The investor profile is shifting. A growing population of business owners is entering the mid-tier millionaire category, creating significant demand for personalized, institutionally built portfolios that can be delivered at scale. Many traditional TAMPs offer some version of investment support, but advisors are increasingly looking for a partner that can provide both a comprehensive technology platform and access to the kinds of services required to serve wealthy, sophisticated clients.
In an interview with The Wealth Advisor’s Scott Martin, Michael Featherman, Head of Advisor Sales and Wealth Consulting at Envestnet, discussed how the firm is evolving to meet the changing needs of financial professionals, especially those targeting clients in the $5 million to $30 million range. “Everyone’s going up into high net worth, but then you need scale,” Featherman says. “Those two things kind of conflict. So how do you accomplish that? We’re doing that through technology. We call it personalization at scale.”
Serving the Mid-Tier Millionaire: A Clear Gap in the Market
The $5 million to $30 million investor—what Envestnet calls the “mid-tier millionaire”—is often overlooked by advisors who are either focused on mass-affluent households or aiming for ultra-high-net-worth clients. Yet investors in that wealth bracket represent a substantial opportunity.
“That person is typically a business owner. [They’ve] owned businesses, sold the business. That’s how you likely get to be someone that may have a $20 million household,” Featherman explains. “That happens to be the most underserved segment.”
The key challenge is that individuals in this asset range don’t just want a diversified portfolio. They expect institutional-level portfolio construction; robust risk management; and support across estate planning, tax strategies, insurance, and access to private investments. Meeting those expectations requires a sophisticated platform and a clear division of labor.
“You have to help the advisor understand, let’s outsource investment management. That takes an enormous amount of time,” Featherman says. “I’ve got 150 folks that work with me at Envestnet on the investment management side—very capable, very driven people to help us build great portfolios. What we can give that advisor is time because it takes an enormous amount of capital and time to do it right.”
The combination of institutional quality and operational leverage is what distinguishes Envestnet—through not only its in-house investment resources but also strategic partnerships with providers such as BlackRock, Clark Capital, and Frontier. By removing the time burden of portfolio management, advisors can shift their energy toward high-value conversations about tax planning, wealth transfer, private markets, or whatever is of highest concern to the client.
Building a Digital Family Office Experience
As more business owners experience liquidity events, they often look for options historically reserved for billion-dollar family offices. Advisors who can deliver that level of capabilities—without the infrastructure of a multi-billion-dollar firm—stand to potentially benefit immensely.
“We’re trying to push the service side of the platform,” Featherman says. “You can create some of the other services that those [family office] folks need, and I think that’s a digital multifamily office kind of experience.”
Envestnet is actively building that experience into its unified managed household (UMH) framework. By layering UMH capabilities over its unified managed account (UMA) structure, the platform allows for asset location preferences and a full menu of alternative investments—including private equity, private credit, real estate, hedge funds, and interval funds—all embedded within a single account infrastructure.
Advisors working with clients who demand both efficiency and access to private markets benefit from tools that make integration seamless. “If you can get it inside of a UMA sleeve, which we’re going to have soon, that makes it so much easier for everyone,” Featherman says.
Interval Funds: A Practical Gateway to Private Markets
Although many clients are interested in alternative assets, illiquidity remains a concern—particularly for those unfamiliar with the commitment structures of traditional limited partnerships. Envestnet addresses investor hesitation around illiquidity by offering interval funds that provide a more accessible entry point into private markets.
“It’s like a commingled fund that you enter like a mutual fund or ETF, but it has a gated exit,” says Featherman. “It still gives the portfolio manager the ability to manage the portfolio through volatility.”
The interval fund structure aims to enable wealth managers to access the illiquidity premium of private investments without locking up capital for seven or more years. More importantly, it integrates directly into the advisor’s UMA strategy, reducing operational complexity and supporting more scalable client service.
By simplifying access to alternatives and embedding them within a familiar account structure, Envestnet seeks to help advisors offer sophisticated portfolio solutions while maintaining flexibility and liquidity where needed.
Targeting the Millionaire Next Door
Envestnet’s platform also supports advisors working with the next tier down—clients with $1 million to $5 million in investable assets. While not as complex as those of the mid-tier millionaires, these households still benefit from upgraded portfolio management, tax optimization, and diversification beyond domestic equities.
“These folks grew up on co-mingled funds,” Featherman says. “They just need to move into separate account equity, maybe a municipal bond customized portfolio, tax optimization. That’s a dramatic improvement from where they did it themselves.”
