The real value of wealth for women

I recently attended the JSE SheInvests conference, one of the largest gatherings of women on the African continent to discuss investing. The event has grown rapidly over the last few years, with this year's attendance topping 1,200. What struck me most, though, wasn't the size of the event but the 'temperature'. I saw women at their best, vibrant, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, leaning in, and engaging throughout the day, taking themselves and their finances seriously.

A figure that's quoted often these days is the forecast that approximately 50% of the world's private wealth will be in the hands of women within the next decade, and I heard it again at the conference.

What I think is less understood is what it will mean in practice, not for balance sheets, but for how we will want to be advised, and how we will make decisions about our money.

The dialogue on the day didn't centre on returns, or portfolio construction, or the market cycle. The energy was somewhere else entirely; it was in the values and the purpose behind the money.

The information we have says the same thing. Approximately 19,000 of our clients at Investec Wealth & Investment International are women, many of whom have careers in finance, accounting, business, administration, healthcare, and executive leadership. There is also a percentage of women who have inherited wealth.

Our business has seen a substantial increase in new clients over the last year, with women accounting for roughly 70% of them. Most of this is in the form of annuity income, in other words, invested in our longer-term funds and mandates, including offshore mandates. This tells us that women are in it for the long term and that we are also dealing with women who think globally. We are also seeing a shift in the demographic make-up of our female clients, with an increasing representation of women under 40.

Our numbers also show a significant and growing share of the women we advise are financially confident, know what they want from their wealth, and would like to be spoken to as partners in the conversation.

Single women are now the largest group of entry-level property buyers in South Africa, ahead of couples and men. Women are not only inheriting wealth but also making it, and both stories deserve to be told, equally loudly.

The evolving language of investing

Research in the US suggests that women who inherit are more likely to fire their advisers, and it is seldom about performance. I suspect this will happen more and more in the future, as clients use artificial intelligence tools to evaluate their wealth managers.

Our own work on this front shows that:

• Women prefer a collaborative approach to a top-down one, it's about the why and the how.
• Women want wealth that aligns with their needs, goals, and values.
• Women respond well to being actively listened to and heard back.

One of our clients recently sent me a note that summarises this beautifully.

Wealth, she wrote, has never only been about money. It's about access, freedom, health, legacy, influence, networks and, in the end, the quality of a life. Women, she said, tend to treat money as an instrument for security, for family, for impact and for building something around them. She noticed something broader, too: the drift of investment and consumer behaviour towards wellbeing, longevity, experience and community. For me, she describes a woman who has stopped thinking of wealth as a transaction.

These are the conversations we're having. We talk about planning, education, family structuring, global exposure and positioning for a future connected to what money means to each of us.

Community and reshaping the culture of wealth

There is value, too, in creating a network, where an introduction becomes a partnership, an investment and a deal. The community itself becomes a form of wealth creation. This generation of women is not trying to be part of an existing culture of wealth. What we have in common is that we sit exactly where the professional, the cultural and the personal meet.

Women look to share generously because access is worth more than another product launch. Solutions should not only be financial, because education, family structuring, health, career and community are all part of the same picture.

The most resonant theme at SheInvests, and the one we hear most often, is connection. Women want other women in the room; they want to learn from what others have already experienced, and they want to build their financial lives with people they trust.

All of it still comes back to wealth, only held up to a different light. The institutions that lead will be those that understand that wealth today is experiential, relational, global, and bound up with identity and the quality of life. That's the conversation I would like us to be known for.