‘Spreadsheet nerd’ expanded his toolbox to better serve HNW clients

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Since 2014, the Family Enterprise Advisor designation has been a key credential among professionals who work with wealthy people and their families. We decided to ask advisors who have earned the designation to tell us what it has brought to their practice and how it has influenced their careers.

Before he entered the financial industry, Neil Kumar’s closest connection to it was probably the character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street. “I was quite young when I first got into the industry; I was about 21,” he says.

But after a relative invited him to help out with administrative work at HSBC Securities, he was hooked.

“It was really fascinating to me that this world existed in Vancouver, because I grew up in the Fraser Valley,” he says. He ended up studying finance at Simon Fraser University and spending 14 years with HSBC.

Today, Kumar is a self-confessed “spreadsheet nerd,” a seasoned portfolio manager, investment advisor and founding partner of Vancouver-based JSK Partners, a team he formed with Tyler Steele and the now-retired Dwight Jefferson to manage North American equity portfolios within Richardson Wealth. They serve about 220 clients, mainly high-net-worth individuals and a few foundations. “We have a small number of clients, and we’ve done that purposefully,” he says.

“Our approach to wealth management takes a broad perspective. The most fulfilling part of the job is seeing clients achieve their objectives. It’s really satisfying helping them with the difficult questions: what to do with our wealth, how to help our children.”

What drew you to achieving the FEA designation?

Tyler found a lot of value in it and kept encouraging me to do it. We come from more of a technical background, so the interpersonal skills are the difficult part of our business, such as asking the broader questions about what clients’ wealth means to them.

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Was it difficult to adopt that more multidisciplinary approach?

That was something I had already bought into. We’ve always worked very closely with our clients’ accountants, so we’ve always really believed in this interdisciplinary approach where you’re swimming in your own lane but you’re coming up with ways of doing something that might provide the clients with better outcomes.

We see things through our own lenses, so we do appreciate this multidisciplinary approach that allows us to come up with better solutions. Sometimes we can be really focused on the minutia of why an investment is performing the way it does, when that can account for maybe half a percent or less of what the portfolio is worth. Is that the right thing to focus on? Really, clients are looking for your guidance to help them achieve whatever goal they’re looking to accomplish with their wealth.

What surprised you about the program?

I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but it was actually more work than I expected. There’s a written test and a verbal test, and that verbal test is difficult. My group and I, we all studied a lot for it.

Any predictions for the future of the FEA designation?

I think most organizations that deal with high-net-worth individuals realize the value in the topics that they discuss [in the FEA program]; I think that they have a bright future.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Administered by Family Enterprise Canada, the FEA (Family Enterprise Advisor) designation is increasingly recognized across the country. It identifies advisors with expertise in family business and significant technical knowledge in a related field. The program, which costs $16,995 plus tax, consists of six modules and a capstone team project. More than 450 professionals have achieved the designation.