Young advisors today have very different attitudes about money, just like their clients do.
COVER STORY
2026
Young Advisors To Watch
Young advisors today have very different attitudes about money, just like their clients do.
By Eric Rasmussen and FA Staff
IT COULD BE SAID THAT EVERY GENERATION HAS ITS own relationship with money. The frugal instincts of the Silent Generation who grew up amid Depression likely clash with newer generations who don’ t carry cash on them— because why would you? Those who grew up in the 2010s had almost forgotten what inflation was— until the problem flared up again with a vengeance in 2022. Many young adults today may view homeownership is unattainable, but those with imagination turn to strategies such as“ house hacking”( renting rooms to others) to make a purchase more affordable.
Changing attitudes toward money will likely churn out different kinds of financial planners, with attitudes reflecting a changing culture. In the past, a person’ s life, when directed toward retirement, required certain kinds of behavior. But as Financial Advisor magazine’ s“ Young Advisors to Watch” feature has revealed in the last 10 years, younger people don’ t necessarily want to work continuously into their 60s. They might want to take gap years. Or work from home. Or pick up a new career. They want their work to fit in with their lifestyles, not the other way around.
Another thing the“ Young Advisors” feature has found is that there is no one path into this industry. While some people indeed started their careers at brokerages, others are coming straight out of dedicated university advisory programs with a certain amount of idealism. For some people, it’ s a second career. For others, it grew organically out of another thing they were doing. More than once
in our reporting, we’ ve found people who started out in other fields but then discovered they had a knack for planning for themselves and others. They didn’ t choose planning. It chose them.
One of the advisors on the 2026 list, Lillian Turner of Daring Greatly Wealth, says the days of heavily focusing on portfolio returns are over. Up-and-coming clients, heirs of the great wealth transfer,“ want education, they want autonomy, they want transparency on fees, and they want more of a holistic coaching approach.”
And next-gen advisors are the ones creating these new service models, Turner says. Furthermore, they are marketing in creative ways.“ They are coming up with really cool AI software, AI tax planning, AI financial planning and really cool fintech that a lot of advisors are involved in. I really think it’ s ushering us into a new era of financial planning.”
What else are young advisors up to? Cerulli Associates says they are more likely to outsource things like portfolio construction and keep head counts leaner while they build their business and focus on client-facing meetings. And as BlackRock recently reported, 23 % of Gen Z adults said they’ d likely dismiss an advisor out of hand if that person weren’ t on social media. And consider that most people get their financial advisor from YouTube.
So in an age when“ finfluencers,” many of them with questionable ideas and strategies, threaten to drown out the measured voices of trained professionals, it’ s now more important than ever that young advisors emerge— and that they speak with a strong voice.
MAY / JUNE 2026 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 35