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Jim Gold

Practice Management > Building Your Business > Leadership

Steady Growth? It Starts With Culture: Steward Partners CEO

By John Manganaro

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What You Need to Know

  • Steward Partners CEO Jim Gold says shared ownership has been a key motivator for advisors and staff alike.
  • The firm's vision includes both organic and inorganic growth, and a commitment to flexibility.
  • By offering both brokerage and advisory capabilities, RIAs can ensure the client receives more than just great advice, Gold says.

Much has changed in the three decades that Jim Gold has been in the financial advisor industry — everything from the style of office furniture to the essentials of client service. But if there were one constant, he said, it would be the importance of team culture.

People need to enjoy what they are doing, Gold, Steward Partners’ president and CEO, told ThinkAdvisor during a recent interview at one of the firm’s offices in New York. They also need to feel like they have a real stake in the success of the broader organization. Simple as these things sound, they are some of the vital elements of a positive firm culture. Establishing them isn’t rocket science, Gold admitted, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy, either.

The first point requires identifying the right talent for the right roles, providing the necessary support and resources to allow people to focus on the important tasks at hand, and being willing to recognize and pivot from mistakes. The second involves empowering people to ask questions and have genuine dialogues with peers and managers — and giving everyone an slice of the pie via equity compensation doesn’t hurt.

Ultimately, building team culture and seeing how people lean into their work has been the most gratifying experience since the foundation of Steward Partners almost 10 years ago, Gold said. Seeing the firm’s rapid growth via both organic and acquisition channels has been meaningful, of course, but that’s just a reflection of something more important.

“Over the years I’ve had a few of my colleagues’ spouses or family come up and tell me that their husband or wife, or whoever, is happier now going to work at Steward than they have been in a long time,” Gold said. “We take so much pride in our culture, and it’s always been a major factor in our growth.”

Steward Partners’ Growth Trajectory

Reflecting on where his firm stands today compared with just a handful of years ago, Gold said the momentum has clearly been building upon itself. He noted, for example, that the firm was No. 19 on Barron’s’ latest annual ranking of independent registered investment advisors.

He pointed out that Steward’s growth over the past year allowed the firm to move up 13 spots from its previous position. The ranking, based on such criteria as assets under management, technology, spending, staff diversity and succession planning, marked the fourth consecutive year that Steward Partners has been included in the top 100 RIAs.

Gold cited the importance of the firm’s acquisition strategy to this recognition, “but organic growth also matters a lot.” He said one of the most important recent acquisitions was that of Freedom Street Partners, which in addition to a significant amount of assets and advisors also brought on important internal succession planning capabilities — a key component to creating and sustaining a positive culture in the independent RIA space.

“Freedom Street has created a really powerful sell and stay infrastructure that is highly attractive to later-career advisors as they think about joining our platform,” Gold explained. “It helps to show our advisors and prospects that Steward Partners isn’t going anywhere, and we have the advisors and the platform to take care of your clients and your practice when it’s time for you to step away.”

As Gold explained, this significant development led to the establishment of a dedicated proprietary division within Steward Partners, providing a specialized platform for advisors transitioning their business. The firm now offers an even broader range of affiliation models, including W-2, 1099 and RIA-only (IAR) models — all of which empower advisors with equity.

Gold said Steward’s move into mergers and acquisitions has boosted its profile and its valuation, even though the strategy may be more expensive than recruiting individual advisors and brokers. He also emphasized the importance of the firm offering both a W-2 employee-advisor model and a 1099 independent contractor model, meaning that advisors have significant flexibility when coming to work with Steward Partners.

“We find that a lot of advisors who want to transition worry that the 1099 fully independent approach is a bridge too far in terms of the staff resources and time demands,” Gold said. “So the W-2 model offers them an attractive middle ground.”

Why a Multicustodial Model?

Asked why the firm pivoted several years ago from a sole-custody relationship with Raymond James to a multicustodial framework — starting via the acquisition of the broker-dealer Umpqua and continuing with a key relationship with Goldman Sachs — Gold focused on flexibility.

“It’s all about optionality and the acknowledgement that no single firm, no single provider can be the ideal fit for everyone all the time,” Gold said. “We have evolved our approach because we know that stagnant firms die. I always like to use the classic example and point out that Amazon started as a bookseller, but look what they have evolved into. All great firms must evolve.”

By offering both brokerage and advisory capabilities to its professionals, Gold explained, Steward can make sure the end client has access to more than just great advice. The firm’s professionals can consult on insurance and annuities, he noted, while also providing more nuanced capabilities on the investment side — such as the building and maintaining of custom bond ladders.

“A big majority of the revenues continue to come in through the corporate RIA,” Gold explained. “But we know that the hybrid approach is really important when it comes to allowing that flexibility that advisors want today.”

Equity Compensation for Advisors and Staff

Gold said Steward’s equity compensation practices are also worth highlighting, and he credited the shared ownership culture as a key motivator for advisors and staff alike.

“The way I like to explain it is that there is simply no opportunity for the firm to benefit at the expense of our advisors our staff,” Gold said. “What we are trying to do here is work with great people and motivate them behind that shared purpose of the firm. Everyone is going to win together, and there’s never that moment where the advisor feels a distance between themselves and the firm.”

Pictured: Jim Gold

John Manganaro

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