Waterfield Advisors founder Soumya Rajan on how true wealth management transcends investment strategy

Wealth management is often reduced to simply choosing the right financial products for a portfolio and tracking short-term returns. But, true advisory extends far deeper into family governance, legacy stewardship and long-term values. This core philosophy took centre stage in the latest episode of Let’s Mint Money, brought to you by Waterfield Advisors and Mint, where Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors, spoke to Neil Borate, Editor-in-Chief of thefynprint, about the changing needs of wealth creators across India.

Rajan reflected on her personal journey from her early corporate banking days in Mumbai during the 1990s IPO boom to founding Waterfield Advisors in 2011. She spoke about how a wealth advisor’s mandate goes well beyond numerical returns. It lies in helping families take complex life decisions and make generational transitions that surround their capital.

“Wealth management unfortunately so often gets equated just to investment management, but as an adviser, you are playing a much larger role. It is not always about investments. It is about governance structures, stewardship, family values, creating an identity and solving everything around money,” she said.

The primacy of asset allocation over product chasing

While governance and stewardship provide the structural foundation for wealth preservation, achieving sustained long-term returns requires rigorous investment discipline. Talking about current market dynamics, where a stellar multi-year bull run has transitioned into a period of market consolidation, Rajan said that many investors make the mistake of chasing trending products rather than building a balanced and resilient portfolio.

According to Rajan, asset allocation remains the single biggest driver of portfolio performance, especially during periods of market stagnation or macro volatility. Balancing traditional equities with commodities like gold or silver, alongside Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), can protect capital when broader equity markets don’t perform as expected.

“A lot of people chase after products, but ultimately what actually drives the return is the asset allocation. As an adviser, you have to stick to your guns and bring conviction, handholding the client through what otherwise may seem counterintuitive,” she said, highlighting how Waterfield has done just that in the recent past.

Expanding horizons by spreading across geographies

To help families preserve capital against domestic drawdowns and inflation, she said Waterfield Advisors recommends purposeful global diversification and deliberate exposure to alternative asset classes.

Expanding allocations beyond the Indian market can help bring down home-country bias. It can also provide direct exposure to global megatrends that are less accessible domestically, such as AI hardware, robotics and advanced energy transition technologies. Investors can execute this through the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) or Overseas Portfolio Investment (OPI) routes via GIFT City, targeting established US, Japanese and other east Asian equity markets.

To bridge the global gap, Waterfield’s strategic partnership with US-based Zephyr Management offers tailored international strategies that combine core global equity allocations with targeted exposures to international megatrends.

In the alternatives space, she said private credit offers a flexible structure for income-focused portfolios by providing a spectrum of predictable yields based on risk tolerance. Performing credit typically targets yields between 12-15%, while distressed credit opportunities can deliver returns upwards of 18-20%.

For long-term equity growth, private equity and venture capital allow high-net-worth investors to capture early-stage enterprise growth before companies enter the public domain. Participating through co-investment structures is particularly effective here, as it allows smaller investors to leverage the institutional due diligence, seat governance and exit protections negotiated by primary funds.

Domestic resilience and the financialisation of savings

Addressing the recent exit of Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) from the Indian market, Rajan attributed the capital rotation largely to global AI momentum and index reweighting toward markets like Taiwan and South Korea.

Despite global uncertainties and short-term earnings pressure from elevated commodity costs, Rajan remains confident in India’s structural trajectory. Driven by growing consumer aspirations across tier-two and tier-three cities, domestic demand continues to anchor economic momentum. Coupled with steady monthly systematic investment plan (SIP) flows exceeding $3 billion and an expanding mutual fund ecosystem, Indian households are rapidly advancing the financialisation of their savings.

“We are seeing a generational shift where domestic capital is anchoring the market through steady SIP flows. For wealth creators, combining this domestic resilience with global diversification and sound family governance creates a clear blueprint for long-term legacy,” she further added.