Q&A with Amy du Pon

LivingWell is our model for the wealth advisor community to realize performance growth, both in assets under management (AUM) and impact. It is our model for determining all aspects of an individual’s life, their decision-making motivations and influences, and incorporating this into their financial planning for optimal returns. With the potential for wider application, we plan to bring a greater consciousness to the daily decisions we make and the impact they have around us.

Our model takes a holistic view on well-being factors that influence our legacy aspirations, financial needs, planning and decision-making. Our data and analytics uncovers end clients’ investing DNA’s, incorporating values and passions, risk, reward and resilience quotients, and wealth resources realities, helping to open-up investing options. These investing options are ones that allow for the connection of the ‘heart, mind and wallet’.

Our model application tools are tailored to enable and scale advisor and client adoption of this enhanced service and experiences, ultimately co-creating a newer investment approach that connects individual’s passions and values with impact performance, (inclusive of Socially Responsible Investing, Economic Social Governance and Social Impact investing).

The growing global challenges of the well-being of all people, the planet and business are ever present in our lives. The underserved are mostly being put at an increasing disadvantage. With greater life expectancy, changing working patterns, shifting expectations and lifestyle behaviors, and a growing sense of responsibility - at least for those close to us- our financial needs are shifting too.

The high-net-worth and everyday citizen alike, are being lured into the successful start-up culture and growing social entrepreneurial investing opportunities. Millennia's and beyond - whom are approaching the inheritance life stage, expect entities to do good and reward those that who do behave in this way.

Like all industries, disrupter offerings are coming to the financial market to overcome the growing commoditization. We believe that business growth today, delivers on a customer need which is built on the foundation of purpose and profit. And that more conscious decision-making can help to solve for the challenges at hand and realized comparable or greater returns.

According to The Global Sustainable Investment Review, sustainable assets grew 61% from 2012 to 2014 to reach $21.4 trillion, which clearly reinforces the great size of the opportunity in this industry.

Darby is a financial marketing, CSR, ESG and impact investing guru and the founder of SOCIAL3® which focuses on fusing brand and sustainability principles for asset growth.

As for me, I am an innovative marketing strategist, formerly head of Havas’s Meaningful Brands™ practice and the founder of AcoViethat focuses on helping organizations grow with experiences that matter.

We have a shared passion in creating positive change, along with a shared belief in connecting profit and purpose, and that the financial system today is both a key challenge and opportunity to unlock. Together we have co-designed new value propositions that have strengthened the value exchange between stakeholders, evolved brand positioning, offerings and storylines, and shaped services for wealth advisors, broker-dealers and asset managers alike.

Building on the latest well-being and impact thinking from the likes of the UN PRI, GIIN & Tonic, IRIS, SASB, B-Lab and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we go beyond just financial well-being to consider emotional, intellectual, environmental, physical, relational and spiritual aspects that influence our decision-making.

With exercises that help to frame legacy desires within a context of LivingWell, to diving deeper to uncovering investing DNA’s and iterations through time, this opens-up values based investing pathways.

This also naturally leads to exploration of different forms of advisor and client interactions - from the role that newer technologies can play in sharing and discussing regular performance reports, market news, educational guides, impact performance, relevant value-add lifestyle content, to in-person experiences and more.

And, as we know, stronger client-advisor relationships lead to greater performance, trust, loyalty and lifetime value.

US SIF reports that for every Asset Under Management dollar invested in creating net positive impact through SRI and equivalents, five dollars are invested in neutral or negative impacts in the US. We believe SRI, ESG and impact investing should be better balanced to yield net positive impact, where incorporating negative screenings, positive behavior screenings, and social good or purpose led programs are part of a balanced portfolio requirement.

We expect by working together and empowering advisory groups to further differentiate and grow their business through models of LivingWell we can scale and accelerate impact investing, and subsequently create a more virtuous cycle of capital formation. And by connecting more individuals’ heart, mind and wallets’ we hope to shift attitudes to enable more conscious decision-making, both in our financial decisions and beyond.