As AI rapidly reshapes industries, it is also transforming how money moves and how people invest. A great example would Tony Cowell, who returned from retirement to launch an AI-powered advisory firm focused on next-generation wealthy families.
When Tony Cowell retired (just three years ago after a decades-long career advising private equity and hedge funds at KPMG LLP), AI-driven investing was still in its early days. But just three years later, with agentic AI talk dominating boardrooms and dinner tables, he’s back. He is now betting on a AI powered new financial and strategy advisory firm that exclusively cater to next generation of wealthy families.
How Cynren is different from other firms?
His firm, Cynren, is one of several boutiques seeking to make its mark in a crowded — and in some cases troubled — consulting market, where larger rivals are rushing to equip staff with new tools and help clients. Now, as automation changes traditional work patterns, some firms are already facing layoffs and pressure on their staffing models.
Meanwhile, incumbents like EY, Deloitte LLP, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP are investing heavily in AI tools and partnerships to stay ahead.
Cowell’s Cynren took a different strategy. He is building an AI-focused leadership team. He has hired Stephen Toebes to help develop AI tools that can track global events, test scenarios and support business decisions — all with human oversight.
Arnaud van Dijk, another KPMG partner, and Lexi Bowes-Lyon have also joined to establish the sustainability and impact advisory practices. Citigroup Inc. veteran and private equity executive Sunil Nair is co-CEO with Cowell. Leo Pearlman, the co-chief executive of the LeBron James-backed production company Fulwell Entertainment, is advising on sports, media and entertainment.
Why wealthy families are turning to AI-driven investment and strategy advisory firms?
The platform is one-of kind owing to the fact that it will give clients deeper access to senior leaders, bypassing the traditional layers of junior staffers at larger consulting firms.
“If the technology hadn’t moved on I may not have done it,” Cowell, the former regional asset-management head at KPMG, told Bloomberg
“We could build things from the start that we think the world needs today” which is “much harder to retrofit.”
What next?
Besides advising family offices, Cynren plans to expand into strategy, risk management, fiduciary services and impact investing for families, businesses and organisations. The firm will avoid audit work to prevent conflicts of interest and may pursue acquisitions to grow further.
According to Tony Cowell, with an historic wealth transfer under way, demand from the next generation of wealth owners to build a reputation and legacy through impact investing is booming
“The old way of doing philanthropy was slightly removed,” Bowes-Lyon told Bloomberg. “Now they’re looking at not just how to invest, but how to be part of the structure themselves. They want to be able to control the outcomes.”
The firm is using AI to help, for example, a large family client identify which organizations around the world best fits its values and then using networks to connect with senior leadership and find other partners to co-invest alongside them.
By Cowell’s reckoning it took 10 to 15 agents and a quarter of the time it would’ve taken a traditional advisory firm to deliver.