IT WOULD BE inaccurate to say Aya Hamilton walks to wherever she is headed. More precisely, she is full-tilt striding to her destination.

Tall and still as lissome as the ballerina she once was, Hamilton is one of Seattle's most prominent wealth managers. She also looms large in the city's arts and civic scenes, where the well off can usually be found.

Change is in the offing for Hamilton. She's taking some time off from her position as regional managing director for CitiGroup Private Bank, the private wealth management arm of CitiGroup Inc., one of the largest financial institutions in the world. In August, she will join another company and take on a new management responsibility in the wealth management industry in the Northwest. But the 48 year old Hamilton will stick with her deeply held philosophy about wealth management that it's about money being a "means to an end" for clients and that her mission is to "try to find that end in the client's life."

If you're in business and you don't know Hamilton, then wise up and meet her. At least get to know of her. Do this, because she does important work for her clients, is involved in several community enterprises, mainly in the arts, and symbolizes the evolution of Seattle from a provincial city of airplane builders and tree splitters to a player in the global financial system, the system of banks, financial markets, securities ex changes, pension funds and so on that en able money to make the world go round. But Hamilton is anything but intimidating. She has a big, warm smile and patient eyes. She exudes a down to earth confidence.

This is not, however, a very confident time for the economy. The global credit crunch has hit Wall Street hard, and it's spreading throughout the economy. The ripple effect has wobbled the giants of the banking industry, including CitiGroup, which saw its CEO, Charles Prince, step down last November, joining several other executives who lost their jobs in the fallout from the subprime mortgage mess. And in April, CitiGroup lost its crown as the world's largest underwriter of stocks and bonds for the first time in more than six years.

That title went instead to JPMorgan Chase in the first quarter of 2008, the first time in 25 years that CitiGroup did not rank first.

In the line of work Hamilton is in working with high net worth investors  the situation looks better. CitiGroup alone has $1.4 trillion in assets under management, according to the Private Banking Benchmark. There's still room for growth assets owned by high net worth individuals reached $50 trillion in 2007 and are projected to reach $75 trillion by 2012, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

In May 1994, when Hamilton arrived at CitiGroup Private Bank in Seattle, there were only four bankers and professional staffers. She now oversees 18 bankers and other professionals in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and Vancouver, B.C. Many of the clients in her territory have assets of $100 million or more. "There's a lot more wealth" in the region, Hamilton says. "It's not just Boeing and timber anymore."

HANDS-ON ATTENTION

Washington state, boosted by solid, albeit slowing, job growth and a weak dollar that further propels the state's exports to the world, is hurting less than others in the current economic climate. Nevertheless, there's no better time than now to act prudently. To that end, Hamilton hunts for the risks and opportunities her clients don't know about yet.