Kelly Gaur: Finding Non-Advisor Roles in Wealth Management | Next Gen

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Welcome to Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward Next Generation, a special series spotlighting the emerging leaders shaping the future of financial advice. Twice a month, we'll be digging into the strategies, insights, and game-changing moves that will help you take your practice to the next level. I'm your host, Allison Tucci, and today with me is Kelly Gore. I'm so excited for this conversation. She is a regional vice president and shareholder of Mercer Advisors. It has technically $95 billion and above of assets under management, and she's not an advisor. She's a business development official. So we're going to be talking about how you can work with these professionals and how you can get into the industry in a different way. Kelly, thank you so much for coming to the podcast today.

Thank you so much for having me, Alison. Thrilled to be here.

Tell me a little bit about your background, how you got into your current role, and we'll go from there.

Sure. Lots to start with there. Um, I did start on the advisory track though, and I'll chat about that. Just by way of background, I grew up in Michigan. I am the child of immigrants. My parents were physicians, and so I always thought that I was going to pursue that path. It never really occurred to me that I wouldn't, that I would do anything else. It really was in my junior year of high school when I was thinking about my AP courses, and I found myself very interested in the AP Calc but not so much the AP Chem, and I thought this might be a problem if I want to pursue medicine. I was very lucky I was lucky to have a mentor and an advisor who kind of brought up to me perhaps a career in business or finance, to which I was completely shocked because I had never considered that, one, from kind of a personality perspective, but two, it didn't feel that it was a career that would satisfy the part in me that wanted to work with people and families and help people.

Oh, that's interesting.

And she really kindly let me know about wealth management. Financial advisory and that a career path in this realm exists. And of course, as the child of immigrants, the biggest kind of calculated risk that my parents took was coming here and starting a new life. And they were certainly not going to gamble with their money in the stock market. Right. Which, which I'm saying that in a cheeky way because that's really how they viewed it. And that was the sentiment in our home. Right. They took that risk and we wanted to be conservative and they didn't really realize that financial advisory was something that was available to them. So, of course, to me, how could I think that it was a career path available to me? So, I really credit this mentor who really helped me and kind of set me on this path and said, hey, you can actually work in finance and have a meaningful impact on individuals and families without auditing Coca-Cola statements or without advising a company on who to sell or how to sell itself, right? And so, that was very exciting and interesting to me. I spent a summer before I started undergrad at a local Merrill Lynch branch in Michigan, was totally validated by the types of conversations that, that team was having with their clients. The industry has evolved a lot over the past 15 years, but the nature of the conversations remains the same where you're talking about what's going on personally, whether it's losses or exciting things happening from a familial perspective, but then also how are we thinking about cash flow, the markets, estate planning, all of that. I pursued that path in undergraduate So I was an undergraduate business major, and I took a job at JPMorgan in their private bank right out of school. I spent 3 years there, spent about 5 years at Citi in their private bank, and then really came to kind of a turning point in my career of how I decided to make the pivot from being at a bank to a registered investment advisor.

You were at JP, you were at all these different firms, which seems like you probably got a myriad of experiences about the cultures, etc. And then you made that decision, as you mentioned, to jump to an RIA. How did you make that decision?

