The Move at a Glance
- Advisors: Chris Tiano and Nick Smith
- From: Lazard Wealth
- To: Cresset
- Assets: $1.1B
- Locations: Los Angeles and New York
- Roles: Managing Directors, Wealth Advisors
- Primary Objective: Build a high-growth practice serving entrepreneurs, founders, entertainers, athletes, and other emerging-wealth clients
- Why Cresset: Integrated family office capabilities, open architecture, greater entrepreneurial flexibility, and equity in a growing firm
Chris Tiano and Nick Smith have joined Cresset as Managing Directors, Wealth Advisors, leaving Lazard Wealth where they oversaw $1.1B in client assets. Chris will be based in Los Angeles and Nick in New York.
For the duo, the transition was about far more than finding a new home for their existing business.
They saw an opportunity to build around a rapidly emerging client base: entrepreneurs, startup founders, entertainers, athletes, and others whose current income and future wealth potential can far exceed the assets they have available to invest today.
To pursue that opportunity, Chris and Nick wanted broader capabilities, greater flexibility over whom they could serve, and the ability to participate in the long-term value of the business they were building.
They found that combination at Cresset.
Building for the Clients They Wanted to Serve
Chris and Nick brought impressive backgrounds to Lazard and had spent their careers working with sophisticated high- and ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Chris previously held roles with Glenmede Trust Company and Focus Financial Partners and has extensive experience advising entrepreneurs and business owners through business growth, liquidity events, and the complexities that follow. Nick spent portions of his career at Merrill Lynch, Bessemer Trust, and Fiduciary Trust Company International and has advised wealthy families and institutional clients for approximately 15 years.
But their vision for the future extended beyond the traditional private-bank client.
They increasingly saw opportunity among a new generation of wealth creators: successful founders, athletes, entertainers, influencers, and other young professionals who may generate substantial income today but have yet to accumulate the investable assets typically required by traditional private banks.
At Lazard, strict asset minimums limited their ability to pursue that market as broadly as they wanted. And while the firm offered considerable investment expertise, Chris and Nick wanted access to a wider range of capabilities—including lending, tax preparation, financial planning, differentiated alternatives, and integrated family office services.
They were playing the long game.
Rather than build solely around the clients who met a particular asset threshold today, they wanted the freedom and resources to develop relationships with clients whose financial lives could become significantly more complex over time.
From Advisors to Business Builders
There was another dimension to the decision.
Under the private bank model, Chris and Nick were compensated through salary and bonus. As they considered the business they hoped to create, they wanted a structure that gave them greater influence over how they built their team and practice, more control over their economics, and an opportunity to own equity in the enterprise.
That opened the door to a much broader question: What was the best model for building the business they envisioned?
Working with Diamond Consultants, Chris and Nick explored the spectrum of possibilities—from launching an independent RIA to joining another private bank, wirehouse, or established RIA.
Yet each came with tradeoffs. Starting a firm from scratch offered maximum ownership, but it also meant building the infrastructure required to serve highly sophisticated clients from day one—an expensive and time-consuming proposition. Another private bank felt too similar to the model they were leaving, particularly around client minimums, economics, and ownership. A traditional wirehouse could provide scale but lacked the family office depth and equity opportunity they were seeking. And some RIAs simply did not yet have the breadth of capabilities they believed their target clients would ultimately require.
Why Cresset
Cresset ultimately offered a compelling middle ground: the infrastructure of an established multi-family office paired with the entrepreneurial opportunity Chris and Nick wanted.
The firm provides integrated investment management, private markets access, trust services, tax strategy, family governance, and broader family office capabilities within an employee- and client-owned model.
For Chris and Nick, that translated into several important advantages:
- The ability to serve their target clients more holistically, including before those clients accumulate traditional UHNW levels of investable assets.
- Access to lending, estate planning, tax, trust, private markets, and other family office resources.
- The flexibility to build their practice and team around their own vision.
- Equity participation in a rapidly growing firm.
- The potential to benefit from Cresset’s broader network, digital presence, and centers of influence.
- A sophisticated platform they could confidently introduce to clients immediately.
Chris described Cresset publicly as a platform that brings together sophisticated investment management, private market opportunities, and comprehensive planning, while Nick pointed to the depth of its family office offering and ability to serve clients more holistically.
Playing the Long Game
This transition is ultimately a growth story.
Chris and Nick were not simply searching for a platform that could accommodate the business they had already built. They were thinking about the clients they wanted to serve, the enterprise they wanted to create, and where the greatest opportunity might exist over the next decade and beyond.
That meant looking past the size of a client’s portfolio today and toward the complexity and potential of their financial life tomorrow.
And it meant choosing a model that allowed Chris and Nick to participate more fully in the value they hope to create along the way.
Diamond Consultants is grateful to have guided Chris and Nick through that process and wishes them continued success as they build the next chapter of their business at Cresset.
Diamond Consultants’ Role
Chris and Nick came to Diamond Consultants with a big vision—but also with a wide range of possible ways to achieve it.
Our first task was helping them understand the distinctions among those models and, more importantly, the tradeoffs each would require.
We worked through the economics and implications of building independently versus partnering with an established firm. We discussed the realities of leaving a private bank model and even challenged whether making a change was necessary at all.
Once their priorities became clear, we helped define their non-negotiables and curated a focused group of firms capable of meeting them—shortening what otherwise could have become a lengthy due diligence process.
Ultimately, the decision came down to a fundamental question about ownership and long-term value: How much of what they were about to build did they want to own?
Chris and Nick treated the process like they were building a business—because that’s exactly what they were doing. They got clear on what they were solving for before they started looking, which made it easier to recognize the right fit when they found it.
Their answer ultimately pointed them toward Cresset.