The Annual Retreats at Client Associates have been very special occasions which mark the year. We wish to call them retreats instead of offsites on account of their very unique character so much different from a typical corporate offsite.

Growing up with dreams of being a sportsperson, I embarked on an entrepreneurial journey that led me to co-found Client Associates, a distinguished wealth management platform in India. Over the past 21 years, we have revolutionized the concept of "Family Office" and have emerged as the largest multifamily office in the country. With a focus on client centricity and a commitment to excellence, we have become the trusted Family CFO for approximately ~1000 affluent families, managing assets worth around ~USD 5 billion. Today, I am humbled and grateful to see Client Associates ranked among the most admired platforms in private wealth management in India.

During my travels to the UK in the summer of 2022 I had an amusing experience. On one of the evenings after coming back to my hotel I found that the room hasn't been done up and I found it in the same condition as I had left it in the morning. I had earlier experienced this on another occasion triggered entirely on account of fault on my part - I forgot to leave instructions to clean the room in the morning. Once bitten is always twice shy and hence since then I always remember to leave instructions to clean the room which happened this time in London as well. After a long day you are looking forward to unwind in a done-up room and you expect that to happen in any professionally managed chain. Curious to find out why they slipped I reached out to the hotel's General Manager who besides being apologetic was kind enough to promise an investigation into this episode. From the CC TV feeds the hotel found out that the housekeeping staff reversed the instructions from “Make up my room” to “Do Not Disturb”. Why would they do so especially when they are trained to do as requested by the guest? The simple reason was that the hotel was understaffed and to ensure that the show must go on the hotel had contracted the housekeeping staff from an external housekeeping agency which too was understaffed. This revelation spilled the beans of the pervasive problem in the UK’s economy across the board – shortage of staff. You could see this across hotels, restaurants, cafes and even at the Heathrow airport where airline managements were declining to give commitment to get your baggage loaded to the same flight!!