The 10 Domains of Wealth

NEWSLETTER

Family office insights this week:

• A model to shine a light on wealth family needs

• Everything that’s wrong with family office hiring in one DM

• Books: how to raise financially fit kids

• Podcasts: the 10 domains of wealth

• Exciting news about SFO Alliance insights

The 10 Domains of Wealth

Empowering families, guiding advisors, supporting education.

It’s very easy to focus on the things we are good at.
To have a bias toward our own expertise.

This can lead to blind spots, areas we overlook simply because they fall outside our comfort zone or professional training.

And when it comes to managing multi-generational wealth, those blind spots can quietly become fault lines.

Financial capital is clearly vital. But for ultra-wealthy families, true wealth management means dealing with a complex web of relationships, transitions, governance, risk, and values.

To help families and advisors deal with this complexity, the UHNW Institute developed the “10 Domains of Family Wealth” model, a holistic framework designed to prompt the right questions and encourage integrated, cross-disciplinary support.

The UHNW Institute is a non-profit think tank committed to raising the standards of wealth management. With the 10 Domains, it brings greater transparency and collaboration to an often fragmented industry.

While the framework is relevant to families at every level of wealth, complexity grows with capital.

Why the 10 Domains Framework Was Developed

The UHNW Institute launched the model to bring clarity to an increasingly complex industry. Too often, families and their advisors focus on one or two issues, say, investment management or estate planning, and assume that everything else will fall into place or be arranged separately by the family. But experience shows otherwise: without an integrated approach, cracks appear.

The 10 Domains Framework was designed with three goals in mind:

• Empower families to ask better questions and understand what comprehensive wealth management really involves.

• Guide advisors in identifying the skills required and how to collaborate across disciplines.

• Support training institutions in building curricula that reflect the real-world demands of servicing UHNW families.

This framework is about building a system that supports long-term success: financially, personally, relationally, and generationally.

The Three Clusters of Wealth Domains

The framework organizes the 10 domains into three clusters:

1. Family-Advisory Relationship (sitting at the center)

2. Wealth Creation and Stewardship (across the top)

3. Cultivation of Family Capital (across the bottom)

Let's look at each cluster:

Cluster 1: Family-Advisory Relationship

“Clients should not expect their advisors to be fluent in all domains in order to offer quality services in advisors’ areas of expertise. However, because of the integrated cross-disciplinary nature of UHNW services, advisors can reasonably be expected to be conversant in most of the Ten Domains. The one area that all advisors need to be expert about is in Family-Advisory Relationships” - UHNW Institute

The family-advisory relationship is the foundation on which everything else rests. No matter how smart the investment strategy or how airtight the estate plan, it's meaningless without trust and emotional intelligence in the advisor relationship.

Great advisors understand family systems, manage difficult conversations, facilitate multi-generational meetings, and can work cross-culturally. The best ones help build trust, resolve conflict, and remain calm when emotions run high.

Every advisor, no matter their specialty, needs fluency in this domain.

The essence of the family-advisory role is to be an expert generalist - fluent enough across domains to connect the dots, ask the right questions, and guide the family with confidence.

Cluster 2: Wealth Creation and Stewardship

This is the group that gets a lot of attention. The investment side of the family office is often regarded as the core service of a family office.

2. Financial & Investment Management

Money still matters. This domain includes everything you'd expect: investment policy, accounting, taxation, family office structures, and fiduciary roles.

But it's also about aligning capital with purpose, communicating clearly, and recognizing behavioral biases. The best advisors educate as much as they execute.

3. Estate Planning & Legal Issues

This is where intent meets structure. It includes legal tools like trusts, prenups, and business entities, but also involves deeper questions around fairness, stewardship, and incapacity.

Great estate planning is never just technical. It involves managing family tensions, dealing with different legal systems, coordinating across advisors, and preparing heirs.

4. Risk Management

Often overlooked, this domain is critical. Risks for UHNW families span financial risks, cyber threats, health issues, jurisdictional and geopolitical factors, reputational harm, and physical assets.

Smart families treat risk holistically. They simulate crises, design response policies, and integrate insurance into strategy. Ignoring risk isn't passive… it's a liability.

5. Social Impact & Philanthropy

Purpose is power. This domain captures the way many ways families use capital to drive meaning. This can be through giving, impact investing, and values-driven ventures.

Great advisors help families define what impact looks like, select the right vehicles (like foundations or DAFs), and engage the next generation.

