A return to Oxford University, along with a new role at a think tank for the UHNW family advisory space, excites a wealth management sector figure who has worked in a number of countries.

When senior wealth industry figure Gregg Robins became a Dean’s Fellow at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and joined the UHNW Institute at the same time last October, it was a new chapter for him.

Today, Robins (a Swiss citizen), who founded his eponymous firm Robins Advising in 2019, sees the complex life of UHNW families as needing counsel and friendly guidance. It’s a task he relishes. 

And this child of the Bronx in New York, who rose up the academic ranks to achieve academic success in Oxford, among others (obtaining an M Phil and D Phil degree there as a Marshall Scholar), is keen to end misunderstandings of what wealthy families’ lives are like. 

“There is a misconception from people not in our business, and perhaps from some in it too, that wealthy families and individuals have easier, more pleasurable lives and less to worry about. Nothing could be further from the truth. The human condition affects us all, at different levels of wealth and possibility, and seeing ourselves as simply helping fellow human beings is at the core of why this work is satisfying,” Robins said. 

“The least enjoyable part of the work is in navigating at times unspoken policies and bureaucracies to find information and solutions. This work can be cumbersome, time consuming and frustrating, but is core to the value we add. Anyone who thinks that working with UHNW individuals is about fancy lunches, nice events, private planes, and so on, is simply not aware of what we actually do,” he continued. 

“The central focus is to ensure clients are set up properly to live their lives in the manner they desire. This includes addressing the most critical issues and problems they face, with our byline drawing on the wit of Sir Winston Churchill: 'A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity on every difficulty.’ I have always been an optimist, and I believe deeply in turning adversity to advantage wherever possible,” he said.   

A former head of wealth management for UBS in Russia, and working for Union Bancaire Privée and Citigroup, Robins is an example of what a cosmopolitan industry modern private wealth often is. 

Banking and regulation are major areas of his work. 

“Since I primarily operate in Europe with clients in the Russia and Central European nexus, regulation and banking matters are central to my work – i.e. navigating the best paths for my clients. Unless we get this right, it is impossible to manage assets and business matters purposefully and with focus,” Robins said. 

“Here geopolitics has played a very big role, and I do not think that needs further elaboration. War, sanctions, restrictions, and more create challenges in monitoring and managing situations. While sanctions directly affect a relatively small universe of people, there are many instances where they condition bank and regulator behaviour, and that impacts a much broader universe,” he said. 

Return to the “dreaming spires”
Robins is delighted at being involved with Oxford University again. 

“Being named a Dean’s Fellow is a great honour for me, and I hope to contribute to the students’ learning experience there as I can, and more broadly to the university itself in some way,” Robins said. “With the students, initial plans include mentoring workshops to share my experience and insight of the wealth management world in informal sessions, including Q&As to help students who are considering working in the industry.”

Robins hopes to teach in the business school as he has in others, such as the NYU Stern School of Business in New York, the New Economic School in Moscow, and the Banking & Finance Academy in Uzbekistan, among others.

“I am also engaged in an initiative in intergenerational wealth, looking at how Oxford can make unique contributions in this space,” he said, adding that he has more news to come on this front. 

His other recent gig was becoming a leader’s council member of the UHNW Institute, a think tank with which Family Wealth Report (part of the WealthBriefing family of newswires) is exclusive media partner.

The Institute’s work on building best-practice ideas on how to advise UHNW families impresses Robins. He also understands the value of spreading best-practice ideas around the world. 

“As a member, I seek to learn and share, particularly as my international perspective on the business provides interesting contrasts and areas for discussion and learning. In this sense, collaboration with US-based firms around joint solutions is worthwhile and offers potential,” he said. “Second, I am part of a small working group on bringing the Institute across the ocean to Europe and beyond. There are certainly valuable learnings and resources to share in my home country, Switzerland, and beyond, and, perhaps more importantly, opportunities to create collaborative paths to share and enrich one other through best practices.”

His own firm
Robins’ own business builds upon a network of trusted partners; its core strategic partner is Global Gate Capital, a firm founded in 2013 by Rudy Sayegh and a team of senior bankers. Robins got to know Sayegh and other partners more than five years ago, and said he quickly realised that a partnership made sense. 

“Of course, any business is a group of people, and I have to say that we are a great fit and, importantly, are very complementary and have shared values. Global Gate truly embraces its core values, including integrity, humility (not easy to find), and professionalism, to name a few. They have been terrific partners,” he said. 

In addition, Global Gate advises clients and also coinvests with them, which keeps incentives aligned, Robins said, likening the model to a chef who eats his or her own cooking. “They were willing to expand into markets where they were not present, and I wanted to make sure that my partner of choice had the in-house capabilities to analyse, consolidate and understand complicated multi-asset class portfolios, ranging from very liquid instruments to private debt and private equity placements, and to understand well the interacting of these assets all together,” Robins said. 

“Today we exchange ideas on all kinds of topics, ranging from macro views and portfolio implementation to identifying new axis of development and potential strategic acquisitions,” he said. 

Russia
This publication asked Robins about his time working in Russia. 

“That now seems a long time ago and the world surely looked very different then. UBS is a great platform and market leader, and I learned at UBS about the challenges inherent in marshalling resources of a large organisation to address client needs. Indeed, the transmission mechanism in bringing ideas and solutions to end clients is complex in a large financial institution. Now independent, I continue to work with the UBS platform for clients and find it state of the art.

“At UBS, I learned in working with Russian clients the importance of rigorous and thoughtful KYC preparation, which builds trust and the basis for longstanding client relationships. 

Robins said he enjoys broadening his work into Central Asia, which “resembles Russia in the nineties in terms of the development of the economies”. He has joined the Supervisory Board of the Uzbek Industrial & Construction Bank (SQB), the oldest bank in the country and second largest, which is in the process of being privatised. 

WealthBriefing also asked Robins about his philosophy of advising clients. Robins said his core principles, which fit with the values of Robins Advising, revolve around solving problems for clients; filtering noise; being truthful; involving “excellent people”; understanding clients’ needs, and producing excellent results so that clients can get on with their lives. 

For this still competitive player and fan of tennis and its practitioners such as Rafa Nadal, it appears that after decades of working in the groves of wealth management, Robins is in no mood to walk off the court just yet.