Interview: Citi’s Andrew James on private markets, portfolio resilience and long-term wealth creation

Wealth management demand is shifting as senior professionals seek clearer financial planning, cross-border advice and more efficient access to private markets, while navigating inflation, geopolitical risk and rapid technological change. Citi believes this is making disciplined allocation, portfolio resilience and advice-led relationships more valuable than traditional product-led models.

In this interview, Andrew James, managing director and head of Citi Global Wealth at Work International, discusses Citi’s corporate-led, no-minimum approach, growth in London and Luxembourg, and how the business is positioning clients for long-term wealth creation amid market uncertainty and the rise of AI.

PBI: How does Citi Global Wealth at Work differ from Citi’s broader wealth management business, and what is the minimum investment size required for its clients?

Andrew James: The key differentiator for Wealth at Work from the broader Citi Wealth’s businesses is its business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model. Other Citi Wealth businesses operate on a direct-to-consumer model.

Our team engages at both the corporate and individual level with client firms to provide solutions for their employees and their business.

Core to this approach is our industry specialisation. Wealth at Work bankers are organized by teams across five different industry verticals.

Crucially, unlike other names in the market, we do not have a minimum investment requirement. Because our relationships start at the corporate level, we are able to extend our wealth management services to a broad range of a firm’s employees.

PBI: You oversee the business in both London and Luxembourg — what has growth looked like there, and what’s been driving that momentum?

Andrew James: We have seen promising growth across the region over the last few years, Luxembourg, has delivered significant and sustained growth over the last three years. A key driver of this momentum is our advice-led model, which sets us apart in what can be considered a highly fractured market.

Our clients can benefit from utilising the same sophisticated platform as our family office clients within the private bank. This is complemented by our ability to service our global client base seamlessly across the EEA, UK and the US through a single, integrated wealth business.

PBI: What key changes have you noticed among senior professionals regarding how they manage their wealth?

Andrew James: Time has become an ever-more valuable commodity, commensurate with the increase in compensation in many of the sectors we cover. As a result, our clients need clear, focused advice that cuts through the noise in the market.

Financial planning has become a central tenet in this regard, providing the framework for building a long-term, multi-generational strategy.

Additionally, as employee compensation has grown, so has the need for a more sophisticated, multi-asset class approach to investing.

PBI: What new product capabilities or private market vehicles is your team launching for cross-border, time-poor professionals?

Andrew James: There’s no single product that fits every client’s needs – particularly in private markets, where manager selection and rigorous due diligence are the key drivers of success.

For cross border, time poor professionals and suitable clients, we are increasingly focused on delivering curated and diversified fund of funds solutions, which seek to provide efficient access to private equity while reducing the complexity of manager selection and execution.

For those qualified clients, we also emphasise planning the allocation in advance, pacing commitments over time to ensure diversification across vintages and strategies.

PBI: How are you advising clients on capital preservation amid current global conflicts, such as the US-Iran war?

Andrew James: During periods of geopolitical conflict, we advise clients to maintain discipline in the face of uncertainty, understand market and portfolio risks and focus on the resilience of their portfolio.

It is important to reframe the concept of ‘capital preservation.’ Holding excess cash may feel safe, but it often erodes real returns over time due to inflation. We believe staying invested through a balanced approach is one way to reach this goal.

PBI: As AI reshapes wealth creation, which asset classes or investment themes do you believe will be most compelling over the next five years?

Andrew James: As AI reshapes the global economy, I believe it’s important to shift the conversation away from simply picking the “right sector or geography.”  Today, neither diversification nor alpha is reliably achieved through static allocation alone. Instead, success increasingly may depend on a dynamic investment process and the ability to identify and potentially capture long term mega trends, with AI being one of the most powerful engines of future growth.

In line with Citi’s latest views, the key is not to over rotate portfolios based on narratives, but to remain disciplined while positioning for structural drivers such as technological innovation and productivity gains.

AI will be a defining force of wealth creation over the next decade, but capturing its benefits requires investors to look beyond traditional frameworks, embrace private markets, be aware of risks and maintain a disciplined yet forward looking allocation strategy.

PBI: Conversely, which sectors are you currently advising clients to avoid or reduce exposure to?

Andrew James: We’re not making broad “avoid” calls, but we are advising clients to reduce exposure where risk reward looks stretched. That means being cautious on lower quality, highly leveraged businesses, particularly in credit, and avoiding overcrowded, narrative driven trades where valuations have run ahead of fundamentals.

We’re also less constructive on long duration assets given ongoing inflation and rate uncertainty.

PBI: Which sectors do you expect to generate the next wave of affluent and high-net-worth clients?

Andrew James: I don’t think the next wave of affluent and high-net-worth clients will come from a single sector like technology or finance. Instead, it will come from companies and entrepreneurs that successfully harness new technologies, like AI, within their ecosystems. What matters is not the industry itself, but the ability to create a sustainable, competitive advantage using technology to improve efficiency, accelerate profitability, and capture market share. That’s where we’ll see disproportionate wealth creation.