Yeah, it was, it was not a decision I took lightly. I was obviously had the privilege of being at very prestigious organizations and learned so much from my time there. As I thought about kind of the next 30 years of my career, I was at a turning point of going from that kind of junior banker to that senior banker. I didn't love that I could almost see it play out in 20/20 vision, right? That scared me, and for some folks, that excites them. And so I took a pause, and I thought about, I don't necessarily want to work with the same set of clients for the rest of my life doing the same type of advisory work with different titles over the next 30 years. But as I looked around the different organizations, there weren't really roles for me that allowed to still stay close to the client while growing in my career without having that advisory role, which I know is something that we're going to touch on today. And so how I ended up coming to the registered investment advisor space was really as one does. You ask people around you for advice, friends, family. Being in New York, I'm lucky enough to have several folks kind of adjacent to or in the industry. And it was one conversation with a private equity investor that was very interesting to me where they said, you work in wealth management, how are you not thinking about a registered investment advisor? The conversation was really shocking to me because as someone who has been at the most prestigious organizations in the world, we weren't looking back behind our shoulders and thinking, what are the RIAs doing? And I think that that's a blind spot, candidly. And it, It's a blind spot. And so as we were having these conversations, I started to do a little bit more research and figuring out for my own self, what is it about this industry that is so exciting? And it really came down to two things for me. The first is that RIAs, most of them offer a personalized, modern approach to wealth management. And that is very important. Clients are demanding different relationships of their advisors, different services, and rightly so. And it's it's just candidly harder to adapt that quickly in a bank or a broker-dealer construct. And so, when I was thinking about not loving the kind of stagnation that I was seeing for what my career could have been if I were to stay there, that was something that really kind of dinged to me. A key issue that folks are trying to solve for today is really taking off the administrative burden of coordinating among multiple professionals. And if you stay in the bank and broker-dealer side, you will always be one of those many professionals. And so that was, that was kind of the first piece there, right? A more personalized modern wealth management without having to coordinate among many professionals. All of the many professionals are at wealth management roles that are not advisors that someone could have as part of their career, which we'll chat on. The other piece was that folks are increasingly going to their advisors for things beyond just kind of investment advice. Or stock picks, right? What people are really looking for is a behavioral coach who can help them avoid some of those financial blind spots and emotional speculations that sometimes occur when folks are working without a coach, right? And so the role has changed into, I know everything about you and your family, and we're going to manage a portfolio for you, among other things, to make sure that all the pieces of your balance sheet are talking to each other and that you're not making costly errors of omission.

So let's first tackle, you know, the RIA space. It's part of the larger independent market. You have RIAs, you have hybrid RIAs, and then you have independent broker-dealers. And I think a lot of folks understand that it's now a little bit of a merger of those three different as the roles have been evolving. RIAs are definitely the most entrepreneurial for a whole host of different reasons, regulatory being one of them. But why were you most attracted to Mercer's role in that industry versus maybe the independent broker-dealer, etc.?

Such a great question, and it's so important. You know, my role at Mercer Advisors is I am solely focused on business development. And if you think about the wealth management industry as a whole, even at other integrated fiduciaries, the best advisors are really the best salespeople. And oftentimes that comes in direct conflict to serving the existing client. And it's not a fair position to, to put advisors in. Right. And some people thrive at both and some people have the support and resources to be able to effectively manage both. But the vast majority of advisors are wearing two hats. And I was very impressed and frankly relieved when I learned that Mercer Advisors splits business development from client service. So part of that, right, is that advisors have more time and more capacity to work directly with clients at the top of their license. And we're attracting advisors who want to do so, right? Clients are looking for advisors who are technical. They're looking for advisors who are strategic and empathetic. And we want to play up all of those skill sets in our advisors and have them do their best work every day for clients. Another piece and a privilege that I have in my role is I get to match individuals and families with a hand-selected wealth advisor, which is very unique in the industry as well. Most of the time when you're introduced to a wealth management firm, your advisor is kind of the first person that you meet with. It's very rare that you, you know, work with someone else or you move around unless there is natural kind of attrition or succession. And what we say at Mercer Advisors is every client deserves to work with an advisor who makes them feel like they're their only client, who works with clients that are in a similar space to them, and the advisor has the technical expertise to advise on whatever it is that that client's balance sheet warrants. And so it's a privilege in my role to be able to meet with individuals and families who are looking to learn more about our firm and determine if our services are a fit for them. I get to introduce them to that advisor, whether it's a Microsoft employee in New York who wants to work with someone in San Francisco who has a concentration of Microsoft clients, or we have a great advisor in Michigan who has a niche in business ownership and, you know, is happy to fly to New York to meet with their clients.

You're listening to Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward: Next Generation. We're going to take a short break. Stay with us.

