Josh Bronstein: ‘Playing the Long Game Is Key’

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Welcome to The Way Forward presented by Barron's. Hi there, I'm Ray Scalfani, founder and CEO at ClientWise, and I'll be your host today. So what's it like to follow in the footsteps of an industry icon and still carve out a path that's completely your own? Well, that's the story we'll be unpacking today. My guest, Josh Bronstein, is a next-generation advisor who didn't just walk into a role, he built it. Relationship by relationship over many years. He's living proof that playing the long game pays off. Josh is a student of the craft and a partner in one of the most successful teams at Neuberger Berman. Josh's partner, Stephanie Stiefel, has been a trailblazer in the industry, is consistently ranked by Barron's as one of the top female advisors in the country, and is part of the Barron's Hall of Fame Advisors. Josh believes that the key to growing a career and a team is showing up with humility, curiosity, and a serious commitment to doing the work. From multi-generational client Zoom meetings to establishing his own brand within a leading practice, Josh is accomplishing what many aspire to, gaining trust, broadening his impact, and enhancing a successful practice and laying the groundwork for a team that will flourish long after the founding partner has stepped away. Today, we'll talk about business development, mentorship, succession, and what it means to grow something enduring in a constantly evolving industry. Josh, welcome to The Way Forward.

Thanks, Ray, and thanks, Baron, for, for having me. Super excited for the conversation. I'm a student of the industry and happy to share my journey and learn from you as well.

Well, let's get into it. Tell us a little bit about your firm, Neuberger Berman, for those that may not be familiar, and specifically about your team and how you got into the business.

Sure. So I'll start with Neuberger on a macro sense. We just crossed the $500 billion mark, which was super exciting for us, and that's globally as a firm. And then as you, as you go down more micro, the private wealth space within our private wealth management and trust company is about $82 billion. And then our team, the Stifel Bronstein team, sits within that channel and we're just under $4 billion of assets under management. So we've got a very mature, large book of business with super engaged and highly active clients. And our role, I think about it as a dual mandate similar to the Fed, that one is the, in the traditional sense of money management that people think of an advisor is, okay, putting money into equities, putting money into bonds, putting money into private investments. That's step 1. But step 2, which I think we'll get into more in, in the discussion, is more on the advice side and the planning side. And that could be an endless sea of opportunities, whether it's estate planning, lending, philanthropy, next generation financial literacy, insurance, real estate, all of those things. It's hard to quantify that type of role, and that's what keeps growing and growing in importance. For our practice and how we've established ourselves and build that credibility. So that's on the Neuberger side. My background is I grew up in Philadelphia and my sophomore year of high school, I don't know how my parents secured this 'cause my parents didn't really have a network. My father's a physician, my mother's an attorney, and they got me a career day at Sanford Bernstein. I took the train up by myself, spent the day there, spent the day with an advisor who was willing to give me the time, fell in love with the industry, felt it was markets-related, it was challenging. You got to deal with people, and I was hooked. I, when I went to college, that's what I applied for my major to be. 4 years later, that's the major I graduated with.

That's fantastic.

And I landed a role at Moody's Investor Service in 2006 as a ratings analyst in structured finance. Talk about a really hot market at the time.

At the time, sure.

At the time. So it was a cool space to be in then. Come 2007, 2008, I'm at the eye of the storm and the business and liquidity and credit were just, it was very chaotic. But for me being early on in my career, it was a huge learning experience and it kind of laid the foundation for, how I think about risk management, how I think about volatility, liquidity, and I always carried those skills in that time period with me when I'm talking to clients and building portfolios and thinking about volatility because in an upmarket, clients don't think about the other side of the coin. So I always like to figure out how much risk and volatility can they handle, and that was a big turning point for my career. And during that time, I completed my CFA designation to try to build my internal and external credibility. And then from there, I went to Morgan Stanley. I worked in their credit fixed income group, but I was in a very analytical quantitative role. I wasn't managing money, I wasn't really dealing with people on a sales basis, and I wanted to make a pivot. And for me, that pivot was business school. And I went back to NYU, And at the time, I remember our Dean, Dean Henry, talking about the MBA experience could be transformational. For me, it was extremely transformational.

And how so?

