10 Things This Top Financial Advisor Does Differently for Multigenerational Families
Most financial advisors will tell you they care about your family’s future, but Christine Heim lets her actions do the talking. As a managing director at Merrill Wealth Management, Christine now manages around $728 million in team-custodied assets. Some studies reveal that around 70% of family fortunes evaporate by the second generation and 90% by the third. Christine’s clients aim to be the exception, and here’s what makes her approach different.
She Starts Every Relationship with a Financial Plan
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Before a single dollar gets invested, there’s a plan. For Christine, that financial plan tells her what the wealth needs to do. Portfolios come second and are built around goals rather than market benchmarks. Some advisors build portfolios first and retrofit a plan around them. Christine flips the sequence, meaning investment decisions have a purpose behind them rather than just a performance target.
Her Team Acts as a Bridge to Younger Generations
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Keeping younger generations involved early on is not easy. Most adult children stay on the sidelines until they actually inherit something, which creates a disconnect later. That’s where Christine’s younger team members step in. They focus on building real relationships with the next generation ahead of time. It makes a difference, too. Data from Cerulli Associates shows that only 27% of heirs stay with their family’s advisor, often because no relationship was ever built.
Prioritizing Family Meetings
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The family meeting is one of the most underused tools in wealth management. Christine uses them with multigenerational clients to foster a space to discuss financial goals, emotional concerns, and legacy intentions. These meetings facilitate conversations that help parents articulate to their children what they’ve built and what they want it to mean. That clarity can help reduce confusion and conflict later.
Keeping 12 to 18 Months of Cash on Hand for Clients
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Market downturns are predictable in that they almost always arrive at an inconvenient time. For clients who need a regular income, selling investments at depressed prices is one mistake that can erode their portfolio. Christine keeps 12 to 18 months of cash or near-cash available specifically to prevent that scenario. The buffer buys time and protects long-term positions during volatility.
Hunting for Blind Spots
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Most clients walk in with a clear agenda. Christine listens to that, but she also pays close attention to what’s missing. Sometimes it’s succession planning that hasn’t even been started. Other times, it’s unspoken assumptions about money that don’t line up across generations. Her focus is on surfacing those gaps early. Instead of waiting for problems to surface later, she works through them upfront, before they become harder to fix.
Her Practice Runs on Referrals
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Some wealth managers rely on marketing practices such as cold calls. On the other hand, Christine has built a $728 million practice almost entirely on word of mouth. This practice is significant since clients don’t refer financial advisors they merely like, but those they trust. When parents have worked with someone for decades and feel valued and well cared for, introducing their children is a logical step for some.
Using Alternatives Where They Make Sense
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Private equity, private credit, and hedge funds aren’t products that Christine adds to portfolios to look sophisticated. Instead, she picks them when the client’s goals and eligibility require them, sitting alongside ETFs and individual equities. The tradeoffs are higher minimums, longer lock-up periods, and reduced liquidity. Christine works closely with Merrill’s CIO office to evaluate when those tradeoffs are worth taking and when they aren’t.
She Leads an All-Women Team Intentionally
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Women make up roughly 28% of the wealth-management workforce in the U.S., according to 2025 industry data, despite increasingly being the primary financial decision-makers in households. Heim leads an all-women team and is deliberate about mentorship. She reasons that when younger women see other women in leadership positions, those careers feel achievable. The industry won’t change without advisors who make a point of building the next generation.
She Doesn’t Avoid the Uncomfortable Conversations
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In many families, succession plans sit untouched, and estate documents go years without review. That’s usually where confusion starts, especially around what the money is actually meant for. Christine brings these topics up even when clients hesitate. From her perspective, most breakdowns in multigenerational wealth aren’t about bad investments. They come from conversations that never happened when there was still time to have them.
Avoiding the All-or-Nothing Thinking
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Big financial decisions sometimes trigger extreme reactions. Clients either want to act immediately or avoid the issue. Christine ideally steers people away from both ends of that spectrum. Her approach is to lay out multiple options, work through the tradeoffs, and move in incremental steps. In multigenerational planning, one wrong decision can take years to undo. Getting it directionally right matters more than getting it perfect immediately.