There’s about to be a new wave of Silicon Valley millionaires. Here’s 6 tips from top wealth advisers about how they should prepare.

Treasury Partners

No matter when they get involved, wealth advisers often act as the quarterback for a team, helping with various components of portfolio management. 

“We think of ourselves as an outsourced family office,” Marc Rollins, an adviser at JPMorgan who works predominantly with founders, said. “We play the combined role of the chief financial officer and chief investment officer and chief operating officer. We help curate a group of great advisors around the clients.”

The core team typically includes a trust and estate attorney, along with a Certified Public Accountant. Even if a client has previously worked with lawyers and accountants, Rollins said his team can recommend advisors who are well versed in specific planning strategies. 

The wealth adviser then coordinates the team, said Justin Winters, managing director at Treasury Partners, which oversees $8 billion. 

“If everyone’s not communicating, you’re not getting the best advice as a client,” he said. “If the financial adviser does something the accountant doesn’t know about and they get a huge tax bill at year end, that’s not helpful to the client.”

Delegating to professionals pays off, financially and personally. 

“The other day, a spouse came in and said her husband was spending so much time thinking about the taxes involved in the transaction that he was engulfed, because he didn’t have a team around him to think about those issues,” Winters said. “People do not like paying taxes – that’s one of the biggest things I hear about when I meet with someone. Making sure you have the right people around you is really important. It’s real money.” 

The non-core team can include a variety of professionals for specific tasks, such as getting insurance or buying a home. Multiple bankers said they’ll recommend and work with specific, discreet realtors to mitigate privacy concerns. Sometimes, they’ll bring in cybersecurity professionals to evaluate a whole family’s privacy – a spouse, for example, might have a non-secure email account that could be an easy in for a hacker. 

Wealth advisers also act as gatekeepers. Often, newly-wealthy clients sees an explosion of interest from their networks in angel investing, and they need someone to turn down friends and family gently.