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Welcome back to Barron's Advisor: The Way Forward, Next Generation. Let's get back into the conversation. This is a capacity solution for a lot of advisors that your, that your role is doing, that I think a lot of firms haven't really figured out how to match that. Everything's around advisor productivity in terms of how do you increase the advisor's ability to serve more clients. But if you outsource, quote unquote outsource, the go-to-market in terms of the organic growth side, which a lot of the RIAs are really struggling with, they're at that 3% growth year over year minus market appreciation on average. They can't have the time to just serve their clients. So if you outsource that going out and grabbing new clients organically, you're taking something off their plate and it still allows you to have that client service.

Absolutely. And I think you hit the nail on the head there. Organic growth is the, is the most important topic that we're all chatting about in this industry. And the way that we approach organic growth at Mercer Advisors is, is we treat it as if it's its own kind of line of business, right? We have taken that off the advisors. There are, of course, share of wallet and retention that, that we're working on. But what is that top line? What's coming in? We have an entire organization, including myself, but also from a marketing engine, from a sales leadership engine that is focused on getting this right. We're doing a great job at it. We had, we had a great year last year, and I think it really has to do with a couple of things. Within the client development organization, we have different roles, different folks who focus on different segments.

Oh, interesting.

So, we have client development folks who focus specifically on the RIA referral channels, which is a very kind of typical way of organic growth.

Sam, Wad, those guys.

Exactly.

Okay.

Exactly. But what we've also done, and this has been very successful for us, is we have really dug deep into our local communities. And so we have business development professionals tied to each local market.

Oh, wow.

And it's their job to engage with the clients, engage with the advisors, and to really think about how can we support our clients in our community and be there for our community in a very organic way. I think typically in wealth management, when you think about finding a new client, the old school way is kind of, on a golf course or at a gala. We're really challenging that notion and we're saying if Mr. and Mrs. Client are passionate about XYZ philanthropic cause, might we be able to buy a table there and have their friends come, right? And support them there and have it be warm and organic and maybe see if there's an opportunity there versus buying a ticket to a gala and trying to schmooze or network around the room.

For folks that are listening in that are like, this is an interesting role. I didn't even know this existed. I like what she's saying around the interaction with clients. I like what she's saying around staying involved. What would be your advice to those folks for getting into a role like this? How would you be prepared?

Sure. I think that there is an element of you ultimately need to be working with a client at some point before you can take one step away. And so whether that's in a client service capacity or a financial planning capacity, an understanding of wealth management as an industry and, and how registered investment advisors specifically work with clients is going to be very important because ultimately my role is to be the subject matter expert on Mercer Advisors and all of the resources available to clients. So my advice would be search for a career in wealth management, take the steps that you need to take, whether it's the finance classes, the networking, and get your foot in the door at a firm firm who you believe in what they offer, right? There are lots of fiduciaries out there. Not all fiduciaries are created equally. Really make sure that you are bought into the story and the way that they're servicing clients and that you feel good in that regard. But not all firms are splitting the client development from the client service piece. So, if that is a very interesting path to you, then that's something to note. You might not have to start at a firm that does that, but I think The best client development officers or the best client development professionals are those who have served clients in some capacity. You certainly can be successful in the role if you haven't, but it gives you, it gives you more of a leg up when you are providing that consultative sales process, right? I'm able to use my industry expertise and the time that I've spent working with clients through market cycles as I'm advising them through that process of determining whether or not we should work together.

