Adviser’s cultural understanding behind four decades of client care

When Maria Elena Lagomasino was 11 years old, she and her family fled the communist regime in Cuba to come to Westford, Conn. It was 1960. She made friends quickly in school and found everyone welcoming, however, it was challenging for her family to lose their language, culture, home and their money.

“It was very difficult all around. That’s why it was meaningful for me to have families never, ever go through something like that,” said Ms. Lagomasino, CEO and managing partner of WE Family Offices, based in New York and Miami.

Her family history gave purpose and meaning to her work that kept her engaged throughout her 40-year financial career, which began in 1977 when she started at Citibank.

Career path

Ms. Lagomasino’s first job required her to work with families in Chile, which was undergoing similar upheavals as Cuba and was being run by a military dictatorship established after the socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’etat in 1973.

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At that time Ms. Lagomasino spent two weeks out of every six in Chile, where she ate Sunday dinner with clients and got to know their children. Because her own family had gone through similar upheavals in Cuba, she connected all the more with her clients’ concerns.

“It was what everyone was afraid of. We all knew, we all talked about it,” Ms. Lagomasino said. “I was trying to make sure that they had a safety plan.”

As an undergrad, Ms. Lagomasimo studied French literature. Before starting at Citibank, she earned a master’s degree in library science from Columbia University and worked at the United Nations. By the time she arrived at Fordham University for a second master’s program, she was ready for a career change. Her aptitude tests recommended a career in business.

She attained her MBA in 1978 and over the next several decades, she was appointed to C-suite positions up and down Wall Street. She became chairman and chief executive officer at JPMorgan Private Bank in 2001. Afterwards, in 2005, she took the CEO spot at GenSpring Family Offices, a private wealth management firm for SunTrust.

In 2013, she founded WE Family Offices, which helps about 70 ultra-high-net-worth families manage their wealth like businesses, advising them on investing, governance and risk management. It advises and reports on more than $9 billion in assets.

Clients first

“She’s totally dedicated to the clients. She loves her clients, she worries about them, she worries for them, and their needs come first for her,” said Marlene Hess, chair of International Women’s Health Coalition. The two have known each other for nearly 30 years and met at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“And she brings it out in all the people who work with her and for her,” Ms. Hess added.

Ms. Lagomasino says being a Latino woman has helped her stand out with clients, and she believes being a female in the business has been more of an asset than it ever was a liability.

“When people thought of who was helping them in the bank, I was more memorable than my colleagues,” she said.

Today she serves on the boards of both The Walt Disney Company and The Coca-Cola Company. She also co-founded the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard.

Ms. Lagomasino returned to Cuba for the first time in 2012, 52 years after having fled with her parents. She took her niece and has since brought other family members who had never been there before to help them connect missing dots.

When she arrived at the José Martí International Airport in Havana in 2012, Ms. Lagomasino was worried that her American passport might be taken away. When an immigration official asked if she had left in 1960, Ms. Lagomasino nodded affirmatively. Recalling the moment, Ms. Lagomasino said, “[The official] got up and she put her arms around me and said, 'Welcome home.’”

Related Topics: JPMorgan Chase & Co., The C Suite