IWD 2026 — The moment women decide which advisors stay

Koda Capital’s Ayres said that mindset often shows up in how women approach investing and portfolio construction.“Women think very differently about investments, portfolios and the future,” he said. “Many of our female clients are far more strategic, disciplined and thoughtful about the portfolio composition they want. Many of our best impact investors are female clients because they’re less caught up in the noise and better able to cut through it.”

Divorce, widowhood and business exits are transition points where control of wealth shifts, and client loyalty is tested. As more women inherit and create wealth, private banks face a simple challenge: listen better or risk losing assets.

“It’s really important to listen,” said Gillian Gordon, head of alternative investments & responsible Gillian Gordon, JBWere investing at JBWere, a private bank owned by Melbourne-based National Australia Bank.

“You’re there to understand who they are, what they want to achieve in life, their wealth goals, what’s meaningful to them. Your job is to help guide and support that.”

It sounds obvious. How hard is it to listen to the person paying you to do precisely that?

Yet many of the women interviewed for this story could recall at least one jarring moment – often in divorce or widowhood – when they realised they’d spent years being overlooked, patronised or talked over, while a father or spouse was treated as the default decision-maker.

Relationship turning points

These are major life events, real inflection points where a relationship between client and advisor comes sharply into focus. At that point, the bond between advisor and client either strengthens or quietly unravels.

Too often, it’s the latter. In 2016, a team led by US financial consultant Kathleen Rehl polled 1,100 widows: she found that 70% fired their advisors soon after their spouse died. Rehl told Asian Private Banker that advisors had in recent years become “more aware of the importance of serving women well,” but said translating that into “trauma-informed communication and survivor-specific planning” remained “uneven”.

The stakes are rising. In a 2025 report called The New Face of Wealth, McKinsey said women control one-third of all retail financial assets in Europe and the United States, with the share projected to hit 40%-45% by 2030, driven by inheritance and longevity. JBWere data said women will receive 65% of the US$3.44 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer in Australia by 2034. Because women tend to outlive partners, many experience a ‘double inheritance’ –receiving assets from parents and a partner over their lifetime.

Divorce is also redistributing significant wealth. Australia recorded more than 50,000 divorces in 2023, with separations among couples over 50 rising quickly. JBWere’s Gordon said she empathised with women who change advisors after a key life event: “You rethink relationships and who is best at serving you. Women often want a fresh start – they want someone who’s absolutely in their corner.”

Firms understand the peril this presents. For wealth managers, these are not just personal turning points for clients but also commercial opportunities. A wealth transition handled well can be as valuable as winning a new client. If a relationship survives the transfer of control, it should endure for years.

Building Trust

Yet there is no simple fix. Even firms that train advisors to handle divorce or bereavement with greater sensitivity acknowledge that trust cannot be manufactured when it is most needed.

Ann Ling, regional head of wealth planning & advisors, Asia Pacific, at HSBC Private Bank, said the firm’s advisors are “trained to provide empathetic support during these sensitive transitions. We engage clients early – sometimes even before major life events – to ensure they are prepared and confident in managing their wealth.”

The problem is that these decisions are rarely made in the advisor’s presence. They happen quietly, in a hospital corridor or across a divorce mediation table, and are only communicated later. At that point, control of wealth shifts from one pair of hands to another, and with it, the authority to keep or to replace the advisor.

In that moment, women “might go from being the co-driver in a situation to being the sole driver, which is where they need a different kind of advice, help, education, and knowledge”, said Jonathan Ayres, managing partner at Melbourne-based Koda Capital.

The sale of a business is another point of reckoning in the relationship with a wealth advisor. At that stage, many female founders are “overcome with paralysis”, Nicky Boustred, a senior advisor and partner at Koda Capital, wrote in an October 2025 report titled When Women Exit.

After years spent building and running a company, the transition to managing significant personal wealth can be a shock. Boustred said this reflected a mix of psychological hurdles: uncertainty about how to deploy a large pool of capital, the burden of decisions that will shape long-term family wealth, and a lack of wealth services that truly meet their needs.

Female-led wealth creation

Across Asia, that shift matters because a growing share of women’s wealth is not inherited but self-created. According to data from the Australian Taxation Office, the number of female millionaires grew 5.7% year-on-year in 2023, compared with 3.6% for men. UBS found that 24% of Asian high net worth women are business owners or entrepreneurs, compared with 15% of men.

For many women, a business exit is the moment when entrepreneurial success turns into personal wealth, bringing with it liquidity and higher expectations of advisors. Female entrepreneurs typically seek more context, education and validation in financial decisions. That is sometimes misread as caution or a lack of confidence, while in reality, it is a preference for informed control. Advisors must be more collaborative and transparent about their decisions, so that women feel seen, heard and, ultimately, empowered in the process.

Koda Capital’s Ayres said that mindset often shows up in how women approach investing and portfolio construction.“Women think very differently about investments, portfolios and the future,” he said. “Many of our female clients are far more strategic, disciplined and thoughtful about the portfolio composition they want. Many of our best impact investors are female clients because they’re less caught up in the noise and better able to cut through it.”

Women are no longer just the beneficiaries of family wealth. Increasingly, they are the ones creating it and deciding how it is managed. Whether through inheritance, divorce or the sale of a business, more women are stepping into the role of primary decision-maker, and choosing which advisors, if any, remain at their side.