This domain is often sidelined, with philanthropy treated as a purely private matter. But when integrated into the broader family office strategy, it becomes a powerful tool for family learning, values transfer, and next-gen engagement. 

Cluster 3: Cultivation of Family Capital

Family capital is the most often overlooked aspect of family offices. Those responsible for growing and preserving financial capital aren't always best equipped to nurture the human, intellectual, and social capital that sustains wealth across generations.

6. Governance & Decision-Making

Wealth without governance can lead to chaos. This domain includes family constitutions, decision-making protocols, charters, family councils, and boards.

Families need systems for participation, conflict resolution, and accountability. Good governance creates clarity and cohesion. It also mitigates risks around succession, dividends, and roles.

7. Leadership & Transition Planning

Next-gen leadership doesn’t just happen. This domain is about spotting potential early, developing future leaders, and managing transitions gracefully, whether inside the business, the family office, or the broader enterprise.

Without planning, families drift. With it, they grow.

8. Learning, Development & the Rising Generation

Education is everything. The biggest wealth destroyer? Unprepared heirs.

This domain includes financial literacy, ownership education, mentorship, and exposure to governance. It might look like internships, structured learning, or board shadowing. But the goal is consistent: equip the next generation to lead with confidence.

9. Family Dynamics

Money amplifies what already exists.

This domain centers on helping families communicate. That might involve facilitators, therapists, or simply safe spaces to discuss legacy, conflict, and identity.

Without cohesion, no plan (no matter how well designed) will hold.

10. Health & Well-being

Wealth doesn't protect against illness. In fact, it can complicate things.

This domain covers everything from addiction to dementia, burnout to disability. It includes care planning, privacy protocols, and integrating health issues into estate and governance strategies.

Great family offices anticipate these issues. They don’t wait for a crisis.

The Bottom Line

The Ten Domains model is a roadmap for families seeking clarity, and for advisors aiming to deliver a truly comprehensive service.

No single advisor or office can master every domain. But every family deserves support across them all. The biggest risk is assuming someone else is covering the gaps.

Because without the full picture, you're not managing wealth, you're just managing money.

Whether you’re a family principal or an advisor, integration is everything. Legacy isn’t built in silos, it’s sustained through shared purpose, coordinated action, and a willingness to evolve as the family does.

In this week’s podcast pick, Brian Hughes asks a simple but powerful question: How often do your accountant, lawyer, insurance advisor, and investment manager sit in the same room to talk about your family?

If the answer is never, you don’t have an integrated family office, you have disconnected professionals. And that’s exactly what the Ten Domains framework is designed to change.

For more details on the ten domains and a practical case study, visit the UHNW Institute website.

𝕏 highlights

Family offices are struggling to recruit and retain.

And here are some more reasons family offices struggle to hire.

Some key data from Blackrock Global Family Office Survey.

 💼 where to work

Three notable family office job opportunities currently open…

Director of Pillar Initiatives (Estate & Tax Planning) - Dalio Family Office (Westport, CT / SFO) 

Finance and Operations Director - Private Family Office (Hong Kong / Single Family Office)

Family Office Principal (LATAM) - The Family Office Group, Citi Private Bank (Miami / Service Provider)

📚 what to read

Raising Financially Fit Kids by Joline Godfrey is a practical guide for parents who want their kids to grow up smart with money, not just rich. It breaks down financial education into age-appropriate milestones from age 5 to 25, combining financial literacy with real-world skills like negotiation, budgeting, and philanthropy.

The book’s real message is that raising competent heirs takes intention, not inheritance.

📻 what to listen to

More on the ten domains. Brian Hughes of Eton Advisors joins Tom Ruggie on the Significance of Wealth podcast to discuss the Ten Domains of Family Wealth. They explore how advisors can move beyond financial capital to support families through governance, health, succession, and purpose.

📺 what to watch

Global wealth is growing. The US is leading the way, Europe is lagging. For more on the UBS Global Wealth Report, keep an eye on X and LinkedIn.

And finally…

Capturing your family story can anchor identity and values across generations. Next week, we look at how film can be a powerful medium to document this.

Speaking of great content, we’re excited to announce that we will be sharing insights from the recent SFO Week, the flagship conference from SFO Alliance. Keep an eye on social media next week.

This week’s Family Office Buzz covered everything from crypto family offices to the best wines of 2025. It will be back on Monday sharing the best family office and adjacent content.

That’s all for today - see you on 𝕏 or LinkedIn!

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