Dave Welling on What Financial Services Should Look Like

that industry. He never was an advisor, but he has worked in and around financial services his whole career, and and that really gives him a unique perspective. He has done quite an amazing job building Mercer from a seven or nine billion dollar shop to a twenty one plus billion dollar shop, one of the fastest growing firms in the industry. Um I forgot to mention and during our conversation that he was named CEO of the Year by

one of the financial magazines. He comes to us with just a very straightforward, honest perspective about what the financial services should be doing to both take care of its clients and employees, but as well as being a force for good in the world. I found this to be a fascinating conversation, and I expect you will also with no further ado. My conversation with Mercer Advisors Dave Wellen vis is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.

My special guest this week is Dave Welling. He is the CEO of Mercer Advisors, a Denver based r i A with four hundred employees and over twenty one billion dollars in assets under management. Dave Welling, Welcome to Bloomberg. Barry is great to be here, looking forward to it. So you have a really interesting job history that I want to discuss before we start getting into the details of Welling. You were at Adventance, you were Black Diamond,

Charles Schwab Banning Company. Tell us a little bit about your career path. Sure, so, yeah, I think as you're getting that very um maybe not the traditional head of an advisory firm because I didn't start as an advisor, but I spent close to the last thirty years of my life supporting, enabling, and as I call it, clearing the path for advisors. So I was very, very fortunate back in the mid nineties to join Charles Schwab in

a really unique role and opportunity. I joined as a chief of staff, which was a completely made up job for one of the vice chairman running the advisor business and the Floral wind Cave business. Actually had a chance to review with Chuck as part of the job. So boy, you know, talk about lucky is a way to enter this industry and do it the right way and learn the right principles. You know, had a had a chance to work down the hall from Chuck and learned from him.

But that was that. And prior to that, I had some experiences, but they were in management consulting, and like a lot of management consultants, I dabbled in a lot of industries. I worked in telco, I worked in consumer products, I worked in technology, I worked in across the board, actually worked in the private equity consulting practice of Baning Company, And well, that was an awesome experience and a great

foundation for learning business and role. I found myself really longing to find an industry that had a real purpose and to find a company in a place in that industry where you could really innovate, and Schwab became that

place for me at the beginning of my career. Obviously, US had some other stops along the way, and I'm sure we'll get to talk about those, But really lucky, I spent twelve years a SUAB through the growth and evolution of that business and to find the independent advisor industry, and I just fell in love with it. You know, there's there's challenges, there's market turbulences, but we we all have this compass, which is the client and doing the right thing for them. So it's been been very, very

very good to me over the years. So you you had gone from Bain to Schwab, and after twelve years of Schwab you left to go to Black Diamond, which seems to be like a much more technologically focused, less straight up wealth management company than Schwab. What was that transition like? And did I mistake that it sounds like

they're two very different companies in a similar field. Well, yeah, The Black Diamond, for those that don't know, is a technology provider, most notably in web based cloud based development, providing reporting two advisers to help them tell their stories, whether they were managing portfolios or providing a broader wealth management offering like Mercery Advisors does. And I gets similar to the story about financial services I wasn't an engineer either, right,

I wasn't didn't grow up as a developer. I just really understood the space and understood what advisors did. And that was two thousand nine, so heels of the financial crisis, I decided it was the right time to leave SWAB, picked my family up from the San Francisco Bay Area and joined a technology company in northeastern Florida. All of my friends in the Bay area thought I was completely nuts for leaving the safety and security of a big company.

Even despite the difficulties we were having, I was. I was doing very well there. I was continuing to grow and get be given more responsibilities. But I had this idea that I wanted to get involved in technology. I really felt like today, but especially at that time in two thousand nine, the technology was going to be part of solving the challenges that are industry based and the

consumers were clamoring for. So I had this this meta investment pieces, if you will, that technology was going to move from the back office to the front office, as we talked about in advisory firms, and help advisors run their businesses more efficiently with more scale, ill and more consistency. But also give the consumer what they were demanding, which was more transparency. At that time, I think, as you know and might might even remember, it was very dynamic time.

Consumers wanted to know how they were doing, where they were, and what Black Diamond did was on a daily basis cheap plus one or next day was able to tell clients at a very granular level how they were doing, uh, not just pulling up the last quarterly performance report which could have been two and a half or three months old, given timing of how those those report out, and be

able to tell folks very dynamically. So it was a great opportunity and a risk, if you will, on on one level, but probably the best career decision I ever made. You know, we all faced these opportunities and these these roads that we that we meet in our careers, and that was an opportunity for me to try my hand at something that was much much more entrepreneurial. It was very small when I joined. There's twenty employees, less than two million annual revenues, a good product, but certainly not

a big business. So pretty big difference from from a big company with a lot of resources to drop into an environment that was still trying to break through, still try to to get known and develop its footing. And yeah, well I've left that part of my career behind. It was over three years ago when I left that team. There's now more than five people in Northeastern Florida. It's one of the best companies to work for Northeastern Florida. So you very proud of that part of my career heritage.