So, you don't have to be an advisor. You potentially be in client service. You can be in these other sort of roles to make that transition. I think that's a huge, you know, I want to underscore that to the listeners because I think there's folks that think that they can't make moves outside of client service. They can't make moves elsewhere, but there are these roles out there that keep you engaged, that have, to your point, a larger career path and is more interesting. You're working with different clients. You're not working with the same clients. So, your day maybe is different every day. And going back to your day is probably a little bit different every day. You didn't mention the typical, I'm going out golfing, right? Which I think if you think about how the evolution of wealth management has happened, you think about the baby boomers, they did spend a lot of time in those more traditional ways of golfing. And that might not necessarily be as open to women. This seems like it's a little bit more open for women to being in business development because it gives you other avenues outside of the most traditional ones. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely. And that goes back to our earlier point around modernity and being more personalized in your offering. And I think that that goes not only for the client, but also for how you're allowing your client development professionals and your advisors to, to engage with and entertain your prospective clients and your clients. I'll give you an example. Next week we are hosting an event with a women venture capitalist organization and the, the agenda is wine and watercolor and we'll talk about financial services, right? It is highly encouraged to engage with your centers of influence, with your clients in a way that, that meets them where they are, whether that's through a workout class, whether that's through a watch shopping event, right? Wherever our clients are, we'll meet them there and to have the flexibility to do to do that is really a privilege. And I think that that is what contributes to our organic growth is that we're not willing to leave a stone unturned. And if something doesn't work, then we won't do it anymore. But we're not going to proactively say no just because it's never been done that way before. And that has been so refreshing here at Mercer Advisors. I've been given rein to try different things and see what works and support and knowing that we're breaking new ground.

So how do you find what would resonate with the client? I'm assuming there's data, there's information that you can grab, but there's probably nothing that can really supplement just the conversation.

Yeah. Good old getting to know them. There is no secret there. I know that there are so many kind of ZoomInfo and Catchlight and all these great services that can tell you what they've Googled and what their interests are.

What their magazine subscriptions are.

Absolutely. That is great and helpful, but there's also something similar to kind of you internalize something when you write it down. I think that you internalize something about someone else when you learn it about them through conversation as opposed to being told. And so to the point of the handoff that we talked about earlier, I love to get to know the families that are thinking about working with us. And I am able to share that information with an advisor. Sometimes I even bring an advisor in as we go through the process. It, of course, lasts several meetings in some cases. But I always encourage the clients to play back to the advisor what they're looking for kind of in their own words. And then to that point, I encourage a reset of the discovery and I, and I make that clear, right? Our job is to get to know everything about you qualitatively and quantitatively. Your balance sheet and your cash flows tell 1% of the story. Your emotions and your passions tell the rest of it. And so that, that's an ethos that we have here at Mercer Advisors. Every one of our client development professionals wants to get to know our clients and wants to be, you know, struggles to let them go sometimes when we form such great connections. And our advisors are the same way. But there is no substitution for just taking the time and talks about capacity and technology. And, you know, there is no substitution for that. And I think that you see that too contributing to organic growth and obviously a harder metric to kind of track there. But I'll stand by it.

What would be sort of the last thing that you would say to the audience in terms of, you know, advice that you'd give maybe either your younger self or someone coming into this industry about your role currently?

The biggest piece of advice that I would give someone who is exploring a career in wealth management would be do not shy away from the technicalities. There historically has been a perception that wealth management is very relationship-focused, it doesn't require as much technicals. And I wholeheartedly reject that notion. I think that the most successful people in this industry, whether you are in client development, whether you are an advisor, a financial planner, even if you work in marketing or events, the, the willingness to roll up your sleeves and understand the issues that your clients are facing, not just from an investments perspective, but a tax and estate planning lens taking interest in what's being, what's going on with the one big beautiful bill, whether you like it or not, you need to know how it impacts your clients. That to me is the rocket ship to success in this industry, no matter what role you're in. If I can leave anybody with that, if you are technical, if you like math, if you're interested in taxes, right, do not rule this out as a career. There are so many different ways you can take it. There are infinite letters you can get after your name with niche certifications. And, you know, find a firm that, that whose values you, you resonate with and that you are seeing as modern and personalized in this approach and, and get your foot in the door and grow with it.

Well, Kelly, thank you so much for being here today. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

The production team for Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward: Next Generation. Is Ellie Ismailidou, Rebecca Bisdale, Paul LeBlanc, and Alexis Moore. Jenna Mathis is the Director of Programming for Barron's Advisor Programs. Greg Bertollis is the Editor-in-Chief of Barron's Wealth and Asset Management Group. Allison Tucci is a freelance host for Barron's Advisor and SVP at AssetMarkt. We'll see you next 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.