Well, I think one of the biggest things was that I was trying to go into a career path that didn't really suit my strengths. I thought I was gonna be a portfolio manager for a mutual fund and picking stocks and picking bonds, but really, the wealth management channel was better suited for my strengths. I love markets, I love investments, but I also love dealing with people. Now it's more of a business as well. So it's entrepreneurial, it's challenging, it's getting to help people with a variety of things in their life. We're gonna unpack some of that. And so that search process of, you know, going through what I'm good at, I figured, let me focus on my strengths. So taking those 2 years was really helpful, and I landed an internship at JPMorgan Private Bank. I was fortunate enough to get a full-time offer after school, and the training program at JPMorgan was hands down another transformational process, expanding my network, helping me to hone in on what those skills are. And what JPMorgan afforded me was, The opportunity to get involved with client conversations almost day one, just throwing your feet to the fire and giving, dealing with a lot of difficult clients early on in my career helped me build that backbone that has helped me succeed to this point now. So spent 2 years at JPMorgan Private Bank and then in 2017 pivoted to Neuberger. I wanna save that part of the story for later in the discussion, but that's been the, the journey since I graduated college.

Well, thanks for sharing that. I've heard you say over and over that you're always playing the long game. It sure sounds like you've been committed to a long-term career and building a career. For aspiring next-generation advisors, what does it look like to think long-term and build credibility early in your career?

Yeah, playing the long game is key. I love the sports metaphor, so I use it all the time. And I'm now, I'm looking for a 30-year client. I'm looking for a relationship, not a transaction. I don't wanna get a quick commission and then be done with a client. I'm looking for clients, and we, our team is looking for clients that we can partner with, that we're highly engaged with, that there is a true chemistry and cultural fit. And that's not for everyone. And that's just, how we've kind of built the business, but it goes back to, you know, early in my career establishing that credibility. And it takes years of consistent, consistent service, consistent reporting, providing accurate figures, whether it's reporting performance, getting tax documentation, responding in a timely fashion, but consistency, of high level of service and advice over time is how you build that credibility. And clients are, they're very sensitive to change. It's hard to implement a new person on the team organically because they don't, once they find someone that they know can do the job, they'll stick with it, they'll stick with them, and it's hard to have them pivot. So those are the things that early on would help establish credibility.

I wanna stick with the sports metaphor since you like it a lot. What are the at-bats? That helped you build that confidence and client skill set?

Yeah, so clients can sense— they're very smart, they're very well-read, they know what's going on in the world. If they sense any kind of doubt or lack of confidence in your voice over the phone or in person, it hurts your credibility. So for me, I was desperate. I was anxious to get more experience and at-bats with, with clients. And that meant just getting on the phone. And they weren't ready to talk about markets or planning with me. So where did I start? I started with the easy stuff, which was setting them up for online access. And that could take 20, 30 minutes. And then we'd have a personal conversation and you're building that rapport. And then it pivoted into explaining the investment advisory agreement. I read every term in that agreement. I could answer any question about what they were signing. And then they felt more comfortable about, and this was pre-Docusign, going to a client's home and sitting there and signing the documents with them. So that process built another level of trust that you could address any questions they had. Talking about fees, I made it a big point to be upfront about fees. In our presentations, we put the fees in a bigger font on purpose because we don't want to—

No surprises.

No surprises. We want to be upfront. We feel like we bring a lot of value to the table,, and we should be compensated and it's fair and equitable, but everyone should know what's going on. And so I think that that has also helped build credibility too. And then when you establish those building blocks, what I would think are some of the easier things to talk about. Yeah, tell us about those. Then, you know, I think client service is one of the areas where we have control. You have control. We don't have control of the markets. They're volatile, they're up and down, it's anxiety-driven. That's a variable that we don't have too much control over. We can put in an asset allocation and invest over the long term, but client service is something I felt like we had control over. And then I'm consistently having more at-bats with providing that high level of service. It builds the rapport to then talk about the harder things, performance, estate planning, financial planning. And then overnight, those conversations just, once you build that rapport with the client, they are your friend, they are your partner, they are in the trenches with you, especially during these volatile times, and they seek out your guidance and advice. And that's a special relationship when you get there, but it takes time and it's patience.

That's the long game. And you know, you call it at-bats. It sounds like there's layers of trust that you seek out those opportunities to just keep layering on additional trust and finding the easy wins. That's remarkable advice for next-generation leaders and even leaders of big practices who are developing next-gen is performative opportunities that would be easy to build trust. Were there any other small little wins? You talked about client service, you talked about technology, digitally engaging the client more effectively. Any other quick wins?