The hurdle lies in motivating affluent DIY investors to seek professional advice. Many have grown wealth by investing in low-cost mutual funds or ETFs during a long bull market and may be skeptical of change. Encouraging them to embrace diversified, multi-asset portfolios—especially with international exposure—requires both education and trust.
By automating the investment engine and providing data-driven insights across asset classes, Envestnet supports advisors with the tools to reframe the conversation around value, risk, and long-term performance. Those enhancements become especially powerful when paired with custom indexing and tax overlay services that elevate the experience beyond simple market exposure.
Managing Concentrated Risk with Advanced Strategies
Concentrated equity positions present another challenge where Envestnet adds meaningful value. High-net-worth clients often hold significant exposure to single securities—particularly executives and long-term employees at companies such as Apple, Alphabet, or other tech leaders.
“If you’ve got a position that’s 50% of your household net worth, because you worked at Apple where you just bought a bunch of Apple and it went straight up over the last 20 years, we need to help you diversify that,” Featherman says.
To address risks stemming from overexposure, Envestnet has added strategies that use options overlays, direct indexing, and tax management to unwind concentrations without triggering unnecessary tax consequences or reducing upside potential. Advanced hedging and tax-aware strategies like these may support deeper relationships and deliver personalized outcomes to clients who otherwise could face serious wealth erosion if a single company underperforms.
“Those are some of the other things that we have pushed into the pure playbook from an investment management side,” Featherman adds. “That makes me excited.”
Private Equity’s Impact on Advisor Prospecting
The explosion of private equity in trades and small business acquisitions has transformed the advisor prospecting map. Former plumbers, electricians, and regional franchise operators are becoming newly minted millionaires as private equity firms buy out and consolidate their businesses.
“So, suddenly, Mike Featherman the plumber, who was also a very good plumber but business owner, is now sitting on $20 million,” he says. “I could just guarantee that person was not thinking about private equity or wealth transfer. They were thinking about their plumbing business and franchising it.”
The recent influx of liquidity from private equity exits opens the door for advisors who are ready to offer comprehensive guidance. But it requires a new targeting strategy—one focused not on traditional white-collar professionals but on business operators in overlooked industries. “That’s a much, much different target base than you would think for someone that might have a $15 million to $20 million windfall,” Featherman says.
Envestnet supports that strategic pivot by equipping advisors with the tools, training, and scalable infrastructure needed to engage complex client profiles. With the right technology in place, advisors can confidently meet with these prospects and offer immediate value, from asset allocation and risk modeling to liquidity planning and tax deferral.
Scaling Personalization Through Technology
The complexity of today’s clients demands personalization. But personalization alone is not enough—it must be scalable. Envestnet continues to invest heavily in its platform to ensure advisors can deliver a high-touch experience across a growing book of business.
“We’re doing that through technology,” Featherman says. “We call it personalization at scale.”
The firm’s latest upgrades include not only improvements to the investment platform but also deeper integrations, more streamlined workflows, and robust service layers that enable efficient delivery of advice. By investing in both tech and personnel, Envestnet enables advisors to move upmarket without adding operational strain.
“Our product folks at Envestnet are working to unlock [those forces],” Featherman says. “It makes me excited because of where I live on the investment side and that they’re helping me with the tech. So, it’s awesome.”
A Partner for the Next Phase of Growth
Envestnet is positioning itself as a partner that understands the evolving profile of wealth and delivers thoughtful solutions that are designed to empower advisors to meet rising expectations. Whether supporting concentrated equity diversification, embedding alternatives in UMA sleeves, or building a digital multifamily office experience, the firm brings depth, scale, and innovation to the table.
Featherman remains bullish on the future. “I am optimistic we’re going to have a good run here as we turn the books on the second half of ’25 and look into ’26,” he says. “I think it’s going to be good for investors on both sides of the equation on equity and fixed.”
For financial professionals aiming to grow alongside their clients, Envestnet offers not just tools, but a comprehensive partnership built for a more sophisticated future.
For more information, go to www.envestnet.com.
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Disclosures
The information, analysis, and opinions expressed herein are for general information only. Nothing contained in this video is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type. Investing carries certain risks and there is no assurance that investing in accordance with the portfolios or strategies mentioned will provide positive performance over any period of time. Investors could lose money if they invest in accordance with the portfolios or strategies discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Alternative Investments may have complex terms and features that are not easily understood and are not suitable for all investors. You should conduct your own due diligence to ensure you understand the features of the product before investing. Envestnet and its affiliates do not provide research or product oversight on alternative investments. As with all investments, there is no assurance that alternative investment strategies will achieve their objectives or protect against losses.
