Jim Grubman

Dr. Jim Grubman has provided services to individuals, couples, and families of wealth for over 30 years. His work with clients at many levels of affluence - from the “millionaire next door” to The Forbes 400 - has earned him a reputation as a valued family advisor. Jim often is consulted in situations of complexity where psychology, law, finance, medicine and business all come into play to varying degrees. He draws on his experience as a psychologist, neuropsychologist, and family business consultant with specialty interests in trusts and estate law, family governance, and wealth psychology.

Jim brings his deep knowledge of the client's perspective to his work with single and multi-family offices, Top 100 wealth management firms, attorneys, and other advisors. He has coached hundreds of advisors on the core competencies needed to foster exceptional client relationships. His practical approach emphasizes collaboration, empathy, and efficiency.

Jim is the author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations and co-author with Dennis Jaffe, PhD of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations, ground-breaking explanations of how individuals and families can adjust to wealth effectively. His work has been discussed in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, CNBC, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Private Wealth magazine. He has published widely in the Journal of Wealth Management, Journal of Financial Planning, Financial Advisor, and many other media.

A dynamic sought-after speaker, Jim has presented at national and international conferences concerning wealth, family dynamics, estate planning, and family governance. He has presented at the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning of the University of Miami School of Law, TIGER21, the Institute for Private Investors, and the Family Firm Institute, among many others. He is a collaborator on the Hundred Year Family Enterprise Project for Wise Counsel Research Associates, studying the practices of global families who have successfully made transitions through at least three generations. He also served as academic director for the Cultivating Your Family Legacy series within the Family Legacy and Wealth Program at the John Molson Executive Centre of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, as well as a similar program in development at Queens University in Kingston, ON, Canada.

Activities in Advisor Training and Education

Jim has provided advisor education and training resources for the online educational services of State Street Global Advisors in addition to webinars for organizations such as Fidelity Family Office Services and the Family Office Exchange. As a faculty member of the McCallum Graduate School of Business at Bentley University (2004 - 2008), Jim developed and taught the first graduate-level-only course in the United States about the psychological aspects of financial advising. He was a faculty member and Subject Matter Expert for the Certified Private Wealth Advisor (CPWA) program of the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) in conjunction with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He helped design the Family Dynamics and Legacy Planning section for the CPWA credential.

Professional Affiliations

Jim is a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute where he holds the Advanced Certificate in Family Wealth Advising and the Certificate in Family Business Advising. He also holds Fellow status in the Purposeful Planning Institute, a professional organization emphasizing integrated approaches to estate planning and wealth management. He has been a full member of the Boston Estate Planning Council and is one of the few psychologists among nearly 20,000 members in the internationally-based Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). As a former member of the National Academy of Neuropsychology, he maintains a specialty interest in consulting to families of wealth with ADHD and other learning and cognitive disorders.