A President’s Perspective: Inside an $8B Boutique Firm’s Evolution

A President’s Perspective: Inside an $8B Boutique Firm’s Evolution

A conversation with Jason Diamond and Leah Sciabarrasi, President/Managing Partner, Wealth Advisor at Crestwood Advisors.

Jason Diamond:

Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is A President’s Perspective: Inside an $8 billion Boutique Firm’s Evolution. It’s a conversation with Leah Sciabarrasi, President and Managing Partner and Wealth Advisor at Crestwood Advisors. I’m Jason Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors.

Mindy Diamond:

At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002.

Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual advisor transition report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport.

Jason Diamond:

There’s a point in this business where success creates a new set of decisions. You can keep building a great practice, serving clients well, growing steadily, keeping things relatively simple, or you can make the shift to building an enterprise where everything changes, how you manage people, how you create structure, how you stay aligned, and how you think about the long-term. And once you go down that path, there’s no hiding the gaps.

My guest today is Leah Sciabarrasi, president, managing partner at Crestwood Advisors. Leah has been there since day one, joining the firm at inception in 2003, and helping it grow from three people and no assets to over eight billion today. What makes this story worth paying attention to isn’t just the extraordinary growth. It’s how deliberately that growth was achieved and how closely it’s been tied to the client experience all along the way.

Because Crestwood didn’t grow through a single moment or a series of big moves. It’s been a steady evolution, growing client by client, continuing to integrate new capabilities and investing ahead of where the business was at any given point in time. And all of it anchored in a simple idea, grow in a way that the client doesn’t feel it.

In this conversation, we get into what it really looks like to build beyond a practice into an enterprise. How Leah’s role evolved, from doing the work to designing the environment where the work happens. Why alignment at the leadership level becomes critical and very visible as complexity increases, and how firms think about scaling through talent, structure, partnership, and private equity without compromising the client experience that got them there in the first place. Because at a certain size, growth isn’t just about getting bigger. It’s about building something that can sustain it. So let’s get into it.

Leah, thanks again for joining us. Before we get into Crestwood, I want to talk a little bit about your personal background. What brought you to the world of wealth management. Set the stage for us.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Sure. First, Jason, thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here. I’ve been with Crestwood since the beginning. So I’ve had the opportunity to grow up alongside the firm over the past two decades. What started as a very entrepreneurial business has become a much more scaled and integrated organization over time.

I did not grow up thinking I’d go into wealth management. Like a lot of people in our industry, I found my way into it more organically. Early in my career, I was drawn to the intersection of relationships and problem solving and personal finance. And realized pretty quickly that the business really isn’t about numbers, but it is about helping people make decisions during some of the most important and complex moments in their lives.

And what ultimately led me to Crestwood was the opportunity to build something from the ground up with people who shared a vision of what great advice should look like. It was not a transactional approach. It was about building long-term relationships and integrating truly comprehensive planning. And that was really compelling to me. And it’s what made joining in the early days such an exciting decision.

And what’s really made it meaningful over this period of time, which is 20 plus years, is the process. It’s been continuous learning, constant evolution, and the discipline of building over time. And honestly, what’s come out of it along the way has often been surprising because it’s never been the result of any one perspective, but really been shaped by a collective effort by people that have been here for years and others who’ve come in and made impact almost immediately.

Jason Diamond:

There’s a lot to unpack there, but I want to first talk about, you can give assets, you can give revenue, whatever the metric you choose to use is. Tell me a little bit about how you’ve grown with the firm. So you joined the firm, I think it was, what, 2003?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

When we started, yes.

Jason Diamond:

And the firm was so basically $0, and I assume also close to zero people. And today, you are what? Give us a little bit of context.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Sure, sure. So we were $0 in AUM and three people, and we have grown now to over $8 billion in AUM and approximately 65 team members now.

Jason Diamond:

Good for you. Wow. So how has your personal role then, what hats have you worn as you’ve been, now it’s 20 plus years now, with Crestwood.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Certainly my role has changed over time because I started off very integrated in the business and working with clients directly.

