A lifelong learner with an infectious laugh, Melinda Hightower, ’07, heads the multicultural strategic client segment for Swiss investment bank UBS. Based in San Francisco, she is tasked with growing the bank’s US presence among one of the fastest-growing areas of client services: Black, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian and Asian Pacific investors. She’s also recruiting multicultural investment advisers to an industry that’s overwhelmingly white.
Hightower, a Detroit native, likes to challenge herself by pushing herself to do more and by exposing herself to new perspectives. At Cornell University, she lived in the Multicultural Living Learning Unit with students from around the world. At the University of Virginia for law school, she involved herself in the local community, working to ensure ballot access. She learned the wealth management business while at ICONIQ Capital and J.P. Morgan, and now at UBS, she’s forging new perspectives around wealth and success.
“If something gives me pause,” Hightower says of business challenges, “I run toward it.”
There’s a changing face of wealth in this country. We’re trying to understand people’s relationship with money. When we look at multicultural investors, most of them got wealthy by themselves. What were their wealth journeys? Why do they need an adviser? What’s the benefit of a second set of eyes? As we answer those questions, we grow our platform and make the financial-advice industry more inclusive.
The pandemic made it easier to connect with people virtually. I started this role in May 2021. I wasn’t able to travel, so I turned to my call list. I started with 10 folks I wanted to get to know. As I finished a call, I’d ask each to suggest two more people. We’re now back to working in person and traveling again, but I’ve already made so many connections virtually.
Recruiting multicultural advisers is instrumental to our success. Multicultural millionaires want to see diversity on our side. We reach out to midcareer professionals who give advice—accountants and lawyers who might want a change. We say that being an adviser is like being an entrepreneur within a big corporation. You don’t have to go it alone, but you do have to have an independent drive. I’m always looking at multiple pipelines—it takes time to foster change, and I’m impatient.