Name: Yangchen Lama
Firm: Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
Location: Beverly Hills, CA
Team Custodied Assets: $410 million
Background: Yangchen Lama grew up in the Himalayas, 17,000 feet above sea level, in a remote village in Nepal without electricity or running water. She didn’t go to school until age 9 when her family moved to Kathmandu, but she quickly excelled and at 12-years-old, was able to come to the U.S. as an exchange student. After graduating from Cornell in 1999 with a bachelors and master’s degree in international finance, she started her career working as an investment banker. In 2007, she and her husband relocated to Los Angeles, where Lama did the advisory training program at UBS. She moved to Morgan Stanley in 2009 as a solo practitioner and built her book through hundreds of cold calls a day. Lama manages some 160 households and clients today, most of whom are affiliated with the entertainment industry.
Competitive Edge: “No matter what clients need, or how complex a situation or problem might be, I will go out of my way to make sure their needs are being met,” says Lama, who has a $1 million minimum account size for new clients. “That also means meeting clients where they are regardless of their wealth strata.”
Investment Approach: Like many advisors, Lama undergoes an in-depth discovery process with clients and devises customized investment strategies. “Our goal is not just to manage risk but also seize opportunities—that’s an important part of our philosophy,” she says. “As a financial advisor, my job is not just about pointing out the obvious or looking back in the rear view mirror, but being a steward for long term wealth preservation.” On the equities side, she primarily invests client assets through individual securities and active managers. “The S&P 500 is very expensive and concentrated right now,” says Lama. “That doesn’t mean you can’t own index funds but there’s a great opportunity for individual stock selection.” She mentions sectors like financial services and defense in particular. With fixed income, tax-free municipal bonds are a big component of clients’ asset allocation, while every one of her clients also has exposure to alternative investments like real estate and private equity.
Investment Outlook: The current administration’s promise of deregulation and a pro-growth agenda could have a mixed outcome for equities, predicts Lama. There could be a positive impact on financials, crypto and artificial intelligence companies, but trade policy and tariffs, for instance, could weigh on other areas of the market. “The elevated uncertainty in the market doesn’t mean we’re not going to have a positive return, it just means we have to be very careful about where we need to be invested in order to provide positive returns for clients managing from a risk perspective.”
Best Advice: “When faced with hardship and obstacles in life and business, just take a deep breath and then find the opportunity rather than the failure or disappointment in a situation,” says Lama.
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