March 16, 2020 BARRON’S S13
AMERICA’S TOP 1200 FINANCIAL ADVISORS 2020
Inna Kelly has carved outa unique and highly suc-
cessful role in wealth management and turned the usual
trajectory for servicing an affluent clientele on its head.
A managing director in Morgan Stanley’s San Francisco
office, Kelly serves as financial advisor—she calls herself
a “life financial partner”—for newbie hires at technology
start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Those individuals, mostly engineers, don’t necessar-
ily have loads of money in the bank. So, Kelly begins to
assist them in the early stages of their wealth-gathering
cycle. Currently, her youngest client is 28.
New hires at tech companies are paid primarily in
stock options. “There are a lot of decisions to be made
early on,” Kelly says. “There’s a lot of planning before
you’re fully vested or have full liquidity. Waiting too long
to make these decisions can cost clients a lot of money.”
Kelly, 44, works to not only guide clients, she says,
but also give them a sense of financial control. “Through
education and coaching, I help them look money in the
eye and feel knowledgeable and empowered,” she says.
In this era of tech start-ups, the economics can be
difficult to grasp, and the anxiety hard to overstate. That
intensity “takes a toll both physically and mentally, and
most people retiring from a tech company need to make
sure that their money grows and lasts throughout the
years,” Kelly says. “Wealth accumulation is the mind-set
they have when they’re taking a chance on a private
company. Wealth preservation is their mind-set by the
time they leave the company and we start investing.”
Kelly’s office oversees $1.4 billion. Her staff of four
includes a trader as well as a research analyst, who not
only looks at the markets but also does a deep dive into
companies germane to her clients. Kelly and her team
create financial strategies, combining both active and
passive investments. They also handle the gamut of a
client’s finances, from a car purchase to a construction
loan to figuring out how to care for an aging parent.
And they’re ready to assist if a client’s company doesn’t
do well, or if the client must change jobs.
“I’m extremely compassionate, and I think that
makes all the difference,” Kelly says. “In some cases, I
feel that I care more about my clients’ financial well-
being than they do.”—M.M.
Photograph byJESSICA CHOU$1.4B $20M $30M
Total Assets Typical Account Typical Net Worth
San Francisco No. 49
INNA
KELLY
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management