Between 1959 and 1962, more than 100,000 Cubans fled Castro’s Cuba and sought a new life in the United States. Among this group of industrious immigrants was 11-year-old Maria Elena Lagomasino. Unlike the majority of Cuban immigrants, however, Lagomasino’s parents did not settle in the popular Miami neighborhoods. Instead, they continued up the coast to the much colder Hartford, Conn. Surviving the trip from Havana to Hartford was nothing in comparison to surviving the winters of New England.

But survive she did, and Lagomasino has gone on to carve an esteemed career in the wealth advisory business, the success of which can largely be traced to the values and lessons she learned as she started anew in a foreign land — flexibility, adaptability, problem solving, and planning for an unknown future. And much of her world view on how to apply those concepts to wealth management can be traced to her nearly 40 years of advising wealthy families around the world through the au