I would say not overstepping, kind of stay in your lane and let it grow organically. Not trying, especially not trying to push any type of product or service and always trying to solve for a solution and be a problem solver and let a different investment or strategy almost come up organically without looking like, you're trying to position a sale. I was always, I've always been a little insecure about the negative stigma of financial advisors that they're, whatever that is.

It's a sales job.

It's a sales job. And it's not.

It's not.

When done properly.

Yes. And so I really try to demystify that type of stigma with advice first, service first, and then talking about what, like, how can we create something that makes sense? And it's not really a sale, but I think we're almost in a position where we can help every client or create something for every possible client. And it's not, we don't consider it a sale.

It's about impact for sure. Okay, we'll get into more of that in just a bit. I do wanna explore just very quickly, it's interesting, your entry into the business wasn't really through a job posting. And I'm curious if you could share how networking and persistence influenced this journey into wealth management and eventually led to your position at Neuberger Berman?

Yeah, so I hope that there's a lot of young listeners that are hearing this, whether they're in college, younger advisors. Again, playing the long game is key here. My junior year of college, I was paired up with an alumni mentor from my fraternity, and I thought, okay, and everyone kept talking about networking, talking, saying the word, what does it mean? How do you actually, Can you go to a cocktail party and just network? How does it happen?

What does that look like?

Yeah. So I, I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to start to try to build my network. And from the alumni base, from all these different conversations and my goal, I started an Excel sheet and from every conversation, my goal was to get another conversation. I didn't ask them to pass along my resume. I didn't ask them if they were hiring. I just asked them to, do you know anyone who can, who could give me advice in this space? And when you're young, people are willing to talk to you about career advice because most likely someone helped them. And I'm a big proponent of paying it forward. And so that led to a few hundred people on this list. Wow. And I would track when we spoke, what we spoke about, and then set a frequency to check in with them whether there was a relevant article that I saw in the Wall Street Journal or a class I was taking or a thesis I was writing, and it would just reach out to them to establish credibility that, hey, this kid is passionate, engaged, wants to work, is really going the next level. You're not asking for anything and you become top of mind as roles come up and people talk —You stand out. —And that's, yeah. And so I kept doing that the first few years when I got to New York, and I would take every conversation I could. And this particular conversation was with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. It was her brother's best friend growing up is Stephanie Stiefel. That's his mother.

—No kidding.

That's fantastic. —And so she was at Neuberger, I said, I'd love to speak with her. And that struck a mentor-mentee relationship in about 2009. And we would have breakfast or lunch or speak periodically for the next 6 or 7 years. No kidding. That's the long game. That's the long game. And I had no idea what it would ever lead to until 2016. We were having breakfast at one of these chats and she said, why don't you, come join me as my partner at Neuberger. And things were really good at JPMorgan, but this was an opportunity to join, you mentioned icon in the business, help her sustain and grow this incredible business. It was too hard to pass up, and that was 8.5 years ago.

You described this networking. It also sounds to me like you were not looking for anything. You were genuinely wanting to learn and seeking some mentorship, Just wanting to be in a room with high performers to learn and grow. Exactly. That's pretty fantastic.

And I think just the dinner last night, high performers are attracted to other high performers and you wanna just keep elevating your game.

And that's what I felt like I was doing. That's fantastic. So we talk about Stephanie, let's get into Stephanie. I've heard you describe her as kind of the head honcho. She's a force. She is a part of the Hall of Fame at Barron's, which is remarkable. And she's a leader that you deeply respect. I know that for sure. What's the key to making a partnership like this thrive, especially when you're not seeking the spotlight yourself?

Well, it goes back to the mantra of this, just playing the long game. And we have an amazing team. I feel like I hit the trifecta, another sports metaphor, but, I've got an incredible partner, we've got an incredible team, and we're at this amazing firm that has just positioned us so well to win. And again, I'm so happy with my life. I've got two amazing daughters, an amazing wife, and I plan to be, I plan to be in this business for the next 30 years. And it's not about the spotlight for me. We've got incredible clients. I wish I could brag about them. They're people that you would know, their endeavors are really cool to talk about internally, but we would never share who they are or what they're doing with their philanthropy is super special and unique. And I think it just goes to show that like this is a confidentiality business and it's gratifying to help people in those ways. And it's not about the public perception of what we're doing. And I'm more focused on our team succeeding for our clients than me and the personal spotlight.

It sounds like you guys are good at flying below the radar.

Yes, as a firm too. I think our team and as a firm and how we grow and really the metric that tracks us is, are our clients continue, do they continue to have that high level of client service? I mean, it's great to be recognized by Barron's, but at the end of the day, we work for our clients and if they're not happy, they're gonna tell us.

Tell us a little bit about the team. You talk about the team, uh, to describe the team, uh, how large is the team? What are some of the roles on the team? And most importantly, how do you and Stephanie complement each other as business partners?

So we have 6 members on our team. Stephanie and I are wealth advisors, and then we have 4 other portfolio associates, one who focuses strictly on operations, And if you're in the business, you know how hard it is to move money from different firms. There's no standard practice when— It's not easy. You're rolling over a 401(k) or an IRA or a portion that's Roth and traditional. It can get confusing. So I refer to him as MacGyver internally, that he can, he knows how to move money efficiently and he can solve those problems for clients. That's a huge value add for a client who really, one, doesn't want to deal with this, and two, doesn't have the sophistication to understand or the patience. So that's key. We also have a certified financial planner on our team who does superb plans for clients, and especially when, for our existing clients, we've built out these plans, but for new clients, we get to aggregate all of their data together and show it to them in this amazing format, and then how we could tweak things to make things more suitable for them. That's a huge value add to have captive to our team. We have another senior relationship specialist who deals with a lot of our major client relationships, our intermediary and referral sources, and our multifamily office clients. And then we have another team member who deals with all of our online access, scheduling, reports, there's, there's so much client activity that goes on. And I think the way that the, the business has evolved, clients have evolved too. They're much more engaged, they're much more sophisticated, the speed of information. So we as a team have to pivot and, and be top of mind all the time. You got to keep up and even stay ahead. And, and it's super competitive. You know, there's a lot of good people in our business that do this. And service has always been critical to us. Now, I'm not diminishing performance, but service sometimes for a large family or a business owner is even more important.

They're looking for the simplicity, helping them make these decisions and keeping sort of the trains running on time.

Exactly, and so our team is so critical to our success, and we wouldn't be in this position without them.

So let's talk about this. You're a next-generation advisor, and Stephanie clearly is an icon in our industry. How do you and Stephanie collaborate to serve clients jointly and maybe not step on each other's toes, but also from the internal perspective on the team? I'm also really curious, you know, how the clients view the two of you.

So I think our value proposition is unique and it's special for individual clients because we actually, we do have different investment philosophies. But I think we have a healthy debate. I think that's a good thing that we will come at it with a different approach, a different style, whether it's passive, active, income-oriented, growth-oriented, fixed income, equities, and we'll have a healthy debate to come up with really what we think is the best solution for the client. But Stephanie's competitive advantage is she's got huge strength in the financial planning space. So an area that I've been trying to get better and better at., but she's got tons of experience in that area. And my prior experience is on the investment side, credit, equities, evaluating private equity managers. So when you pair those two in a meeting, the client's getting, in our, in our view, the best of both worlds.

Yeah, one plus one is explosive.

Yeah, is three. And then you pair that with amazing service and a team that, that can deliver. It's really, it's a home run for the client experience, and that's what we hope to consistently deliver on.

It's a highly efficient operation with in excess of $4 billion and growing. To have a team of this size providing the quality of advice that you are, it says exceptional about what you're doing for clients. And that leads us, I think we should shift gears just a bit and let's talk about growth because the best in the business are finding that Now is the time they're picking up more new clients than ever. Clearly, you all as a team are growing dramatically, and I know that you've never asked for a referral, which is interesting because our business has historically talked about ask everybody and all the time, which I don't ascribe to, ascribe to, but, but that seems to be the, the talk of the town. You've also built a strong client base through referrals while not asking, so How does this really work? It seems like a kind of a dichotomy that doesn't sound like it works, but it works.

It goes back to the networking style of not asking for a job, not asking for a resume. I tell my kids, actions speak louder than words. And I believe that if we continue to deliver on a superb high-level concierge client service with a great client experience, and hopefully we have some good performance along the way, that clients will talk, they run in smaller circles, and we've built our business, the majority of our new business comes from our existing clients. We do have centers of influence that we do get referrals from, but the majority of it is from our existing base. And I think the data proves that as well, but it takes years and years of that consistency. And yeah, it's always felt uncomfortable to me to ask for a referral. And I think it's who you're partnering with. Certain clients, I think that if they can help or if they want to help, they will. And that goes to also like how we think about our growth. Do we want to partner with good, kindhearted people that want to make introductions for us? You kind of, you have an idea of who those people are, and those are great clients.

You're making a really interesting connection because I've heard advisors say over the years, oh, we just provide good service and referrals come in. And I get it, and I believe that. I'm not suggesting that doesn't happen. It does. We know that to be true. But you're also making an interesting connection when you go back to your networking. You haven't been somebody that's ever really asked for a lot, but you've wanted to be sort of around the table, being curious, learning. How do you tell clients that you're open for business, that you want to grow the business?

How do you telegraph that in a way without asking? So I think when I started at Neuberger, it was more entrepreneurial. It was about bringing business in, growing the business, bringing down the average age of the client, this great wealth transfer, which we all talked about. We're in that right now. It's really happening. I think we're in the second inning, maybe, maybe second or third inning, and we can talk about that more, but When I started at Neuberger, I needed a way to establish credibility. Again, we talked about the online access with clients, but how was I going to prospect? And what I did was I created my own market commentary and I would send it out. I didn't wanna spam people. I would try to send 1 to 2 pieces a month. I would write it in bullet points. I know they're busy professionals and it would go out Monday mornings and, Then I would sometimes post it on LinkedIn and try to get different leverage from those marketing opportunities or just establishing myself as an expert, whether it's on a planning idea, philanthropy, around Giving Tuesday, around an important election, or around earnings or an interest rate hike. There's so much data and content, and I think people depend on us to synthesize what's really important, what matters. I tried to do that, and then as that list grew and grew, I'd be working on prospects, and instead of, I'm not a big fan of, hey, I'm checking in, hey, I'm following up with you without adding value. So I would send them these market updates, and it would be a reminder to them to, oh, I gotta get back to Josh. Oh, I was gonna send Josh that wire. Oh, I was gonna roll over that 401k. And every time I sent the email, I'd get 3 or 4 responses, and then it would create work, it'd create activity., and it just kept mushrooming from that point on. And we've continued that to this day.

I've been recently added to this list. I feel honored, by the way. It is tremendous. It is what you write about and your perspective and your thought leadership, it isn't trite. It is really smart. And it sounds like that's been a differentiator for you for sure.

Yeah, I think in a lot of ways, I think for clients, it establishes us, especially if they have multiple providers, Who are they hearing from in tough times? What type of advice are they getting? Is it, you know, is it written by someone else? Is it just a PDF that they're forwarding? And I think it's important for them to, for clients and prospects to hear from the decision makers, the wealth advisors in these times of difficult volatile markets.

So I know somebody listening to this is thinking now, man, I'll never get anything through compliance. They're going to halt me in my tracks. And if it does get approved, it's got to be evergreen. And I can't post it or share it. So what advice or guidance do you have?

Our firm has gotten, and we're super compliant on everything, and we have been working with compliance to get it to a point where things get approved and it's approved for internal and external at the same time. So our team, our marketing team, working with our compliance team to get these pieces out because the data is moving so quickly And clients want to know what's going on. So it used to be you'd wait a day or two to, to get a piece out if there was a big material movement in the markets. And now we're getting it out same day, maybe even 3 to 4 hours later, which I think makes a big difference when you're going up against really good competitors who have really smart people on their teams and they can put out content. So I think bringing quality content in times of distress or with an actionable idea is super critical.

Hey, I know this is kind of timely and somebody might listen to this podcast a year from now, but I'm curious, in the midst of what's happening in the marketplace today, what guidance are you providing clients with this, I'll call it uncertainty, and I wanna just maybe make this a little bit more evergreen, not so specific to the current state of mind, but it's fair to say, I've been in the business for over 30 years, that advisors are always dealing with uncertainty and how to talk to clients and how to guide clients and how to build that trust. You and Stephanie have done that very effectively. And so what guidance would you provide advisors listening here today?

Overcommunicate, especially in these times of stress. You have to remain calm. You can't get emotional. You don't wanna make any rash decisions, especially when you're dealing with taxable accounts. Maybe with retirement accounts, you have a little more flexibility because of the tax efficiency, but it also, if clients can't stomach the volatility in a very tough period, we always go back to the asset allocation. And then a lot of our wealth analysis plans that we run for clients have scenarios that are built for these types of environments. And so we bring it back to the core of risk management, asset allocation, And maybe it's not suitable for a client to have that much equity exposure. But again, we're going to make a smart, objective decision with the client. So again, it's overcommunicating, it's being in front, it's being proactive. Do not hide in these times because clients are speaking to other competitors, they're hearing from other competitors, and it's, it's a, It's a tough business and you need to consistently be out there, not just only in these times. So that's why writing that content and being in front of people is key. And one more point is, I mean, this is a serious time of uncertainty, but I go back to March 2020, which was another serious time of uncertainty in a completely different way. And people were very concerned about their own health, what was gonna go on globally. And that was a period where we as a team just buckled down the hours, the content we were putting out constantly, almost writing weekly updates of what we were doing within the portfolios, and super proud of the way that we communicated to clients during a really tough period. I actually think it ended up winning us a lot of business because of how proactive we were.

There's no doubt. If you look at the data, Matt Barthel, who's responsible for publishing the ranking of top advisors at Barron's and has a terrific team of analysts that collect lots of data, he recently shared with me the expansion in the 5-year period from December of 2019, 5 years forward, the top 50 businesses, top 50 teams that were focused on family and wealth offices grew in excess of 150%. And so to your point, overcommunicating and staying engaged, especially in uncertain times, really helps advance your success. So speaking with growth and in uncertain times, you've created some unique ways to grow your network. You mentioned today alumni groups and you haven't said YPO breakfasts, but I know that's been a big deal for you, the Young Presidents Organization, family office roundtables I know you've done. Just describe a little more of your framework or mindset in generating meaningful connections that lead to business development. I, I, I, what you said about value creation, not just checking in, but creating space for people, uh, to gain value. Talk a little bit about that, 'cause that's something that's really powerful.

Yeah, I think, um, a lot of advisors have a similar, uh, mindset when you have these small group meetings, um, and you get a lot of smart, sophisticated, engaged people together. They like to hear what other people are asking. So if, if, if, if, if it's a YPO group and they can hear their colleagues asking smart questions and everyone's clicking and engaged and the strategy or the content makes a lot of sense, they're almost making a collective decision that, hey, oh, this, this is actually really good stuff. And so that's been super powerful. The other is to bring people together that don't know each other at, maybe it's a family office summit And what's a family office summit? Bringing in, bringing together CIOs from various family offices. And one of the topics we talked about last year, we had a breakfast where we focused the first half of the morning on investments and relevant private equity markets with private investing. And then the second half, we focused on family governance. So there's a huge gap in family offices that are set up with succession planning, governance, they're becoming their own mini institutions, but a lot of them have started off small and really don't have the operational capabilities that a multifamily office has. So that's been a big topic of discussion within that space. And so we tried to bring our head of family governance in to talk about that. And that's, that's a value add that has stirred up a ton of conversation. And my goal is that maybe a few of these people meet,, and they connect and maybe they do a transaction together or they finance a transaction or they invest side by side. And, and the fact that myself and Neuberger Berman made that connection is super special. And that's a unique relationship that we'll carry with us for a long time.

That is really sophisticated marketing, business development, and value creation. I've heard advisors say consistently over the years of when you create value for others, there's a rebound boomerang to the value that's brought back. So that you're describing that, this is real inside baseball secret sauce. So thank you for being super duper transparent. Tell us a bit more about the places that you plug in and network. What advice, especially to the young professional today, I think it's tougher to crack into the business today than maybe before, maybe you disagree.

Yeah, I think I have to respectfully disagree. I think that there is a huge demand for advice. For some, we were talking about this, I guess a month ago, McKinsey put out that study that by 2034, there's going to be a shortage of 90,000 to 100,000 advisors. I feel it on our side, the need for advice. People want to talk and they want good guidance, and it could be a variety of issues. And I think people in this complex, fragmented, highly rapid pace of news. They, they want to get— they want someone to summarize it for them. And, and so that's where advisors fill that gap. So I think there's a huge demand for younger people, um, and then younger people just aren't going into the industry. I think it's a fantastic career path. We've talked about this many times where you can have great work-life balance, you're dealing with challenging situations, you're helping people, You're helping them give money away to philanthropy. You're helping them fund education. You're doing a lot of unique things on a daily basis that are completely different, and you get to deal with investments in markets. So like for me, it's a perfect balance of all of those things. And I would, I'm gonna draw on one of my NYU professors, Scott Galloway, who maybe some of the listeners know. They know Scott, yeah. He talks about getting to a city. So, you know, I'm blessed to be in New York and there's so much activity, so many opportunities to get engaged. You could join a junior charity board, which I did in 2008, and I still, I'm involved with the 92nd Street Y. I'm really passionate about that. You could take the CFP exam or the SIE exam or the CFA exam and join those respective societies. The other thing that I think people should do is think about LinkedIn as a way to brand yourself. It's kind of like your living, breathing resume. And you could start a newsletter, you could do a podcast and brand yourself on LinkedIn. Because if you are getting into this business, it's really hard for a young person to get into it and have them, have someone give you money. It's really tough. Because you're saying, oh, give me a chance. But they're like, well, I want someone with— What experience do you have? Exactly. So it's, again, I would try to learn from someone, start off in the client associate side of the business and build up because I really think it takes 15 years to really build the credibility to have clients trust you with serious, serious capital. And, you know, it's, I think people should have, if you are starting to build your business, you have to have a positive digital impression. So, you know, if anyone looks me up on LinkedIn, I've been building my, I've been a member of LinkedIn since 2006, and I just happened to think it was a great platform, but it's been a huge prospecting tool for me, not on me looking at people, but people looking at my profile, I can see when they, So when they look at me after, they're looking up and I have recommendations, I've got all the awards and media appearances, and those things stay with you. And I think clients really, or prospects really appreciate having that level of data before they make an informed decision.

The digital record of your track record. Yeah. So that's great. Is the future for financial services and financial advising specifically for new people entering the business, really about joining teams?

I think so. I think teams are, I think it's very hard to do on your own. And I know that there's a huge, a large independent channel, but you look at the complexity of what clients need, the service level, the advice level, the investment level, it's hard to offer all of that. And I mean, I'm biased, but I think our firm is so well positioned to offer those things. And I think the team, we wouldn't be able to operate and provide clients with that high, we set a very high standard for the client experience that we wanna offer.

Josh, I once heard an advisor say to me that really stuck with me. He said, "The grass isn't greener on the other side. It's greenest where I'm standing because I'm the one watering it." I thought that was just brilliant.

That's great. In a world— I may steal that from you.

Steal it away. Happy to share. World where so many advisors are chasing the next firm, the next platform, the next business model, that mindset stood out with me. How do you stay focused on watering your own grass, to use that analogy, when you're in high demand? I mean, I know Matt Barthel again at Barron's has said to me, there's a French Revolution going on between, you know, the 35 and 45-year-old who's being aggressively recruited. And I'm sure your phone's ringing off the hook. What keeps you rooted?

Well, we've, I said it before, I think we, I hit the trifecta. Fantastic firm. I'm a partner in the firm. That the fact that I'm an owner in the firm, it really, that's kind of one of the secret sauces of Neuberger Berman. And I think what's unique about our platform is we invest alongside our clients and I like being aligned. Again, we talked about fees earlier, transparency, alignment. Those are key things that the client realize as they work with us longer and longer. And I think it elevates that client relationship. So yes, I've heard those offers before. I know what's going on outside the walls of our office, but for me, people go to Neuberger and they stay an entire career. That's, that's my intention. We're building something really special. The firm, the partners have created this opportunity and this platform that I'm biased. I think it's an incredible investment platform. They're building out all these service capabilities. So for me, it's hard to imagine operating the business elsewhere because of all those special ingredients. And it's not just monetary issues, it's being in the right place with the right culture, the right people, I think what we're building is really special.

I want to talk very quickly about multigenerational communication because you are a next-gen. You briefly mentioned it earlier, and Stephanie has acquired lots of clients. You've acquired lots of clients. You've harmonized and unified a strategy. I know you facilitated Zoom meetings for now, what, in some cases, 3 generations of a client's family. So what strategies do you use to ensure that these baby boomer clients, their children, their heirs, even their grandchildren feel equally heard and engaged in the process?

We encourage those types of conversations because the earlier you engage with the next gen, the great wealth transfer, it, it's only positive to have those discussions. And, and there's all these statistics, I'm sure you know about it, that the number of advisors that aren't talking to the next gen. So, we're highly engaged to do that and we encourage it when we can plan it. It also helps when multiple members of the families are located across different parts of the country. So if we can create, and I think this all happened post-2020 where we could, everyone became more comfortable with Zoom. And I think I probably connect with the baby boomers more so than the millennials and the next generation. But I think the baby boomers see me as, this is someone who can be with my family for the next 30 years. And again, goes back to building that credibility. Sure, that's impressive. With those more seasoned investors and more seasoned clients, and then bridging the gap to, hey, we need to have a collective discussion. Let's bring multiple family members in. And then one recent example, this was last month, I was on a Zoom with the mother and the grandfather, and the son had a bar mitzvah a few months ago and he wanted to invest his money and they were just gonna buy a fund. And I said, well, why don't we, why don't you have him pick a few stocks that he's passionate about or products that he buys? Then let's have a discussion and we'll talk about how could he invest the money? How could he track these? How could he get online and start to hear about what's an earnings report? What's a P multiple? And they love that idea. And that sense of connection with education, with engagement, that's a client for life when you establish that early on.

