The George Washington Bridge looks empty from my New Jersey apartment window. I’ve watched as traffic on the busiest bridge in the United States, which links New York City and New Jersey, has slowed to a trickle.
It’s only been a month since New Yorkers were told to stay home to avoid spreading coronavirus, turning all our plans for 2020 on their heads.
But warning signs were there from the beginning of the year. Along with many friends in the wealth management community, I was drinking champagne at the Palais Brongniart during the Paris Fintech Forum in January. For the past 12 years, I have run a global marketing firm that works with wealth management, banking and insurance companies. For the second year in a row, I was the chair of the Wealth Tech track at the conference.
Mingling with the fintech fraternity, while scheming to arrange a brief shopping sojourn at the Galerie Lafayette, I was in my element: my hair was highlighted, cut and blown perfectly, my nails polished red and my heels high.
Just weeks earlier, China’s government had identified what we now call Covid-19 in the Wuhan Province. But the World Health Organization hadn’t yet declared the virus a global health emergency.
Like many in the wealth management community, I am a frequent visitor to China, where my son studied and have shopped at the now notorious ‘wet markets’ for cooking ingredients.
February took me to Florida for a banking and securities summit, where we jokingly elbow-bumped at networking and cocktail sessions and sunbathed on the beach in between.
It wasn’t until March that things began to feel real here in New York state after the first case of coronavirus was confirmed. But even then, both our mayor and governor were urging us to go about our normal daily lives.
The new reality finally began to sink in over lunch at The Palm, an iconic Manhattan steakhouse, with the product manager of a household-name global investment firm. The plan was for me to help them launch a new retirement product. We normally hug and kiss in greeting. This time we kept our distance and smiled. I noticed the ladies’ room door was propped open, to avoid diners touching it.
During our discussion of how growing market volatility would affect long-term investments, I couldn’t help but notice how this normally bustling eatery was ominously quiet. I now lovingly refer to that luncheon as “the last supper”, because New York’s lockdown was only days away.
First, big banks asked employees to work from home. Large gatherings were cancelled and some schools closed. Broadway theatres were shut down, before bars, restaurants and gyms followed. Shoppers started buying up canned goods and toilet paper from their local grocery stores.
Not so United States
Responses across the US have shown us that our 50 states are not as united as we have been led to believe. Each has their own separate government, competing with neighbours for medical supplies like ventilators and driving up prices. Many of our hospital and healthcare systems have been privatised, meaning they, too, are competing for resources.
Now most of the population is working remotely, joining me in the way I have operated for the past 12 years, running my company from home and using the gig economy to hire people around the world to create marketing programmes and content for global brands. I have helped neighbours and colleagues adopt platforms and workflows to adjust to the fast digitising economy.
While some firms are still trying to figure out how to use Zoom, others are attempting to locate clients, many of whom left the city for more pastoral locales. Anyone can be a good adviser when markets are doing well. But this crisis or ‘Black Swan’ moment has created a real opportunity for client-facing wealth managers, family offices and private bankers to strengthen relationships and get closer to clients.
It will put client experience into sharp focus, with ‘advisers’ expected to hold much more holistic conversations, well beyond mere money management and investment returns. Financial services firms must think more deeply about how they deliver service and turn this unique #WFH crisis into a real opportunity.
They can observe clients’ emotions and buying behaviours in the real economy for clues on how to proceed. My Amazon search history says everything about how times have changed: just months ago I was searching for pantyhose, mascara and a new lipstick. Now I’m looking for face masks, Lysol, disposable gloves and thermometers.
Don’t worry, though. New Yorkers – and us Jersey girls - can still eat at The Palm. They do takeout and delivery now.
April Rudin is founder and CEO of the Rudin Group
