
0:41.2	that oversees approximately $1 billion in assets under management for 220 client households.
0:47.2	What's unique about Stephanie, though, is how she has established the operational systems required to serve ultra-high net worth clients efficiently and securely,
0:55.4	as her practice has grown beyond $1 billion in AUM in just seven years.
1:00.0	In this episode, we talk in depth about how Stephanie and her firm are able to provide clients
1:04.4	with a one-stop shop for their financial, legal, and tax needs, reducing the stress clients
1:08.7	face when managing stakeholders across several
1:10.9	different firms.
1:12.1	How Stephanie finds that integration across the firm's different services and active communication
1:17.0	amongst team members across the business is a key driver to the firm's success and a
1:21.0	differentiator from firms focused on one primary service area and how Stephanie prioritizes
1:26.4	having strong internal controls in place,
1:28.6	given the volume of high dollar client transactions, her team processes that, if mishandled,
1:33.0	could create significant tax burdens or expose them to fraud.
1:36.7	We also talk about how Stephanie encountered challenges hiring for positions in her multifamily
1:41.1	office environment because of how her practices processes differ from what candidates might have experienced at other wealth management firms.
	...

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