Raquel Santos Silva started out as an investment banker but was drawn to wealth management because it allowed her to combine her interest in financial markets with her desire to work with people. Portuguese-born, she has worked at Morgan Stanley in London and Santander in Lisbon, and did an MBA at Columbia before joining Goldman Sachs, where her job combined investment banking and wealth management. She graduated to pure wealth management in 2013 when she joined Pictet in London, where she has responsibility for European coverage and international clients.
‘A good wealth manager needs to be solutions-driven, not product-driven,’ she says. Most
of the Swiss bank’s clients have complex multi-dimensional structures and varying demands when it comes to risk, investment style and level of contact. One thing all Santos Silva’s clients have in common, however, is that they ‘want sophisticated, tactical ideas’.
One challenge at the moment is the search for yield in a market where fixed income doesn’t yield as much as it once did. Pictet has it covered: ‘We’re big custodians
in that aspect. We look at the clients’ overall wealth and try to diversify and provide solutions.’