Amy Li, a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley, arrived in the U.S. from China in 2008 with a suitcase and a violin. As a student at Ohio State University, she found the suitcase was initially more useful. But it was her study of violin that helped guide her to success as a financial advisor.
With wealth management, as with symphonies, "no single instrument carries the music," says Li, the 40th-ranked advisor in Barron's Top 100 Women Financial Advisors list for 2026. "The beauty really comes from bringing every different voice into harmony."
Li found that her practice grew as she connected clients' lawyers, accountants, and other advisors across continents and in different languages to develop cohesive financial plans for ultrawealthy families.
Li now advises 50 families, and her clients have a typical net worth of $500 million. In an interview with Barron's, she discusses investing selectively in artificial intelligence and private assets, constructing globally diversified portfolios, and the growing role for women in finance. An edited version of the conversation follows.
Barron's: With stocks near highs right now and the 10-year Treasury yield close to 4.5%, what is your market view? And what are you advising clients right now?
Amy Li: I think we're going through one of the biggest investment regime shifts I've seen in my career. It's driven by three structural forces: artificial intelligence, a higher cost of capital driven by government debt, and a more fragmented geopolitical landscape. Those aren't short-term headlines. They are long-term shifts that are changing how capital gets allocated globally.
What are your clients talking about now?
One question I get every day now is whether AI has become another tech bubble. I actually think that's the wrong question. I think the biggest opportunity isn't AI itself; it's the second-order effect of AI. The first phase rewarded the companies building AI infrastructure. The next phase is likely to reward the companies that are actually using AI to improve their margins, whether that's industrial, automation, software, healthcare, and energy infrastructure.
So, the advice we're giving clients is actually pretty simple. Stay invested, but become more selective. The easy, beta-driven market of the past decade is probably behind us, and going forward, I think portfolio construction matters much more. That means making sure you're not overly concentrated, taking advantage of fixed income again as the source of income and stability, and using alternatives where appropriate as an important source of return.
Where do you see opportunities?
The U.S. remains the center of gravity for foundational AI companies -- chips, cloud infrastructure, software, Silicon Valley innovation. But I don't think the opportunity is limited to the U.S., because the AI story is entering a second phase. The first phase was about building AI infrastructure. The next phase is about applying it -- agentic software, humanoid robotics, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, drug discovery. That's a much more global story.
The U.S. has the platform companies and software ecosystem; many Asian markets have the deep manufacturing, robotics, and engineering capabilities that phase two actually depends on. Through the founders I work with, I see AI innovation happening in more than one geography, not concentrated in a single place. For investors, the key is to look past the AI headlines and find where it actually translates into productivity, earnings growth, and durable competitive advantage -- wherever that happens to be.
How do alternative investments fit into your clients' portfolios?
I think alts are no longer just nice to have for qualified investors. They actually have become a day-to-day core part of portfolio construction. We also have to be careful. Private credit offers almost double the income of the public market, but underwriting at this point matters more than ever.
Infrastructure and real estate are increasingly relevant, given AI-driven power demand, the data center buildout, and energy reshoring. Many of these are private companies. Morgan Stanley has built a robust direct private-market investment platform. That offers retail clients what used to be only institutional access to those companies. But investors have to be aware that companies are staying private for longer.
What I tell my clients is that alternatives are attractive, but they aren't magic. They have liquidity constraints, fees, and manager selection risk. It's about fit and looking at their whole, holistic family balance sheet.
Putting portfolios together is more complicated with private investments involved, yes?
The portfolio today is more complicated than it used to be. A decade ago, many families could rely heavily on investing in public equities, low rates, and on market data. Today they are dealing with high rates, private markets, alternatives, and geopolitical risk.
For my clients, they live in different continents and jurisdictions. They face tax consequences. Also, in succession they have to think about family governance. For many founder families, that is where the relationship starts to look less like traditional investment advice and more like an outsourced [chief investment officer] function. It becomes about setting the right asset allocation, liquidity policy, risk framework, manager selection, and governance process for the entire family balance sheet -- not just one portfolio.
So, is there an "Amy formula" that you now talk to investors about? It clearly isn't the classic 60/40 portfolio of stocks and bonds.
None of my clients have the same portfolio. It's always catered to the needs of their entire family balance sheet.
Tell me about yourself. How did you decide to become an advisor?
I came to the U.S. with one suitcase and a violin. The suitcase was useful. But the violin -- people laugh about that. It seemed far less practical for a career in finance at that time, but looking back, it probably represented a karma I didn't recognize at that time.
I transferred to the Ohio State University in 2008, when I was 18, from Beijing, possibly the worst year to major in finance -- learning about efficient markets while Lehman Brothers was collapsing in real time. It was less a classroom education than a front-row seat to history. After graduation, the job market was pretty difficult, but I was fortunate. I landed my first job as an auditor with a boutique accounting firm. Then I did proxy research, and then worked at a small fixed-income firm. So, I had no Wall Street networks, no shortcuts.
How did you build your client base?
Every client I've worked with has been built as one relationship at a time. Early on, I thought success meant being the most technical person in the room. Then I realized that many of my clients -- entrepreneurs building businesses across Asia and the U.S. -- already had highly capable lawyers, accountants, bankers, and investment professionals around them. The problem wasn't a lack of advice. It was that they might have five different advisors giving them five different opinions, sometimes in two different languages. What they needed wasn't another expert; they needed someone who could connect those perspectives into one coherent strategy.
That's when I realized my background wasn't something to overcome. It was actually my biggest advantage. Wealth management isn't about having the loudest opinion or the smartest investment idea, but rather helping families bring investments, taxes, estate planning, and family goals into one coherent strategy.
So, seven years later, after building a multibillion-dollar practice, I went back for a Wharton executive M.B.A. because my clients never stopped learning, and I didn't want to be the advisor who thinks she has all the answers. I think great wealth management isn't about predicting the future. It's about helping families make confident decisions in an increasingly interconnected world.
Your journey has been unique. How do you see things changing for your female clients and women in the industry?
One of the most important trends is that women are becoming more influential in financial decision making. I see women founders, executives, investors, and even within families, the wife often becomes the main decision maker.
Also with next-generation wealth, especially Asian, a lot of it had passed to men or the boys in the family. Now the girls have a seat. For a long time, I think the industry underestimated how much women wanted to understand the full picture. Many women -- myself included -- don't want to just see the performance numbers on the surface. We want to learn the context and then see the planning. Because of this, there are tremendous opportunities for women advisors and for women financial decision makers.
Thank you, Amy.
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 17, 2026 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments