How an Advisor Became a Benefits Whiz and Multiplied His Assets

"We arguably know the benefits programs better than the HR departments of the companies where our clients work," he tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview.

Bogart, whose clients are mainly employees of Fortune 500 companies, won a 2025 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries award for CEO of the Year in the category of RIAs with less than $10 billion in assets under management or advisement.

Bogart was doing well following the 2016 launch of his own business. But then came COVID-19. It changed everything — for the better, he says.

The pandemic forced him to pivot from live prospecting events to digital ones. That upped attendance dramatically, which in turn brought an avalanche of new leads.

"Oh, my gosh," he wondered, "why wasn't I doing this sooner?"

Bogart started at a small broker-dealer in 2007 before stints at RBC Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley helped him become confident enough to open his own shop.

"I'm definitely an entrepreneur at heart with a fiduciary mindset," he declares.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: What differentiates your firm from the competition?

JAMES BOGART: Subject-matter expertise for the retirement plans we market to specific companies' employees.

We arguably know the benefits programs better than the HR departments of the companies where our clients work. So we're able to have conversations around tax strategy, optimization strategies [and so on].

For instance, a lot of the individuals we work with have company stock within their 401(k)s. That qualifies for a special tax provision called net unrealized appreciation.

This is one of many examples where we know the nuances of the programs, so we're able to really add significant value. We do that integrating financial planning, investments, trusts, estate planning.

THINKADVISOR: As an advisor, what's your philosophy?

BOGART: My fundamental belief is that a financial advisor's job is to help solve people's problems. A really good advisor anticipates what their problems will be prior to the problems happening.

THINKADVISOR: How did you learn so much about 401(k) plans and other benefits at various firms?

BOGART: When I came into the industry, instead of trying to be a generalist and know everything about everything, I wanted to be an expert in just one [area].

So I set out to identify companies in my market [McLean, Virginia] that had at least 2,000 employees I could market to.

I drew a radius from my office and started studying. I learned there were about 27 companies that had over 2,000. I studied each of their benefit programs.

I could see that certain companies had stock options as one of their big incentives. Some had pension programs. Others had generous 401(k)s or [Employee Stock Ownership Plans].

So I picked the ones whose language I thought I could speak seamlessly and quickly. Then I started building educational events targeting individuals that worked at those companies.

I was looking for critical pathways: What are the things that are going to cause people to make mistakes when they're on their [retirement] journeys?

THINKADVISOR: How did you market?

BOGART: One of my events didn't have great attendance. So instead of doing my presentation, I treated it as a town hall. I asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

It became abundantly clear that they wanted more depth, more examples, more ways to translate into action.

That was when the light bulb went on and I made the dramatic pivot to what I describe as subject-matter expertise.

THINKADVISOR: How did you go about doing that?

BOGART: I built out a whole presentation series on all the things my target audience was asking me about. And the next thing I knew, I had helped over 1,500 households retire from their organizations.

THINKADVISOR: Which company employed your first clients in this effort?

BOGART: ExxonMobil in 2007. [A few years later, that campus] moved to Houston. I started going down there once a quarter, then more frequently; eventually I became a Texas resident. We're headquartered in McLean, [but] most of our revenue comes out of our Texas offices.

THINKADVISOR: At the start, was your strategy working out?

BOGART: The pandemic changed everything. We went from doing events live to doing them digitally. Before the pandemic, I was getting 60 to 80 people at every one of our live events. Then the pandemic happened, and people didn't want to be in the same room with others.

For our first digital event, we had 397 people who watched. Another 700 saw the video afterward. I was like, "Oh, my gosh, why wasn't I doing this sooner?" We then committed to creating a whole bunch of video content and redid our website.

About three months later, we had 100 new leads in a week.

THINKADVISOR: In these volatile times, are your retiree- or pre-retiree clients nervous about their investments?

BOGART: Uncertainty is certain. We need to manage risk.

It's really important to stay rooted in the fundamental elements of someone's retirement plan, recognizing there are going to be lots of things that happen in our lives that we have absolutely no control over. Markets are one of them.

Political decisions are made that lead to volatility and amplify risk at certain periods. This is why having a financial plan and an investment strategy that aligns with that plan is imperative.

Anybody who retires and puts everything in one stock has a recipe for disaster. You need to be diversified.

So coming back to your question: Are clients uneasy now? Absolutely.

THINKADVISOR: Are you planning to stay a boutique firm on your own, or would you consider being acquired?

BOGART: I have significant growth plans. My goal is to get to $22 billion in assets [under management] by 2033.

We went from $600 million in 2020 to $3.5 billion now, all organically. In 2025, we brought on a capital partner that has been nothing but amazing.

THINKADVISOR: What's one of your near-term goals?

BOGART: We're in the process of acquiring firms that are very much aligned with what we're doing and why we're doing it.

THINKADVISOR: How many do you have?

BOGART: I haven't done one yet. I anticipate we'll have at least one this year. It's a courtship process. You've got to meet the people, evaluate the fit and make sure the culture aligns.

It has to be in the clients' interest and the firm's best interest.