Eleni Mavromati: What It Takes to Be a Great Wealth Management COO

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Welcome to Barron's The Way Forward. I'm Greg Bartellis, and my special guest is Eleni Mavromati, who's Managing Director, Private Wealth Manager with Merrill Private Wealth Management, serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the Jones Safari Team. She has been with Merrill Private Wealth Management since 2002 and is responsible for measuring and achieving long-term growth, improving efficiencies, and enhancing productivity within the team. She also manages the strategy, and processes related to building and retaining a team. Today we're going to discuss what it takes to succeed as a wealth management COO. Welcome, Eleni.

Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here.

Well, my pleasure. Thank you so much for joining. So tell us a little about your career arc, how you got into wealth management and what you do today.

A little bit of a long story.

That's fine. We have time.

But, um, I came, uh, to the United States in 1992 to attend school in Western Massachusetts. So I went to Smith College, an all-women's college. In Northampton. And then after that, I thought I would try my luck in investment banking. So I worked for Morgan Stanley's investment banking division for 2 years. And after that, I thought I would stay on but switch a little bit. And I moved into equity research where I covered gold and non-ferrous metals there for a year. But gold unfortunately was at $180 an ounce back then. So as you can imagine, none of the companies were profitable. So Morgan Stanley moved research to Canada. So I was almost without a job until I shifted and I started working in the portfolio, uh, division where they would create custom portfolios that they would sell through the different advisors that Morgan Stanley had at the time. At the same time, I decided that I need to go to graduate school thinking that I would eventually move back to Greece. So, I applied, I, I attended Stanford for 2 years, but in the summer between my 2 years, I got the opportunity to intern at Merrill. And the funny part about this story was that Merrill was, uh, starting their foray into the ultra-high net worth market back then. So they were opening all these financial centers to service the ultra-high net worth individuals, and they were forming all these teams. So, They called me for an interview. I said, that's great, I'll show up. So I went to this hotel room and I asked for the person, uh, that was gonna interview me. His name was Michael Rogers, which is a very common name. They sent me to a room. I went there. There was no Mike Rogers there. So I waited and waited and he never showed up, um, for about an hour. And the person who was there was trying to figure out who Mike Rogers is within this You know, huge organization. And of course there were so many of them. So 45 minutes into it, I'm thinking, okay, now I'm just gonna leave. 'Cause what's the point? I'm 45 minutes late to my interview. And Mike Rogers walks in, he says, oh my God, you're still here. I'm so glad you're still waiting. So we had that interview and lo and behold, he gave me an offer to join the internship program. So I entered, I was a rotational program. I entered with a bunch of different teams. One of them was the John Zafari Group. They had just moved to Merrill from JP Morgan in 1999, so they were still pretty new. And when I finished my internship, I thought, you know, that was great, probably not the right thing for me. I'm not sure I can be a good advisor, so maybe I should just go back into sales and trading or do something like that. And it was one of the founding partners, Reza Zafari, who actually called me and he said, You have to join the team. You have to come here. I told him, Reza, I can't. That's not my personality. I cannot do this. He said, just take a risk. What do you have to lose? You have nothing to lose. Just join and see how it is for a couple of years. If you don't like it, just leave. So I kind of, you know, hesitated, but I said, you know, I think he's kind of right. I can't find a job in Greece. I should just probably stay here. And I joined the team, and 23 years later, I'm still here.

Wow, that's such an amazing story. I love the fact that you You stayed and then Mike Rogers materialized. I mean, like, you, you easily could have left 5 minutes earlier. Yep. There's almost a little unspoken, a lesson of, I don't know, persistence at least, or don't give up. You never know. Right.

Exactly.

You never know.

Yeah.

That's so great. Right. That's a wonderful story. So tell me a little about, about the here and now and what you're doing in your current role.

Yeah. So what, what, what I started doing when I first joined, I started overseeing all the fixed income and credit for the group. So the goal back then was to oversee specifically the municipal bonds for the team. Started, started doing that so that I can give one of my other partners, Jerry Klein, who is still a partner on the team, the opportunity to go out and service clients and bring in new business. So I started focusing solely on that, learning about the municipal bond market with the help of a lot of asset managers who, who at the time were actually mentors to me. And developed this very close relationships to them. And as time progressed, we realized that we had to start going into credit markets. So we started developing new portfolios, especially in 2009, we came up with our credit opportunities portfolio and we started developing kind of new, discretionary managed programs. But by 2020, the team had grown so much that it made sense for us to actually have someone who could essentially run the business. When I first joined, it was 9 of us in Central City. Today it's 27 of us sitting there. So it was very important that we have someone who can oversee all the processes, the HR, the marketing. Compliance had gotten, uh, a lot stricter, obviously. So my role today, like I said, it's just being the chief operating officer of the team so that I can help the team kind of just go towards the goals that we set every year.

Tell me a little about all the various responsibilities. So it's a, it's a lot to oversee.

Mm-hmm. Definitely. There's a lot of hats that one has to, to wear. And you're almost like a conductor of an orchestra where your instruments are just compliance on one side, business development, the culture of the team. You know, you have to oversee investments, you have to do the marketing. There are just so many things., you know, within, within its kind of part of the job. And, I would start with, the human resource aspect of it that I would say is probably the most important. That's where we not only try to hire the right people for the team, but we also try to, help them develop and forge their own career paths. Every person is different, and that career path is very fluid for us. The way we run the team, because ultimately what we want to do is take advantage of each person's strengths. So I have quarterly meetings or monthly meetings with each person on the team, and I constantly— we go through this stop-start exercise. What do you still like to do? What are the things that, you know, you don't want to do anymore? Does this fit with anything that we're doing on the team? Is your path shifting? Did you tell me that you like to be more with operations and be in the background before, but now that you feel more confident, you can go into a client relationship manager role? Are you now comfortable with giving a review and now you wanna kind of venture into business development? So it's a constant conversation where we try to take advantage of people's strengths, basically.

I, I think that's, I love that idea. The whole stop-start and the quarterly cadence is fantastic because I think that's kind of rare, frankly. I mean, a lot of companies have annual reviews and this and that, but to actually be so intentional and proactive about it is great. And then the employees will know that this is something that should be— it's not permanent, whatever they're doing. Like a lot of people will have aspects of their job they don't like, but they kind of shrug and grin and bear it and say, all right, I can deal with this. And they forge ahead. But I think doing that is a great way to keep their morale high and to feel that they're that you, you care about their development and it benefits the company if you can lean into their strengths.

I think one of the strengths of our team is that we try to groom people from the inside. It's very hard for us to bring someone from the outside because you have to make sure that not only do they buy in the vision of the team, but they buy into the culture of the team and they fit within that culture. So that's, that has been a challenge every time we've tried to do it. So it's extremely important for us to have people that we, for example, an analyst we would hire straight out of undergraduate, and then eventually we will have them learn how to do a review, how to explain the markets to a client. Then after that, they just kind of move into a client relationship manager role where they can give that review to the client all on their own, learn more about trust and estate. And then after that, Do you now feel comfortable to pick up the phone or ask for a referral from an existing client? Right. That's the hardest part that I think a lot of people who think they can be advisors underestimate. That's extremely hard. Yeah. So that's the part of the kind of HR part of the job. There's also hard parts to it, obviously, because sometimes you have to give constructive feedback to people, and that's not always easy. Um, but then there is the other, you know, uh, parts of the job, the, the business development aspect of it. So in the last 5 years, we started becoming more intentional about how we prospect. A lot of our, um, referrals were coming from clients, and now surprisingly, because we developed the website and we've been trying to be a little bit more active with social media, mainly LinkedIn, Uh, what we're seeing is a lot of people will see a ranking in Barrons and they're gonna pick up the phone and they're gonna call us and they will tell us specifically, we saw your ranking in Barrons, we wanna talk to one of the top teams. You're one of them. Tell us what you do and why we should become your client. So, so we have to train people about how to talk about the rankings, how to present the team, do all those things. So I try to lead calls, monthly calls that Endreza, uh, Zafari acts as the mentor there for our newer, our for younger people. And what we do through, you know, in those calls is we exchange information, best practices. I have a prospect, I'm a little bit stuck, what do I do? And the other people who are on the call are just gonna throw ideas. So, but you have to be consistent and persistent in order to get to keep that moving, right? On the business development side. And then from that, we come up with ideas like, Okay, let's focus on women, right? What can we do? Victoria Santoro, who is one of our, one of the junior partners on the team, what she's been doing is she's been organizing these hikes where she brings in women and she's creating this network because what we figured out was that women like that connectivity and they like talking to each other without being distracted. So when you take a nature walk with them, they start talking to each other, they start connecting, and eventually they become friends and maybe they can become business partners. Who knows what will come out of it, right? And then they start— women tend to talk to other people a lot more than men. So we started seeing referrals from them coming in, things like that. So the business development aspect of the, of the role is extremely important as well.

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Compliance, not the most fun part of my job, but something that protects us, obviously. So, we have to stay in touch with the new rules and regulations, and I'm kind of the point person between our compliance and the team. And, you know, as much as I like the people in compliance, you know, I don't really want to talk to them too much, because if I talk to them too much, that means that, you know, Something is going on. Um, so those are just some of the things. And then obviously there is the marketing and that again depends on the compliance that comes from the firm. So with, I try to come up with innovative ways that will give us access to new prospects that will present the team in the right light. So a lot of the, uh, conferences that we go to, we try to speak at. A lot of the materials that we put in front of the clients, we try to keep as up to date as possible, you know, so that they can be of interest to the clients that we talk to.

How has the job changed from, let's say, 4 or 5 years ago? How is, how is it fundamentally different perhaps for yourself, but even more broadly for other COOs in wealth management?

So I have a group of COOs within the firm that I talk to and we just share best practices. And it feels, at least for, for our team, it, everything was a little bit more haphazard. I would say there was no real structure behind it, but I think the pandemic gave us the opportunity to kind of step back. Mm-hmm. And slow down a little bit so that we're able to X-ray the business and see where are our gaps and what do we do about these gaps. So also talking to a lot of the other COOs that I talk to internally, It seems like they're almost in the same spot where we all kind of slowed down and we were able to identify where the gaps were. And every team has different gaps, obviously, and address those. So for us, the gap was the culture of the team. How do we make the team culture stay? How do we make it stronger, especially at the time where a lot of people still work remotely? A lot of people, you know, go on Zooms instead of having an in-person meeting, right? So that, that was what was important. The other gap for us was the business development, 'cause we had relied a lot on client referrals. Mm-hmm. And as the team kept growing and growing, client referrals were not enough and we had to make an active effort, uh, with business development.

How are you looking at targets for that and how are you quantifying or approaching all that?

So we typically set an, net new fee-based asset goal for the year. And that goal can come either from assets that our existing clients have, that can come from the outside, or it can be completely new assets. And if we're targeting new assets, then, you know, we create different marketing events so that we can make stronger networks. Because one of the things that we've gotten as feedback from our clients is that the thing that they appreciate the most about our team is the network. The opportunity to get to know and get to meet the other clients that we have. So we try to take advantage of that as much as possible.

But more broadly speaking, the COO role, it seems to have gained in prominence and importance in real— in recent years. It's just more important. If someone is considering becoming a COO and wondering if they might be a good fit, what are some of the hallmarks or qualities that you would, all things considered equal, think someone who's a good CEO should possess?

I think there are a couple of different things. First and most importantly is your listening skills. You have to be able to listen to everybody on the team. You can't think that someone's more important than somebody else. And from my perspective, I sit outside, uh, on the trading floor. I don't have my own office. And that's intentional. It's because that's the only way I can feel the pulse of the team. And if there is any tension whatsoever, I can, I can hear it and I can see it. If I'm locked into an office, I'm in my own bubble, right? And then I come out whenever, uh, I think there's something happening or I hear something happening. So I think it's really important that you're constantly listening. And I think it's important to also meet with different people. Not to just hear about what they have on their workload, but also hear from them about their personal lives. Because first, if they open up, right, but personal lives impact people's work product and work quality. So it's very important to know, okay, if Greg today has something going on at home, how can I help him, right? What can I do? Can someone else step in and help him while he's going through this difficult time? Or if Greg has something really happy happening, how do we help him celebrate that? Right? So listening is important. Empathy is very important. Um, 'cause I think you have to understand where people are coming from. Everybody's human. We all work together, and only if we work together, we can make that ship just kind of keep going forward, right? Towards our goal. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I would say, One more thing, you know, for me is the ability to be vulnerable in front of people. It doesn't matter if it's the intern, doesn't matter if it's the analyst, your fellow partner, whoever it is. Sometimes there are things you just don't know, and it's okay to admit that you don't know them and get feedback. And to get real feedback, you have to encourage people to give you real feedback. I just got some feedback the other day that I wasn't particularly happy about, but I appreciate it. Someone said, well, I don't really always like talking to Eleni because she's too direct. And I said, okay, I get it. But now I have to step back and say, okay, how do I deliver the constructive criticism to this person in real time without making them feel that I'm being too direct or I'm hurting their feelings, but I still need them to get the message right. So, I don't know how to do it. So what I want to, some of my other partners said, what do I do now? Right. Um, you just need some feedback. I don't need anyone to stroke my back. I just need them to be able to tell me ideas.

Right. I, I, I think so. I think for some people they, they feel the word constructive criticism to be an oxymoron because criticism, even if constructive to them, feels like deconstructive, destructive criticism. But I think that's probably a good thing that the— better to receive a little criticism that you were being too— I don't know, you didn't say blunt, but too forthright maybe, as opposed to just sugarcoating everything. Then there's no value. You're not providing anything of utility if you do that.

Exactly.

But I understand the point that you want to calibrate things to be productive and be thoughtful at the same time. So that was really helpful. You say you just described a lot of the qualities that you, you should see in successful COOs. Now, let's look to the future. To the extent that we have a crystal ball and can anticipate what's ahead, are there any skills that you think are— to succeed in the future, what might be different in this role? So what you just described, I'll assume, is probably going to be a constant. But what might change with this role in the future?

I think that you have to be extremely organized because there are so many balls in the air at all times. That you have to be super organized and you have to use technology to your advantage, right? So everybody at the conference has been speaking about the use of AI, and I'm not convinced that AI is gonna replace a lot of the people that we have on our team, but I think it will help us all become more efficient, uh, and it will help us, it will help some of the the people that we have take on new roles on the team and be able to kind of get outside of their little shell and start shining in other ways. So, as a COO, I think that you have, you have to learn how to use that technology to your advantage, and you have to learn how to use it just so that you can encourage all the people around you to start growing and developing in different roles that You know, maybe they don't even exist today, right? I mean, having someone taking notes even, right? It takes 30, 45 minutes of your time. If I get this 30, 45 minutes from 2 meetings a day, that's an additional hour and a half to my day. What do I do with it? Yeah. So I think you have to start leveraging everybody's skills. Um, and you have to be open to the technology. You have to, You can't, and somebody said it earlier, you can assign it to the junior analyst to say, oh, you become the technology expert. No, you have to learn it yourself and you have to constantly keep learning and being open to it.

How do you foster that company culture and employee engagement? Because I know, I mean, on teams, chemistry is so critical, right? It's so darn important. You could have someone who's even very competent, but if they don't click or if they're just, you know, how, so how do you ensure that harmony where you really feel like it's a, a large family of sorts in a way?

