A Family Office for the "mMillionaire" Family

Dave Root recalls the launch of what D.B. Root & Co. calls "the Family Office for the mMillionaire" as the result of an analysis of just who the firm was serving. "Looking at our clients, we were looking at people who are what you would describe as middle class. But when you looked at their net worth and their financial picture they were well into that millionaire class status. Their lifestyle and their upbringing were pretty well rooted in the middle class, sharing the same values–hard work, all the things that their parents and grandparents had embedded in them. We felt that identifying our target market with a single phrase or word would help define for us who our clients are; we came up with the term mMillionaire."

Kuntz adds that the needs of these clients are different than those of individuals who were born into wealth. "The concept behind our family-office services for the mMillionaire is that we truly felt that these people needed to have similar services that the ultra-wealthy have," she says. "A family that has $100 million, they're getting the appropriate attention with all the aspects of their finances from legal to accounting to insurance to estate planning." But Kuntz argues that "We feel that this segment of the population needs attention in all of these areas" as well.