That's a really good specific example, seeking ways to donate time to build that relationship.

It goes back to, I think, your philosophy too. Exactly.

So yeah, we won't say it again, but it's there. It's there. Let's go brand and value proposition. I do wanna talk a little bit about brand. You've mentioned family office, you've mentioned an expansion of services, and I want to highlight here, while Neuberger Berman and what you do for clients is investment-focused, it's not all investment-focused. And so talk a little bit about how you define the value proposition and ensure it evolves as your team begins supporting these multigenerational clients.

Yeah, it's very different. We have a very diverse group of clients. We've got single-family office clients, we've got where we only have a sleeve of their assets. We've got multifamily office clients where we only have a sleeve of their assets. We've got clients where we have their entire wallet share and their entire net worth. We've got younger clients, we've got clients that are selling businesses this year and how do we advise them? So every client situation is completely unique. And I think that goes to show you that our, we're not a super scalable business because we have to customize everything to the individual client. So again, We're growing methodically in that sense because we can't grow so fast. And I break down our value proposition again, it goes back to the dual mandate. It's investment management, which is asset allocation and putting money to work in a variety of strategies, whether that's retirement account, non-retirement, LLC, profit sharing, all the different types of entities, making sure the location is suitable and correct for the client. So that's step 1. And I think that's the easier part of the job. Step 2 is all the wealth planning and analysis and all those conversations that can come up. So with a family office, it may be helping them with family governance. For a young couple, it may be telling them what a 529 plan is or advising them to get their first life insurance policy Or I spoke with a family office client yesterday. He's the CIO of a large family office. Their estate planning is astute. He has zero. So getting them set up with their proper estate and the opportunities are just endless. I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to make those connections, to get people set up. So we're just, we're constant flow., and if we do that, those things, those two things really well paired with amazing client service and delivering it in a positive client experience, we're gonna keep winning and defining ourselves versus our competitors. But you know, there's a lot of really good competitors out there, and that, so that philosophy, that mantra has worked for us.

Okay, as we begin to wrap up, I just want to talk a little bit about the future and the, some of the industry trends.

What excites you most about the future of our business? Well, we talked about the, just the macro trend, the need for advice, the lack of advisors. We're getting so many opportunities to work with people and what we hear is my advisor's retiring. You're hearing that? Yes, we're already hearing that. So I think the fact that there's a lack of new advisors entering the market and there's advisors retiring with the baby boomers and the great wealth transfer, The macro trend, the wave is pushing our way. So it's a fantastic business to get into, and I don't think anyone's too late to jump in to start to build that. So that is the kind of the tailwind that's gonna help us. But a few specifics is tax-managed strategies, I'm super excited about, and Newberger, not to plug Newberger too much, but they have a, we've built out a really nice platform, I think this area of the market, we all know it's growing. I think it's what ETFs were 15 to 20 years ago. So I'm excited to implement those in client strategies. They're not, it's not for everyone, but for the appropriate client, it's perfect. Private markets, we all know the story. It represents a really small proportion of our client net worth or balance sheet. Again, Even more so, it depends on the client suitability, their liquidity, income, age, risk, time horizon. But as there's more and more private companies, that becomes more and more of a need to be a portion of the portfolio. So, so those two areas I think are—

I'm really excited about over the next 5 to 10 years. With this influx of opportunity that's coming your way, Tell us a little bit about what's next for your team and where are you finding next-generation talent?

Yeah, so the goal for our team, I think, is to continue to expand methodically. We never want to feel like— we want to keep the existing client base happy and keep that high level of service, which we strive to do and hold ourselves super accountable for that. And again, we're not a scalable business. We continue to customize for our clients. We want to grow slowly and methodically. Again, a portion of our assets every year goes out for taxes, goes out for required minimum distributions. So in a way, we have to kind of replace that capital to keep the base growing or keep it at least stable. And I think for our team, we want to continue to allocate team resources efficiently. And maybe it's adding another service capability to our team to just overall enhance that client experience. Again, by doing that, that only helps produce potential new business and keep the business growing.

Josh, you are a next-generation leader, and you've clearly built relationship by relationship a fabulous business in partnering with Stephanie. You are living proof that playing the long game pays off.

Thanks for being here today.

Thanks, Ray. Appreciate the time. 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.