It didn't start that way. Um, but nothing like being thrown into an entrepreneurial situation to figure out whether you've you've got the goods to be able to to bootstrap and do things yourself rather than rely on big, big teams to do things for you. So let's talk about the next entrepreneurial opportunity. Not too long ago, you end up at Mercer Advisors. What was the transition like becoming a CEO of a wealth management firm when you were

previously working in what really is a technology company. The transition was was quick and it was a change. I finished work at Black Diamond. At Black Diamond had, over the years, had been acquired by Advent Software, which then in turn had been acquired by SS and C Technology. So I had gone from this small entrepreneurial company who actually was running Advent, which is a international company with offices all over the world as a division of S

S and c UM. You know, we're four million annual revenues, you know, thousands of employees. Was with co leader of that business. But I was longing again to get back to something that was a little bit more entrepreneurial and a little bit closer to home in terms of focusing on the advisor business. But I finished work at six pm on a Friday, uh six am the next morning, I was on a plane, and then Sunday night I had dinner with Dave Barton, who was the CEO of

Mercer for eight years prior to me joining. And the juncture where Mercer was at the time was growing very quickly organic way, but also had it had an opportunity and interest to to go through some acquisitions and acquire smaller practices of financial planners all over the country who

were looking for that solution. Dave went left, meaning Dave jumped into a vice chairman role and started focusing on mergers and acquisitions, and that created an opportunity for me to join the organization and help lead the next chapter. So very different, very different business. Probably the biggest different structurally isn't what you'd think. Um, it's not technology versus

wealth management. It's people largely all in one place with a sales teams right around the country, which is technology to Mercer. And we're about four dred and fifty employees today spread across forty five offices or so i'd like to say, forty five leases that we're paying for in different parts of the country. So it's very different to lead a culture that's spread as thin as we are

and lead it as one team. So uh different, different transition in that respect to figure out how to land and earn the trust of the team and to leave the organization when we're so dispersed, at least at least physically dispersed. So I want to get to the issue of growing through mergers and acquisitions, but before we go there, I have to stick with two questions about your transition to being CEO. The first one is how does an outsider come into a relatively small, privately held company as

a CEO. That sounds like it's a big challenge. Tell us a little bit about that transition. So the history of Mercer is actually pretty unique and you know, my position as CEO comes in after a long history of ownership transition, leadership transition. So Kendrick Mercer, the founder of the business, founded Mercer in We were one of the first, the only financial planning firms in the country. Kendrick, you're very unique guy, passionate about financial planning, but had a

lot of other life interests. Made a decision to bring in a partner group early early nineties, brought on five partners. Dave Barton, who I mentioned earlier, was one of those partners. In two thousand and three we brought in our first CEO. So I'm not the first CEO of the business, but for a kind of transition of CEO as if you will.

And the interesting thing about Mercer when you look at what's happening in our industry is we made this transition from a single founder to a partnership, a partnership to a CEO mandate to outside capital investments in private private equity. So when we talk about mergers and acquisition, Mercer has been down a lot of these paths. Um We've evaluated the options and decisions at different junctures of our history. Because we've been around for so long we've made those

decisions over the years. So my entry is CEO. Came into a business that was used to having a CEO, also had a lot of outside capital, and as I'm sure you know, really important part of the CEO is not just leading the business, but managed the investor base as well of keeping them confident and comfortable and to be able to pass pass the business forward. What was tricky for me at the time of entering the business

and was to get the team to know me. So the very first thing that I did was certainly not sitting headquarters and try and do planning. I got on a plane. At that time, we certainly could do that, it's much unfortunately we can't do it now. And I went to visit every single office. UM sat with the team's talk to them about what was working, what was not working, what they thought we should do to move forward.

