Redefining Alternative Investing: How Thomas Ruggie Is Shaping the Future of Wealth Management

Thomas Ruggie Named 2025 Advisor of the Year in Alternative Investments. InvestmentNews Award Recognizes Exceptionalism in Wealth and Investment Management.

Named 2025 Advisor of the Year by InvestmentNews, Tom Ruggie is leading the way in private investments, co-investments, and passion assets for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families.

Destiny Family Office is proud to announce that our Founder and CEO Thomas Ruggie, ChFC®, CFP® has been honored for his expertise and forward-thinking strategies that help high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families harness the power of private investments and passion assets in building enduring legacies.

It also celebrates Tom and his team’s dedication to providing a holistic framework for managing UHNW families’ financial and non-financial needs by integrating this high level of achievement in investment management with their traditional multi-family-office capabilities that include wealth, tax, and legacy planning, family learning, governance and decision making, and career and enterprise guidance.

“Winning an InvestmentNews Award is more than a moment in the spotlight – it’s a career-defining milestone,” said an InvestmentNews spokesperson. “It signals to clients, peers, and partners that your work stands at the pinnacle of excellence in the industry.”

Expanding the Definition of Alternative Investing

Tom has become an advocate for the investor who, despite significant resources, has not had privileged access to alternative, direct or co-investment opportunities. Destiny Family Office is helping democratize private investments, offering unique and privileged institutional-caliber alternative, direct and co-investment platforms with broad manager access to qualified clients.

In addition, he has established various investment funds, a co-investment fund and other privileged investment initiatives to enhance offerings for his high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families. His deep understanding of private equity, hedge funds, private credit, and other non-correlated assets allows him to construct sophisticated portfolios that help those families protect and grow their wealth across market cycles.

Complementing this expertise, Tom’s personal passion for collecting has led him to speak and author articles on a national stage about the strategic role of “passion assets” such as artwork, exotic cars, sports memorabilia, coins, and other collectibles within broader investment and legacy planning conversations — offering a unique blend of professional insight and personal perspective.

Collectibles can carry emotional weight and generational significance that benefit from a structured, strategic approach that helps ensure collections are well documented, safeguarded, appropriately valued, and that they honor at the highest levels the larger picture of continuity, story, and stewardship within the family.

How Clients Benefit

This latest recognition continues to affirm Destiny Family Office’s reputation for leadership, integrity, and client-centric excellence in a fast-evolving financial and investment landscape. Tom was selected through a rigorous judging process led by a panel of respected industry experts and senior representatives who evaluated individuals and firms based on innovation, impact, and the ability to deliver measurable outcomes for clients, who responded to our belief that investors deserve access to carefully curated opportunities that are:

  • Rigorously sourced using well-established, trusted industry relationships;
  • Evaluated through leading-edge research and due diligence;
  • Presented with simplicity and clarity

“I continue to be so grateful for the clients who put their trust and confidence in us,” said Tom. The independent judges of the InvestmentNews Awards indicated they were looking for leaders who push the envelope, embrace change, and deliver real results for their clients. I believe that putting our clients first in everything we do is the kind of victory that really matters.”

To learn more about how Destiny Family Office helps clients navigate private and alternative markets, contact us here or explore more information on private investments.

Investment advisory services offered through Destiny Wealth Partners, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Destiny Wealth Partners also conducts business under the names Destiny Family Office, Ruggie Wealth Management, Nichols Wealth Partners, and Destiny Wealth. Rankings and/or recognition by unaffiliated rating services and/or publications should not be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if Destiny Wealth Partners or its firms are engaged, or continue to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services, nor should it be construed as a current or past endorsement of Destiny Wealth Partners by any of its clients.

InvestmentNews requested initial submissions for entries based on category criteria. Applications could be submitted by an individual or team depending on the category or anyone could apply on their behalf. Finalists (awardees) were selected based on submissions and research performed by InvestmentNews. Awardees then submitted more detailed entries, which were judged by an independent panel of industry leaders, and winners were selected based on a simple points system. No fee was submitted for consideration. For additional information, visit destinyfamilyoffice.com/recognitions-disclosures.