“Everyone has some sense of privilege,” said James Thompson, head of diverse and multicultural wealth segments at Bernstein Private Wealth Management. “And whatever you define as privilege, you have to put it to use.”
For Thompson, that meant building the diverse and multicultural wealth business at the firm, which he did in 2018.
“This [has been] a meaningful journey for me to partake, and I felt I had all the tools, resources and experience to pull together for the firm,” he said.
Prior to his work establishing the segment of the company that he now leads, Thompson had been in the financial services industry for two decades. He has been at Bernstein since 2011 and most recently led business development and marketing strategy for AllianceBernstein’s global insurance business. He also hosts Bernstein’s “Changing the Trajectory” podcast.
In his drive to build the firm’s diverse and multicultural wealth area, he wanted to have an effect on client engagement, where it could make a big difference, he said.
“It was apparent in 2017 and 2018 that the landscape of wealth is changing, both from a diversity and a multicultural perspective,” Thompson said. “There’s a growing population of individuals and families who could and should be our clients, given the growth of their wealth and the complexity of that wealth.”
— Emile Hallez