Jason Diamond:

Very common.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Absolutely. And my role has really evolved from being in that work to building the environment where the work happens. So as the firm has built more infrastructure, and as we’ve continued to embrace all of those things that are available to us, talent, technology, specialized roles, it’s allowed me to step out of the day-to-day execution and focus more on leadership. So today, my time is centered more on people and strategy and making sure we’re positioned for the future, and really overall enabling the organization, ensuring we have the right team, the right structure, and clear direction.

Jason Diamond:

I’m curious how you feel about that at an emotional level. You started to say it, I think, the idea that you’re now working on the business and you used to work in the business. Do you enjoy that? I think a lot of people, business owners, people who go independent at some point kind of struggle with that where it’s, I’m an advisor, that’s the hat I’ve worn, and now I am, over time, I think less player and more coach.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yes. I think it is something that is a really hard transition. And there are a lot of accidental business owners in our world. But I have found the growing of the enterprise to be really exciting. And I love working with clients. The privilege of being in clients’ lives and getting to know them through long periods of time is enormously wonderful. And I’ve always enjoyed that. But I think thinking about how we scale that experience so that, instead of focusing on solely that segment of clients that I personally can connect with, to how we can do that at a broader level and bring that many more positive outcomes to clients and develop that along with our team has been really rewarding.

Jason Diamond:

It’s a super cool way to frame, I think, the impact of a firm leader, which is if you’re doing your job right, as much fun as it is and as rewarding as it can be to be in the weeds doing hand-to-hand combat, you actually have the ability to touch many more people, clients, advisors, and like, as a leader of a firm. Is that a fair summary?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

100%. Yes, absolutely.

Jason Diamond:

So tell me now a little bit, I think it’s pretty difficult when you start at zero and go to the metrics you outlined, extraordinary growth, was there a moment when you were like, we’ve got this, we’ve built something remarkable here, or has it just been a slow kind of climb periodic journey since?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

It’s hard to say that… There’s been many moments, I would say, and it also has been a journey. I think one thing we have not been as great at is recognizing the success at each milestone. So we’ve always been focused on the future, and it always feels like there’s more to do. And while that’s very constructive, you have to also celebrate those milestones along the way. And it’s a meaningful sort of point of motivation for the team and things like that.

So there have been a number of inflection points. I think that, early on, one of the biggest was committing to a truly comprehensive advice-driven model, which sounds super obvious now. But at the time, it really meant investing ahead of the curve in people and in time and in infrastructure without seeing the fruits of those investments immediately. And so being willing to stretch ahead of revenue perhaps coming in, you have to have a lot of conviction in what you’re doing.

And I would say also as we grew, sometime maybe around a decade into the business, something like that, it became very clear that the organization needed more sophistication internally, especially around career pathing and development. So as the team grew, it became clear that we needed to be much more intentional about how people could build long-term careers within Crestwood Advisors. And so building that pathway out so people have clarity on the opportunity really helped to drive our trajectory forward as well.

And I would say also embracing partnership, both internally at Crestwood, and we’ve had an expanding partnership over the years, as well as through outside partners and our broader ecosystem has been a major unlock as well. We’ve really never been afraid to evolve. And that willingness has allowed us to take thoughtful risks over time. And of course we’ve made mistakes. It’s inevitable to make mistakes, but you have to learn to recalibrate quickly.

And I think overall, the theme that I see when I reflect on our growth is that moment of choosing between short-term growth and long-term strategy, which seemed to come up a number of times in different forms. And in hindsight, I think the largest driver of our growth has been our willingness to invest ahead of the revenue that we might see from that investment.

Jason Diamond:

It’s a thoughtful answer. And it strikes me that some of what you’re saying almost seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight, but I’m particularly taken by the fact that you were doing this in 2003, 2004, these are years before this was cool, if you will, if you’ll excuse the expression. But I think today you see somebody building ahead of revenue and building out an RIA and putting together an advanced tech stack and all those things. And you’d say, of course, you’re taking an element of risk. Any business owner, anyone starting a business is doing that. But I think in your case, that was even more amplified.

