Hiring A COO And Creating Partnership Paths Early To Drive Enterprise Value On The Path To $3B AUM: #FASuccess Ep 498 With Christine DeMao
You are all welcome! Welcome to the 498th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Christine DeMao. Christine is the Chief Operating Officer of Gibson Capital, a Wexford, Pennsylvania-based RIA that oversees approximately $3 billion in assets under management for 200 client families.
What’s unique about Christine, however, is how the firm took a deliberate approach to succession planning from the early days, including creating a “partnership roadmap” document that clearly defined what the firm was looking for in new partners.
In this sectionWe will discuss in depth how Christine’s organization has made four rounds of partnership offerings (not only executives and senior consultants, but also operations experts).Christine’s “Partnership Way” document outlines the prerequisites for becoming a partner (including a customer-first philosophy) and effective behavior as an enterprise. Positive factors (such as intellectual or cultural contributions to the organization), and how Christine’s company introduces this document to new hires early in their careers to set expectations (and help color performance management discussions).
We’ll also talk about how Christine and her partners have open conversations to identify team members who might one day make good partners, how Christine’s company has developed the next generation of leaders by regularly bringing them into management discussions before offering a partnership opportunity, and how Christine created a “role grid” to map out responsibilities within the organization (which can come with leadership flaws).
And be sure to listen to the ending, where Christine talks about how Gibson Capital changed for the better after the pandemic transitioned to a hybrid environment, how Christine found value in teaming up with other operations professionals in the wealth management community, and how a near-death experience led Christine to pursue a better work-life balance (and model a healthy approach to her employees).
So, whether you’re interested in learning about creating a clear partnership path for the next generation of employees, building a firm’s infrastructure to serve high-value clients, or adding enterprise value to the firm from the operational side of the business, then we hope you enjoy this Financial Advisor Success podcast with Christine DeMao.
