Transcript
The Brief Interviewer (00:18.53)
Welcome everyone to a special episode of The Brief. The following interview with Ram Ahluwalia of Lumida Wealth was filmed live at our invitation-only Olivon Advisors Spring 2025 conference in Austin, Texas. Let’s get started. Ram, what inspired you to launch Lumida Wealth?
Ram Ahluwalia (00:40)
My entire career, I built businesses and I’ve done investing. I get to do both. And I had a lived experience as an exited founder. I looked around for wealth managers. They didn’t have alternative investments. They don’t have a digitally native approach where I can see all my assets in one area. They didn’t care about performance. And I thought that could be a better way.
The Brief Interviewer (00:58)
Talk to us about your vision for wealth management in the future.
Ram Ahluwalia (01:04)
Well, wealth management is at the precipice of a lot of transformation. So the legacy wealth management, they entertain clients with the US Open meeting, they do 60-40 investing, and they’re stuck in the past. The future wealth management is digitally native. That means meeting clients where they are in their channel of choice. That can be on social media, that can be through a digital avatar. And it also means a broader scope of investments that are non-consensus, more original, play a different role in the portfolio, and integrating that holistically with trust tax and estate planning.
The Brief Interviewer (01:41)
How do you see AI Agents allowing you to scale Lumida Wealth?
Ram Ahluwalia (01:46)
So wealth management today is based on an army of financial advisors and client service reps that are engaging with transactions and periodic updates with clients. In the future, you can have AI avatars that are always on, on demand, and can calibrate how they communicate with their clientele. So the next Merrill Lynch, the next JP Morgan can be built with AI technology, meeting the client where they are and delivering the service that the client wants when they want it.
The Brief Interviewer (02:16.272)
Your growth AUM is at a very impressive pace. What attracts high net worth investors to your platform?
Ram Ahluwalia (02:26)
I think a direct authentic voice on social media is what people find relatable. They want to hear a perspective and I’m very consistent with that. I share my views. I’m regular around that. And I think that’s it.
The Brief Interviewer (02:44)
Where do you see the best opportunities in today’s market?
Ram Ahluwalia (02:49)
I think what worked in the last 10 years won’t work in the next 10 years because the big macro dynamics are going in the other direction. We’re going from fiscal dominance to cutting the deficit. We’re going from ultra-low interest rates to higher for longer rates and elevated inflation. We’re going from geopolitical stability to geopolitical uncertainty. So what worked in the last 10 years was high-flying growth stocks, unprofitable technology. I think going forward, it’s going to be free cash flow, things with buyback yield, real sustainable business models, attractive valuations, quality, but at a reasonable price.
The Brief Interviewer (03:33)
Where do you see Lumina Wealth 12 months from now?
Ram Ahluwalia (03:37)
I think 12 months from now, we’re doubled or tripled our AUM. I think we’ll have the AI avatars running. We’ll have far more content creation. We will be investing in community in real life. We have a digital community today. We think it’s important to bring that together in a conference and I expect it’ll be doing more of what is working. So, amplify what’s working.
The Brief Interviewer (04:09.721)
Thank you for joining us here at The Brief by Olivon Advisors. For more information on our presenters, please visit olivonadvisors.com/companies. Want to join our mailing list? You can by signing up at olivonadvisors.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Brief.