Maybe I’d ask it as a question then. Do you feel like over time, I don’t know if adoption is the right word, or almost like the reception of the way people perceive your firm has changed where now you get viewed very differently than you did 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yes, I would agree because both we have changed and the landscape has changed. And early on, I think that success looked very traditional. Serve clients well, have excellent client retention, grow relationships. You’re growing that A number, you’re building trust. But at some point you do have to make that choice where you’re going to build beyond a practice. You want to go and build an enterprise. Those are two very different things. A practice can be great, and it remains relatively simple. There’s risk, of course, in that as well.

But a business introduces, I think, additional complexity where you’re really managing people and systems and scalability and culture and decision making at a much broader level. So I agree. For us, it has been a bit of an exponential evolution over time. Maybe what started off as smaller steps grew and grew. It’s always been, I think, the same mindset, but the stakes look a bit different now. And certainly being the size that we are, we’ve had more relative acknowledgement. So there’s that as well.

Jason Diamond:

One thing that comes up with firms of your size is, even big financial advisors in terms of assets or revenue, might very well be a sole practitioner, a team of two, a team of three. I think as firms evolve into more of an enterprise, as an advisor evolves more into an enterprise, the number of people goes up, the complexity goes up. And I think something that comes up a lot is this idea of alignment among the key leaders, whether that’s the advisors, the executives of the firm, the people setting the strategy. How do you guys address this topic? How do you keep everybody rowing in the same direction? Is it about people having equity and ownership at the firm? Are there other strategies you use? Tell me about that.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

I think alignment is critical, as you point out. And I think at scale, if you have misalignment at the leadership level, it shows up everywhere really fast. Early on, we spent a lot of time making sure that we were aligned, not just on strategy, but on values and how we make decisions. And equity was a part of that. Certainly, equity creates shared ownership and long-term thinking, but it really doesn’t replace communication.

And there were no founders at Crestwood who really, at their heart, wanted to be a sole proprietor and make all of the decisions. So the culture was not built on one or two personalities, but rather a true ensemble practice approach. And so I think it’s really about communication and trust and empowerment. We’ve tried to build a culture where we can have honest conversations and challenge each other. And there’s not always agreement, but we come out aligned, and that is what allows everyone to row in the same direction.

Jason Diamond:

Yeah. I just thought of something too as you were speaking, which is, first of all, I agree with everything you’re saying around alignment, but I’m thinking back to some of our comments around you’ve really grown up as this space has grown up. Is any part of you almost frustrated or resentful when you look out and pound the table? We’ve been saying some of this for years, this idea of being multi-custody, or being open architecture, being independent from a big bank. Do you look out and be like, people are just finally just catching up to what we’ve been saying since the early days?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

I don’t feel frustrated about that. I think it’s terrific that the industry is changing in that way. You’re right that, early on as we were pursuing this, I’d say prior to 2010, it did feel like it was a differentiator in the marketplace. And now it feels much less so because I think a lot of people say the same things. But I think that we remain focused on continuing to develop the service model that we can bring to clients that is going to meet this evolving need.

So we’re not still doing the same things we did back in 2010. We’re changing all the time because everything around us is changing all the time, and technology is changing and resources are changing. So we want to make sure we’re on the cutting edge of those things. So I guess to answer your question, I agree that the industry is overall changing. I think, in general, that’s a good thing for clients.

Jason Diamond:

I agree with you, by the way, as well. For somebody in a third party objective seat, completely agree, and I’m glad to hear you say it, it has to be a good thing, the idea that the industry’s catching up to what is, ultimately, I think, a set of client-centric changes, which is what most of what you’re talking about boils down to. Let’s talk about that. What is the client experience? If you could synthesize it, and you don’t have to lay out your tech stack, but what is your client experience, if you could describe it? You’re talking to a prospect, let’s say.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Right. It’s hard for me to probably keep that succinct. But when I think about Crestwood today, we want the client experience to feel personal, to feel thoughtful, genuinely supportive. At a basic level, clients should feel like they’re known, not just as accounts or portfolio, but as people. We understand what matters to them, what they’re trying to accomplish, and how that evolves over time.

