A Tribute to Stephen “Steve” Prostano,
Wealth Management Pioneer and Founder of the UHNW Institute
Stephen “Steve” Prostano, 68 of Greenwich, Connecticut, spent much of his career helping families manage wealth. His greater contribution may have been convincing an industry to reconsider what wealth actually means to UHNW families and better serving them.
For all he accomplished in his life & career, family always came first. Steve was the anchor of the Prostano family and is survived by his wife of 47 years, Laura; their three children, Taryn (Prostano) Barrett, Dana Prostano and Alex Prostano; and five grandchildren.
Over a career spanning more than four decades, Steve became one of the influential voices behind wealth management, multi-family offices and the emerging profession of integrated family wealth management. He led major businesses, built family offices and advised some of the country’s most sophisticated families and financial institutions.
He truly believed that if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life – and honored that philosophy to the end in his own career. Steve held senior leadership positions across some of the most significant institutions in financial services. He served as CEO of Silver Bridge, president of Atlantic Trust and a global partner of Amvescap, president of Chase Global Asset Management, and an executive vice president at FleetBoston Financial. He later led Family Wealth Advisors at Bank of the West, an affiliate of BNP Paribas, where he helped build a pioneering global multi-family-office platform. He subsequently joined PKF O’Connor Davies, where he advised private business owners and families.
Perhaps his proudest professional accomplishment was founding The UHNW Institute, which combined what Steve loved most about his work: great people, big ideas and meaningful relationships. It became his passion and a huge part of his legacy.
With the Institute, Steve orchestrated what is fast becoming an influential voice behind wealth management, multi-family offices and the emerging profession of integrated family wealth management. The UHNW Institute— began with a deceptively simple observation: families with extraordinary financial resources did not necessarily have an easier time navigating their lives.
Their needs extended far beyond investment performance. They involved relationships and family dynamics, preparing rising generations, governance, philanthropy, estate planning, health and well-being, risk, decision-making and the difficult question of what wealth was ultimately for. Steve believed the profession serving these families needed to evolve accordingly.
The Institute, an independent nonprofit organization, was born to bring together many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in family wealth. Rather than creating another commercial enterprise, Steve sought to build a community in which professionals who were often competitors could collaborate around a larger objective: improving how families were served.
Steve was not one to own the limelight for himself, but was a masterful director of delegation, assembling experts to share perspectives and thought leadership, while challenging advisors to look beyond portfolios and structures and see the family itself. He encouraged us all to listen more carefully, collaborate across disciplines, share knowledge and recognize that the purpose of wealth management is not simply the preservation of capital, but helping human beings and families flourish across generations.
Under his leadership, the Institute continues to advance an integrated approach to family wealth and developed frameworks, educational resources, programs, events, and training, industry sought-after research and a common vocabulary intended to bring greater clarity and professionalism to a fragmented industry.
Steve often described the organization not merely as a “think tank,” but a “do tank”—a reflection of his conviction that ideas mattered most when they could be translated into better outcomes for families.
Along the way, he received numerous professional honors, including recognition for his contributions to the multi-family-office and wealth-management industries and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Family Wealth Report.
Steve Prostano, our friend and colleague, helped move an industry from managing wealth toward understanding what wealth is for. Steve’s most enduring accomplishment cannot be measured in assets under management, titles held or awards received. It resides in our community he assembled and the ideas he helped perpetuate and institutionalize.
As an Institute family, we look forward to acknowledging Steve’s leadership and raising a glass of his favorite wine, when we all gather together at the Symposium in November.
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Dear UHNW Institute Members and Friends,
It is with profound sadness that we share with you the news of Steve Prostano’s passing after health challenges he endured the last several years with quiet strength and determination. I’m sure you join me in extending condolences to Steve’s wife, Laura, his son, Alex Prostano, his two daughters, Taryn Barrett and Dana Prostano, his beloved grandkids, and the rest of their family. Please keep them in your prayers.
Memorial details are still underway; however, his family shares this moving obituary with all of us.
As Steve began the work of building The UHNW Institute, and pioneering change in our industry, he was a steadfast proponent of establishing good governance and succession planning. So please rest easy in the knowledge that our organization is well equipped to move ahead.
To that end, Steve assembled several of the brightest minds in the field as a Board, and its Executive Committee is pleased to have selected one of its members, Wallace “Wally” Head, as Interim Board Chair and CEO. Wally will lead the Institute until a permanent Board Chair and CEO is in place.
On behalf of the Institute’s Board and leadership, thank you for your past and future support of the Institute. The quality of its membership and staff, the dramatic growth it experienced, and the extraordinary content and programming it produced with Steve at its helm was by his design and a result of active collaboration by many of you. Despite this terrible loss of a true visionary, leader, dear friend and mentor to many of us, the Institute will continue to grow and thrive as Steve envisioned and would have expected.
We close with a tribute to our dear friend and colleague and we will honor him by carrying forward his passion for people, quality, and innovation as we take the Institute to new heights.
Regards,
The UHNW Institute Board of Directors,
Joe Calabrese, Robert Casey, Rob Elliot, Jim Grubman, Wally Head, Dennis Jaffe, Maria Elena Lagomasino, Kathy Lintz, Linda Mack, Tom McCullough, Jamie McLaughlin, Thom Melcher, Loraine Tsavaris, Susan Winer, Bill Woodson and Michael Zeuner
