The Great Wealth Transfer won’t change finance on its own, but wealth owners can

We are living through what many call the “Great Wealth Transfer”— a historic shift of capital into new hands, including a significant rise in women as wealth owners and decision-makers.

Over the next two decades, over $80 trillion in assets globally will be passed down from the Silent Generation and baby boomers to their families and loved ones. Those in receipt of that capital are likely to be more diverse in terms of gender than any wealth-inheriting generation that came before them. Women, notably, will inherit significant sums of wealth.

On paper, it sounds transformative. But a deeper question lingers: will new ownership actually change how capital is allocated, or simply reproduce the same systems with different faces?

Recently, the Global Future Council for Investing In Gender Parity hosted a discussion among investors, historians and practitioners to explore exactly this tension. What emerged was a nuanced—and at times uncomfortable—truth: change is possible, but it’s certainly not guaranteed.

To understand systems of power and influence today, one must necessarily reflect on how these have become entrenched over time.

Historian Mary Bridges draws on early 20th-century banking to examine how new entrants in financial systems have transformed — and been transformed by — legacy regimes.

When US banks expanded overseas in the early 1900s, they did not invent new systems from scratch: they copied what existed. American bank executives sent trainees to London, they hired British managers and they even adopted British penmanship so their branches' ledgers would be legible to their counterparts and competitors. Legacy systems were absorbed — often unquestioningly.

The lesson is clear: new entrants often inherit old structures that are “sticky”. Because of this, simply changing who sits at the top doesn’t automatically reshape the underlying architecture.

All of this is relevant to today and to the great wealth transfer. Capital might be shifting to women, and if wealth owners and industry providers choose to do things a little differently, capital allocation can become more innovative.

So where do we begin to catalyze change?

The short answer is that it has to happen in many different places. Family offices can be one vehicle for driving this evolution, but it’s complicated.

Much wealth resides in family offices and women’s power, presence and influence is growing in this space too. More than during previous generations, they’re sitting on boards, joining investment committees and participating in decision-making processes.

However, being at the table is only the first step. As Salma Al Rashid, Chief Investment Officer and Board Member at Rashid S. Alrashid & Sons, put it: “Sitting in the room is one thing. Having the final say is something else entirely.”

What’s also important to understand is that in many organizations, but particularly in family offices, the decisions made are shaped not only by formal governance, but also by what happens outside of the board room: by relationships, trust, instincts and unwritten rules. Key decisions can and have come out of private gatherings, social spaces, serendipitous exchanges and chance encounters. These are spaces where knowledge is transmitted, ideas are crafted and where trust is built.

These informal networks certainly present a challenge. But the good news is that they also hold opportunities.

It may take more time to change informal networks than formal ones, but it can be done. And once norms begin to shift — once cultures are altered and once new patterns of behaviour are established — informal power networks can become powerful engines of progress.

The world of finance is as much about relationships as it is about capital, which means that when these underlying forces change, the whole landscape can shift.

In terms of exactly how women entering family offices and the world of finance can begin to effect this change, there are different theories.

Some practitioners point to the importance of coalition-building — working with, rather than against, existing power structures. This includes engaging male counterparts as partners in change. In many contexts, particularly where networks remain male-dominated, this kind of allyship is not optional; it is essential.

At the same time, there is a growing recognition that simply replicating existing networks in parallel — creating separate spaces for women — may not be sufficient. Integration, rather than isolation, appears to be the more effective path, even if it is the more complex one.

Either way, it’s essential that we move beyond the assumption that change will happen organically.

The Great Wealth Transfer may alter who holds capital, but it does not, on its own, alter how that capital is deployed. That shift requires intention — an active willingness to question inherited norms, to engage with the systems that exist, and to reshape them over time. If this moment is to be truly transformative, it will not be because ownership has changed, but because those who inherit it choose to use it differently.