So I would lie if I said that this was a functional family. It's definitely, you know, a dysfunctional family at times, like most families are. Mm-hmm. But I think you have to empower the people to talk to each other. So for us, what, What we do is, what we tell them is, if someone comes to me and tells me, oh, Greg did something and it bothered me, I don't want Greg to ever feel like he, he was thrown under the bus, right? So what I tell them is, take some, take some time, a day, just step away from the issue. Because if you go and you talk to Greg now, you're gonna be, you're already pissed at him. Now you're gonna get more mad at him. So step away from that. Wait for a day. Let's role play. Do you want me to go tell him or do you wanna go tell him? And I would say nowadays, 9 out of the 10 people say, I'll go tell him. But you have to, you know, you have to role play with them because I think people appreciate it more when you go and you say, hey, Greg, I know you said this, this, but don't, without pointing fingers, right? Greg, you said this, this is how it made me feel. Mm-hmm. This is how I would've liked it to be next time. Let's just talk about it. Let's talk, let's learn from it.

Right.

Right. But so, so that's kind of one when we try to kind of alleviate the tensions and just make it easier for people. But you also have to foster a culture that's a little bit friendlier, not always work-related. So we'll do certain things that are kind of fun, you know, at different times throughout, throughout the year. I'll give you two examples that we did recently. And, um, in the fall, we decided to have a fall crafting activity for the team. So everybody got together and we had all these flowers and pine cones and all sorts of things and wreaths, and everybody got in the conference room. And they had glue guns and they were making all these wreaths. And it was actually very interesting to see how people were interacting with each other because every time we have a team dinner, what you see is our client associates sit with the other client associates, our analysts sit with the other analysts, so you never see them like mingling. But in that situation, we were able to see them mingling, and we had some partners walk in who would never do that activity ever. So it was a lot of fun. We tried to do book clubs at least once a quarter, so we assign a fiction, nonfiction book, and then we all get together. And again, it's one of those things, you know, you assign a book that maybe Richard Jones would never have picked up, right? And he says that he's a voracious reader, so he'll always say, I never would have picked up this fiction book. So then you have a conversation and we'll go off on tangents, and it's just really fun to hear everybody.

Yeah, that's a— I love that idea of the wreaths and the craft to bring it together because it's, I mean, it's not about you so much as an outwardly directed activity. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah, you can get all different types of people engaging over a pine cone or whatever.

We have actually the next one we're doing is next Monday. Everybody gets a little wooden house and you have to paint it and decorate it. And then we're going to create the Jones Safari Holiday Village. I love it.

So yeah, we'll see what people come up with. Excellent. Anything else that we haven't touched on that you think is really important? And, and maybe what might be your best piece of advice for someone who wants to be a COO?

I think that, like I said before, just leading with empathy and is the most important thing. And just being open to listen to other people's ideas because listening to everybody's ideas will kind of help make the team great, right? If you just always think inside a box, the team just never becomes great. You just kind of follow the path, you know, and you just always have to keep forging your own path going forward.

And I'd assume you'd have to be seen as really, really, really fair and neutral, right? Because you need the higher-ups, mid-level, every level needs to feel that you kind of have their back.

Yes, but you'll never get that feedback all the time.

No, of course.

People will always tell you, well, she was unfair. Of course.

So you have to be willing to take that. Right. So you can't control that.

Yeah.

But to the extent you can, you want to manage that perception and not— and act the part, certainly be it, but very much really be, you know, as fair as possible.

Yeah.

And that gives you more credibility and then everyone benefits.

Totally. You have to be the type of person who is willing to take the feedback and use that feedback, but at the same time, You know, just try to keep redefining the role, right? And keep redefining what you can do for the team.

Well, that was a terrific interview and a lot of really useful information. So thank you so much for joining and for sharing all that.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it. My guest was Eleni Mavromati. For more podcasts and the latest wealth management news, visit barons.com/advisor. You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon. For The Way Forward, I'm Greg Bartolis.

This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com.