We want them to feel like we’re bringing guidance to their life. There’s a team that’s thinking ahead for them, and not just reacting when something comes up. And we’ve always had that one step ahead firm mentality. That’s really how Crestwood was built, was around this ethos of anticipating needs, reaching out proactively, helping clients navigate things before they become stressful.

And I think that what’s changed is that we’ve created more structure around that experience. And that we’ve also expanded what we mean by advice, as I was alluding to just a moment ago. Clients today are looking for more of a boutique, fully integrated experience, a team who can help coordinate all the moving pieces in their financial lives. So that has meant going deeper in areas like estate planning, tax planning, charitable giving. Making sure that all of those elements are connected to the financial plan and the investment strategy. Because at the end of the day, each of those pieces do not exist in isolation. They all impact each other. And I think clients are living with that complexity. And our role is to help simplify that and then bring it all together in a cohesive way that feels relevant for them.

Jason Diamond:

Great answer. Super thoughtful. Do you think that AI has changed that? I know this is a hot button issue, and there’s a million different directions you can take that, but at a high level, do you feel like that’s being disrupted at all?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yeah. I think that our approach has definitely deepened over time, and the complexity of our clients’ lives has increased. So the breadth of what we cover and what other RIAs are expected to really cover, like we just talked about, tax, estate, investments, family dynamics, liquidity events, intergenerational planning, it’s a requirement. That integration is where AI I think is starting to play a role, which right now it feels a bit more behind the scenes because it’s being employed in different types of software and there’s different resources where it’s really helping us be more efficient and it’s helping to analyze information faster, and it can potentially enhance how we deliver some of these insights.

But I think it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that the core of what we do, which is the expertise, but also bringing together judgment and empathy and understanding the context of all these things, is still very human. And I think that AI will augment great advisors, and perhaps make them more efficient, but I don’t think that it will replace the advice that we’re bringing to clients.

Jason Diamond:

So that ties then in, I think, to your culture, and it sounds like people is a big part of that culture. I guess a two-part question. First of all, can you articulate your culture? What are your kind of pillars that you’ve built the firm on? And then secondly, do you feel like you’ve been able to stay true to that as you’ve gotten so much bigger exponentially?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

You’re right. I think culture is among the hardest things to scale. But for us, a few things have always been non-negotiable, and that would include putting clients first, operating with integrity as a team. These principles have been there from the beginning and they still anchor how we operate today.

The way we reinforce them is pretty straightforward. So it shows up in who we hire and how leaders behave and how we make decisions, because at the end of the day, culture is not what you say, it’s what your organization tolerates and what you reward. And where it’s evolved is that, as we’ve grown, we’ve had to be more explicit. So early on, and as a much smaller team, I think a lot of those things can be instinctive and you’re constantly sharing and communicating. And so you can rely on informal norms.

But at scale, it really doesn’t hold. You need to define what does that look like and how are we delivering for clients? And so having structure around proactive engagement, ownership, consistency and the experience is really important. And I would say that adding the structure, it’s not about changing the culture, it’s about protecting the culture, and it helps so that, as new people are joining and the firm is evolving, those core values show up in a consistent way and everyone better understands what we’re trying to achieve together.

And overall, I’d say at Crestwood, there’s a shared belief that growth really matters, not just for the business, but because it creates opportunity for talented professionals and it allows us to keep investing in how we serve clients. So that mindset has also been a big part of sustaining the culture as we scale. And we talk about those things a lot because it helps to distribute that knowledge about why those things are important and invite additional perspectives.

Jason Diamond:

So there’s some good stuff to unpack there. I’m struck. I think that good, smart people with integrity can build a culture a little bit by accident. You used the term like accidental norms or like just happenstance. You just have the culture. I don’t really know what it is, but I know my team has a really good culture. To your point, as you build the business out, that becomes incredibly difficult to scale and formalize. So what are some ways, is it you hire a consultant to write a handbook, how do you formalize it?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

So I think still who you hire is really important.

Jason Diamond:

It starts with people.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

It does start with people. And ensuring that everybody understands that they play a role. In whatever role they have, they’re playing a role in the culture. And we do talk about that. We do have firm values. We do get together as a firm twice a year and revisit strategic initiatives and things like firm values, and how we’re transitioning potentially different priorities and making headway. Different teams share about their work and the new opportunities that we’re facing and any challenges.

All of that communication and being authentic really helps to drive the culture as well. As well as having, of course, the things you mentioned, just enhancing training. That’s been a surprisingly challenging thing. But you can imagine that as a firm that grows from just three people to over 65 people in offices in different states, you need to have more structure around those things. So we’ve made that headway, but all of those things are part of it.

Jason Diamond:

You talk about different states in the growth. Did part of that growth come via acquisition?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yes, we have had three mergers over our tenure.

Jason Diamond:

And do you feel then that’s then an additional kind of wrinkle in this story of culture? Is that to you the most challenging piece of the acquisition is how do we then make sure everybody, from a people perspective… Or maybe what you’re saying is that’s before a merger’s even struck as it’s making sure you consummate deals with the right people

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Cultural alignment and philosophy alignment’s really important. Even in the best cases, mergers, they’re exciting and it brings new perspectives. That can be very positive, and there’s things that we can learn on both sides. And I think that, before doing mergers, it’s very easy to underestimate the complexity because the complexity really isn’t in the systems and the difference in how different companies approach processes. It’s really not about that.

It is about bringing two teams together, both who have likely been very successful and have had great success in how they’ve built their firm and their client work. And so how do you merge those? How do you bring together the best of both worlds to develop something better as a whole, I think is the constant question. And I think that every time a firm does a merger, they get better at it. Because you can’t help but make mistakes and you can’t hopefully help but learn from them and then pursue differently.

Jason Diamond:

I use that soundbite a lot. The first one is definitely the hardest. It’s hard to even figure out a deal structure. How am I going to go to market, let alone the actual integration of the firm? I totally agree with that. I think that ties into Crestwood is part of the Focus Financial ecosystem. Tell me a little bit about what the Focus partnership entails, what that’s been like. Do you view it as a positive? Any drawbacks? Just talk about that experience.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

It certainly has been a positive where we are a Focus Network partner firm, and it’s been terrific for us. From a day-to-day perspective, nothing has changed in terms of how we operate. We have autonomy in how we serve our clients and how we run our business. But what the broader Focus partnership brings is additional resources, perspective, and long-term investment and growth. And it really reinforces that we’re part of something larger. So we’re truly able to embrace that boutique at scale model without changing the core of who we are or how we make decisions for clients.

We’re eager to bring the very best in services and outcomes for clients. And so, as I’ve mentioned a few times, that sort of constant evolution and open-mindedness has allowed us to take advantage of resources that would be available at a much larger firm, which makes us much more competitive while still retaining our boutique environment.

Jason Diamond:

I think it’s fair what you’re alluding to, which is sometimes, I’m not saying this is true, but sometimes private equity gets a bad rap in our industry. But the things that private equity enables are universally agreed as a good thing. Things like M&A, a lot of times are predicated on having a private equity type of kind of sponsor behind you. I have to ask, and you can give me a quick answer, but Focus, obviously one of the most prolific investors in this space, has been in the media in their own right for going from a public company to a private company with a new private equity sponsor, CD&R. Has that transition impacted you at all?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yeah, it really hasn’t. So again, we continue to keep the focus on our clients and the resources that we can bring to them. And we welcome the new strategies that Focus pursues to make that deliverable that much stronger across the board in different arenas.

Jason Diamond:

Are your end clients aware of this dynamic at all? The actual clients who invest with your advisors or have money with your advisors. Or is this more of, we’re talking about this because we’re in the industry?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Listen, it obviously has made a lot of news. And so there have been some questions that come up or-

Jason Diamond:

It comes up. Right.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

See, and so we’re happy to have those conversations and be totally transparent about that. To us, again, it’s a non-issue, and by and large, hasn’t affected the majority of clients. I think it’s something that people in the industry are more aware of and hearing about more frequently than probably everyday clients.

Jason Diamond:

That’s my perception too, is it comes up in our circles, and we take for granted and feel like it’s something that’s ever present. But then when you actually deal with the end client, it’s something that’s less of a concern.

A couple more questions. I think this is something that comes up for advisors who have spent their entire career at one firm, but even I think there’s focus on this today with younger people and this idea of job hopping versus being loyal to one firm. But you used the term, I think in your first answer, you said, “I’ve grown up with Crestwood.” The flip side to that could be that somebody feels like you’ve outgrown the firm. It sounds like that’s not the case for you. But how do you reconcile that? There’s definitely this jumping firm culture these days, but you’ve basically spent your entire career with one firm.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

It’s a fair question. I think that lots of folks can outgrow a firm if the firm itself is not growing or changing. What’s been really wonderful and rewarding for me is that I can look back and see the different chapters of career that really feel like they were different jobs. It was like a completely different company at different points in time, even though what we’re serving to the client has remained consistent, which you can’t help but be a different company as a smaller organization than as you grow.

And so there’s been lots of opportunity there for folks, and not just me, but others within the company as well, who have contributed to the management infrastructure and to growing that piece of it. Business is one piece of ourselves, but there’s lots of ways that people can pursue different relationships and growth. I’ve spent a lot of time over the course of my career in the nonprofit world. I have met amazing individuals through board work and other organizations. And I think being open to that constant state of learning and mentorship in the interdisciplinary world, as well as in our own financial world, can be enormously helpful to advisors over time. You’re not always going to find all those things in one organization. You can stay with that organization if you can grow with it and you can still learn and gain mentorship and spend time outside of that and then bring those learnings back as well.

Jason Diamond:

Yeah. I love that answer. A couple follow-ups to close here. So now as president of this incredibly impressive enterprise, if I may say so, what is the next major hurdle you clear? What’s the next inflection point, to use your term? You don’t have to put a timeframe on it. I won’t ask you for your five-year plan, but give me what is it that you’re rowing towards?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Today, the focus remains as we look forward on continued integration and continued growth. And I don’t want that to necessarily be a boring answer. But at $8 billion, we’ve built this firm that is entirely structured to serve individuals and families that touches all parts of their lives. We are continuously bringing in new resources to our service model to ensure the most complete experience that we can. And I think the landscape for that is changing. So staying ahead of the curve on that and optimizing resources and efficiencies so we can make that deliverable that much tighter as we continue to grow the right way.

And while we did talk a little bit about a couple of landmark transactions, we’ve grown client by client all this time. I And I expect that we’ll continue to do that and continue to serve that market where there’s tremendous opportunity. So I’m focused on continuing to bring structure to the organization so that we can go from eight to 10 to 12 and beyond. But again, in the right way with bringing the right talent to the team as well so that we can grow that way in such a way the client doesn’t feel it. And we didn’t talk about that yet, but-

Jason Diamond:

That’s a good way to put it.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

… we have had this growth over time. But I’ve worked with some of the same clients for over 20 years, and people are astonished when they ask how the business is going, or they see a new milestone, and it’s, oh my gosh, I remember when I came to work with you and you guys were X in AUM, and now they can’t believe it. And I think that’s a true measure of success is that-

Jason Diamond:

It’s a compliment. Absolutely a compliment

Leah Sciabarrasi:

… clients do not feel that. So that speaks to the depth of talent on our team as we continue to grow.

