The numbers come first. Fortune reported that around $124 trillion in wealth is expected to change hands by 2048, according to Cerulli Associates, with $54 trillion going to women, $52 trillion to children, and $18 trillion to charity.
That projection was a centerpiece at Fortune's 26th annual Most Powerful Women conference in Santa Barbara. Deloitte U.S. federal health sector leader Beth Meagher said women are poised to play a major role in how wealth is invested and deployed. She said women entrepreneurs have become one of the fastest growing sources of wealth concentration, up over 125% over the past decade. She also said women who have served in the military have reached roughly 300% growth over the past couple of years.
Meagher said, 'These trends are changing everything.' She added, 'I think we spend a lot of time on frontier models, and we probably spend a lot of time on geopolitical [issues]. And this shift is something that I think we have a tremendous opportunity to lead from the front of.'
Seema Hingorani, managing director and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley, said she noticed more than a decade ago that asset managers were showing up with few or no women on investment teams. She said the excuse was often a 'pipeline issue,' which she did not accept. Hingorani founded Girls Who Invest, and said 5,000 college women have gone through the program since 2011, with around 4,000 applications each year and 700 women supported annually.
Hingorani also said Morgan Stanley has spent the past seven years running an incubator to invest in more women starting tech businesses. She said women building billion-dollar companies will eventually want women guiding their financial decisions.
Carmen James Randolph, founding president and CEO of the Women's Foundation of the South, said the South is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, and that 41.5% of America's women of color are constituents there. She said old models of philanthropy are being rewritten to prioritize tangible impact. Randolph said new wealth recipients do not view philanthropy as charity, but as a way to see the impact of their dollars firsthand.
The executives said women are also approaching investment differently, with emphasis on social impact alongside financial returns. Meagher said women inheriting substantial wealth are focused on health, education, and justice. Randolph said her foundation is making a big bet on maternal healthcare in southern states with difficult access to emergency and routine care. Hingorani said trustees also have an interest in affordable housing, even if that means a smaller return than they could earn at a venture fund.
For markets, the message is simple: capital follows incentives, but it also follows identity, networks, and trust. When wealth migrates, the advisory business, philanthropy, and venture funding all get repriced. The market has already voted on who gets heard next. The question now is whether financial firms can adapt fast enough to keep up with where the money is going.
