The 2025 ICI Leadership Summit was a great experience, and it has become an annual ritual for us at Wilbanks Partners. So many of our clients and friends are always in attendance, and it is an enjoyable way to reconnect. The member-driven agenda focuses on forward-looking issues and trends, which are always useful for keeping us up to date. The quality of the speakers is second to none, adding to the educational quality of the experience.
President Eric Pan set the tone in his keynote speech, talking about the opportunities for updates to the regulatory framework for qualified investors, furthering the democratization of private market investments into a wider range of managed accounts, perhaps even lifestyle funds used for retirement products.
It was incredibly convenient that the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives had their IPA Summit 2025 on the same days five blocks away, allowing us to visit with over 300 additional clients and friends participating in this event. Most of our search work in wealth management has been working with these hedge funds, venture firms, private equity, and infrastructure managers on a wide variety of distribution searches from CMOs to the Head of Family Office Channel.
At the ICI Leadership Summit the content targeted for fund trustees through a partnership with the #Independent Directors Council was a way for us to keep up with all the friends and clients in that area. Discussions included a meeting with the Nominating and Governance Committee of a large fund complex about succession planning for two directors approaching the mandated retirement age in the Washington office of their independent counsel.
The trip to Washington every spring for this event is never a hardship, with a few hours free to visit the National Portrait Gallery and the Peacock Room at the National Museum of Asian Art along The Mall. Many thanks to State Street for hosting an amazing evening at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. What a show with great food, great networking and a chance to see the Hope Diamond and the stunning assemblage of astronomically inspired jewelry that is the focus of the new exhibition Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels.
Thanks again to Eric Pan and the entire staff of the ICI for a great event. We will be back again next year.