Just as those who’ve experienced combat tend to be the ones who are most hesitant to declare war, it seems to me that the best money managers tend to be modest folks. That has certainly been my experience over the past month in speaking with the portfolio managers of the 2014 SMA Managers of the Year, whom we feature in this month’s cover story and whom we announced in May during the Envestnet Advisor Summit.
While a number of the lead managers of these SMA portfolios are undeniably brilliant in their own right, they all wanted to ensure that the other members of their teams were recognized for their contributions to these portfolios’ success. Not only is that kind of attitude valuable for those asset management firms’ overall morale, it’s also critical to the continued success of those specific portfolios.
That’s why those of us in the selection committee for these 10th annual awards—including our partners from Envestnet | PMC, notably Tim Clift and Gib Watson and their analysts—ensure that each winner has a clear, sustainable and repeatable investment process and alpha thesis. Our profiles of the winners in the magazine, and video interviews with them that are on ThinkAdvisor.com, are meant to give you insights into those processes and the leaders guiding those processes. We also look closely at their firms, including their ownership structure and the tenure of the lead managers, since we want to feel confident that those firms can continue to operate successfully in the future.
So if we were considering your advisory firm as a possible award winner, would you pass that same test? Is the success of your firm based on your own brilliance? Does your ownership structure make it more or less likely that your firm—not you—can continue to be successful?
If you as an owner-advisor can’t answer those questions in the affirmative, if you’re unsure whether your firm could succeed without you, I suggest you read Angie Herbers’ column this month, “The Death of the Rainmaker.”