UBS’s global wealth management division has hired a former JPMorgan banker to bolster its business among racially diverse investors.
Melinda Hightower started in May as the head of the multicultural client segment in UBS’s client strategy office in the San Francisco Bay Area to attract what UBS says is one of the fastest-growing client wealth segments in the country, including Black, Latino, Asian and other diverse clientele, according to an internal memo first obtained by
Hightower spent three years at JPMorgan as a senior private banker. Prior to her employment there, she worked as a lawyer at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP before joining investment management firm ICONIQ Capital as the head of family office services, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The “overarching goal [is] to position UBS as the advisor of choice for all clients,” says the memo.
UBS declined to comment further on the memo, says Huw Williams, the firm’s head of media relations.
Black and Latino planners are largely unrepresented in the industry, and it can be challenging for Black households looking to work with a Black planner to locate one. Of the 88,726 certified financial planners in 2020, 3,688 were Black or Latino, or 4.2% of the total profession, according to the CFP Board.
UBS’s recent actions reflect an industry-wide shift, says Keith Beverly, managing partner of GRID 202 Partners.
Beverly and Fenaba Addo, faculty affiliate at Duke University’s Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity, recently co-authored a report on the priorities and challenges of wealth management raised by affluent African-American families who worked with GRID, a Black-owned, Washington D.C.-based RIA.
The clients in the study didn’t want to lower their standards for expertise but preferred to deal with an advisor with cultural competence and awareness that matched up with their own. This underscores “the need not just for racial diversity with financial planning professionals, but also companies whose mission and services are inclusive, ready, and willing to meet the needs of their Black clientele,” the report states.
UBS’s recent actions reflect an industry-wide shift, says Beverly. The firm’s efforts are a step in the right direction, but Beverly questions their long-term effects. This doesn’t mean the firm’s undertaking will fail before it starts, Beverly says, but he’s just being realistic.
“How much of it is sustainable? Will this still be the focus and be present in two, three, five years,” he asks. “There's not a lot of trust when it comes to the big banks, and then coming out with announcements being short on the follow-through.”
