The instinct of many wealthy families is to add more advisors when their financial situation grows more complex. Michael Gold thinks that instinct is part of the problem.
Gold, founder and CEO of Gold Family Wealth in Westport, Connecticut, argues that the number of advisors a family employs matters far less than whether those advisors are operating as a coordinated team. His firm is built around solving the latter challenge, which he has observed going unaddressed throughout his 25-year career.
More Advisors, More Gaps
The pattern Gold has documented is consistent. Families with substantial wealth retain estate attorneys, investment managers, CPAs, and sometimes philanthropic consultants. Each professional is accomplished in their area. But without someone responsible for ensuring their work aligns, the advice they provide can conflict in ways families never detect until a costly moment of reckoning.
Estate documents that don’t reflect the family’s investment timeline. Tax strategies that clash with charitable giving structures. Business succession plans built in isolation from liquidity needs in the broader portfolio. These are the gaps Gold’s firm is designed to find and close.
“You have to look under the hood. You have to look at every aspect to see if there are any gaps, and if so, how severe they are, and what are the solutions to address them,” Gold says.
The practical cost of ignoring these gaps can be severe. Michael Gold Westport has seen business owners who needed to delay exits by a full year to restructure assets and manage tax exposure, delays that would have been avoidable with earlier, coordinated planning. He frames the issue plainly: “People do not think about the end in mind early enough.”
With close to three-quarters of privately held business owners expecting to exit within the next decade and an estimated $10 to $14 trillion in wealth at stake, the coordination gap is not a niche concern. It is one of the defining financial planning challenges of the coming years.
The Intellectual Engine
Gold Family Wealth’s dedicated UHNW practice drives the firm’s approach. The advanced frameworks it has developed for complex families, including enterprise risk mapping, multigenerational governance, and multi-scenario modeling, are applied across the entire organization.
Gold was recognized as a Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor in 2025. His Westport firm has earned that recognition by treating coordination not as a support function but as the core of the advisory relationship. Read this article for more information.
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