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In a challenging year, HSBC Private Banking’s wealth planning and advisory team have been busy helping clients to plan, respond and prepare for opportunities
Cynthia Lee is an avid gardener, and she sees many shared principles between her favourite pastime and her day job as regional head of Wealth Planning and Advisory for Asia Pacific at HSBC Private Banking.
“You need to have the right ecosystem to let plants flourish,” she says. “I walk around my garden proudly every day and see that some plants are flowering, some need more shade or more water. When a plant outgrows its pot, I’m extremely proud and move it so that it has more room to continue growing.
“I think this has a lot of similarities to how we work with families and how we try to create the right ecosystem for our wealth advisers so that they can bring value to the clients that we work with.”
The dedication and patience needed to build these strong roots pays off in a year such as 2020, when Covid-19 hit like a typhoon and disrupted businesses, the economy and personal lives.
Although the pandemic was an extraordinary and unexpected event, helping families to build resilience is at the core of what Lee and her team do every day. The economy is no more predictable than the weather, but careful planning and maintenance can ensure sustainable, coordinated, long-term growth come rain or shine.
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Even before the pandemic, the families that Lee and her team work with had been paying close attention to global trends that could affect their businesses and portfolios, including the decoupling of mainland China and the US, and the heightening of geopolitical risks.
They had also been grappling with the longer-term effects of technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data on traditional businesses, and how these trends will shape the future for succeeding generations.
With so much to think about, it is important to take a strategic approach to family wealth that focuses on continuity, sustainability, diversification, resilience and adaptability.
“We have definitely seen unprecedented conditions this year,” says Lee. “But our role is to give families the advice and the tools they need to be prepared for uncertainty, so they can face the future, whatever it may bring, with peace of mind.”