Jason Diamond:

It’s an interesting dichotomy, I guess, in the industry, which is, I agree, growth. It’s the name of the game. Every firm that calls me, every advisor that calls me, growth. Growth in terms of adding new accounts doesn’t help the end client. In fact, you could argue that it hurts them because by an advisor adding new relationships, potentially their eye’s even off the ball. So I think there’s a case to be made that the highest compliment you could get is the fact that you’ve grown as tremendously as you’ve had, and the service model, it sounds like clients are pointing to really hasn’t changed. They don’t feel the scale, but the scale enables benefits is a huge win in my opinion.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Yeah, thank you. I agree. I know we didn’t talk too much about this, but we also have a team approach here. So clients are not working with a singular advisor or just a narrow advisory team, but rather with a interdisciplinarian bench of advisors, basically. A small team of advisors that have expertise on the planning side, on the portfolio side, sometimes in trust and estate, other sort of pieces. So we bring those pieces together for clients. And I think that team approach brings tremendous depth to client relationships and allows for real relationship building as advisors are growing their careers too.

Jason Diamond:

I’m going to put you on the spot here. We’ve been getting asked a lot in the media, by advisors, it’s no secret, major next gen talent shortage in our industry. This idea that there just aren’t enough quality young advisors. So question number one, what does Crestwood do in terms of training program or cultivating next gen talent, if anything?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

I think that career path is a big piece of this. So career path, growth. And you talk about training program, this is still very much an apprenticeship business, I think. And when you have next gen team members who are willing to learn and to sit in that complexity with clients and to invest the time, because this is still a long game business, there’s no shortcut to building trust with clients and it does take time.

At Crestwood, because we work on teams, younger advisors have exposure to all of our senior advisors basically, or a pretty broad spectrum. And so you’re not just learning from one person, nor are you the number two, if you will, to a senior advisor, that you’re waiting for them to retire or something. That’s not our model. So people are really having that apprenticeship on a day-to-day basis all the time as they grow their careers.

And that’s been really beneficial to us in retaining talent long-term and building a place where people can make it their home. This is a business that it is very hard to hop around. People do it, but it’s hard on clients. And when we hire, we want to be totally transparent and we want this to be the right place for an advisor to choose as well. So we try to give candidates visibility into our culture to meet with interdisciplinary team members and to help make that decision. So from the get go, hopefully it’s a good match and we can have clear expectations.

Jason Diamond:

I think you’re a testament to the upward mobility potential, certainly. So that’s a success story right there. Last question for you. We’ll turn that question on its head then. When some people ask the question of, what does it take to be successful? I’m a young advisor. People are a little bit looking for the magic wand, and there’s no right answer. And not just for young people, but really let’s talk early innings financial advisors, or people that are starting a career in wealth management. What do you think is the secret to success?

Leah Sciabarrasi:

I think it’s a combination. You need technical competence, you need emotional intelligence, and you do need patience because it does take time. And individuals and families are entrusting you with their financial details, and with their hopes and dreams and their worries. So that takes time to build. So that patience piece is really important.

I think curiosity is really important. The business is constantly evolving, and so the best advisors are ones who are willing to always be learning. I also think that there’s many paths within wealth management. So most young advisors, perhaps rightfully so, are focused very much on either the planning or the portfolio piece or what their career path might entail, but there is so much to do within leadership and strategy and operational efficiency.

So there’s lots of paths open. And it’s been really wonderful here to build a firm where, at this point, we can have people who come in at an entry level perhaps and learn enough about some of the operations or the client service piece of the business to then transition into whatever the advisory path is. Or maybe they’re an advisor who’s got a real talent in mentorship and management. And so we’re able to offer those opportunities too. So I think being intentional about where your interest lies while also open-minded to opportunities you may not have seen before really helps you pursue an organic career path.

Jason Diamond:

It’s a great way to wrap. I love the answer. Thank you so much for joining us, Leah. I can’t wait to have you back on in a couple years to hear the updated story.

Leah Sciabarrasi:

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Mindy Diamond:

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