The best thing I ever did because it both connected me to the culture and team and inversely helped the team understand who I was and where I was coming from. Very interesting. So in the firm was under ten billion dollars. Today you're over billion dollars. That's not that long a time to more than Dublin size. Was that your vision from day one to begin acquiring other advisory shops. How did this approach come about? Yeah, I guess it was

certainly part of our most recent history. But the vision and purpose of the organization is to help clients and help them on their path the economic freedom. So, as we talked about a little earlier, the firm has been around thirty five years and we've only been doing acquisitions over the last four. What what had happened over the first thirty plus years is the business had grown to be a national firm. We had eighteen offices all around

the country. We're about six billion at that time prior to doing our first acquisition, and we had gone through the work and figured out that working as eighteen different teams wasn't going to work. We had a centralized investment team, a common client experience. We had built our state planning

team and tax team. We had built the set of services that we provide our clients, and had built a culture of working together despite being because we separated across those eighteen offices, and what we found was there was both interest in an opportunity for other firms who were like minded to join us. To get access to that

set of services and capabilities. And you know, in this this industry, there's a lot of great professionals out there, a lot of great independent investment advisors out there who

work as true fiduciaries that they have small practices. It's a very fragmented interest industry, and some of those principles that were at one time entrepreneurs had evolved from entrepreneurs to starting to think about their retirement and they were looking for a place to put their practice, put their business, put their clients in the hands of a firm that had shared interests, shared beliefs, and the shared value system.

So it was this coming together of Mercer having an appetite to grow and ability to grow, a desire to grow, but also huge, huge demand from firms that were it's like Mercer, We've acquired businesses that, while there are a lot smaller, have also been around for thirty years and some of the first the only financial planning firms in

the country. And what's different about acquisitions in in our industry and our space and in this context is those sellers are looking for much more than a transaction and evaluation of their business. That's what I saw on technology. You see it all the time when Amazon biased companies or Google buas companies. You know they're buying the technology they want the engineers. But it's very different than this industry. Uh. These are for people who set out on their own,

have been running their own business for twenty years. It's it's their life's work, and they're not going to put their clients into a bad investment. And they're not going to put their clients into a situation where the firm that's that's taking over the business and becoming their sucception plan for them doesn't share the same values and beliefs and systems. So I think what is really propelled our our acquisitions strategy is a combination of two things. One,

we've done quite a few of them. By the time we finished this year, we will have done over forty acquisitions in four years, so over ten a year on average. And the second is all those firms believing their clients are going to be better served after easy example, and I think we might talk about this later. We have a dedicated a state planning team and a dedicated tax team. Not just g p a s and lawyers who are

practicing advisors. You have dedicated teams that all they do is put together a state plans for clients, and those are often huge uptick services for for clients in this context, so the sellers see, hey, this is not just good for me, this is going to be a good solution for my clients. So I want to discuss the various wealth management services mercer offers in a few minutes. Let's focus now on the merger and acquisition process. You guys have completed forty in four years. That that's quite a

robust number. Tell us a little bit about your pro says, how do you find companies to acquire? Are you looking for them? Do they come to you? Give us a little uh, behind the scenes explanation as to what this process is like. Yeah, there's a there's obviously a courtship process. Right, There's there's a do we like them and do they

like us? Process, which picks up on the common I may before and maybe we can come back what happens after, Right, it's the the consummation, the acquisition itself, the closing date. That's just a mile post on the building of a broader relationship. But focusing on on before that mile post, the more acquisitions we've done, the more people find their way to us because we have now become a known

option that has a certain value proposition. Right, so we we are, as I call it, an integrator, not an aggregator. We're going to become one business, one integrated client experience. That's very appealing not just to our shareholders and from a business perspective, it's it's very relevant to the context of some of the situations where we find sellers that are looking for a succession plan or a place to transition their practice or their business. We're very active in

the industry. My involvement in the industry for thirty plus years. I've probably been in a thousand different advice for offices around the country over the years, just physical offices. So those relationships are really helpful because we're not starting from scratch.

There's some prior intersection. It may have been several years where firms that I've known, principles that I've known over the years, that I've had the fortune to build a relationship with and helping them build that business or just be on the be on the sidelines cheering for them. UM is very relevant to the meeting and greeting part of it. But once we kind of get the conversation going, UM, we believe in a really rich interface of dialogue between

our firm and their firm. The best the best context is there's several people deep in our our firm and several people deep in theres who are talking to each other, not about the valuation of the transaction. That's probably less than five percent of the content. It's important, but it's relatively straightforward, UM, and a place to land on whether you're going to have a similar sense of what the

value the business is. The most important part is how are we going to be better together than we were apart? What is this going to be like for clients? UM? What tools are in the tool chest both at mercer

or in the business that we're acquiring. We've acquired several practices that have not just a wealth management firms that had dedicated accounting teams themselves, right, So that's been really appealing for us to build our tax business, build our expertise in our tax business, and for them to know the acquirer really believed in having that part of the business, because not everybody in our industry really wants that to be part of their core service. Offering, so uh that

that's you know, the rich interface. So by the time we get to okay that we're going to do the this acquisition and they closed a we have mutual clarity on what we're trying to create together. We have a vision of how things are to come together at a pretty granular level. Um and you know, one of the things that we didn't touch on earlier in my experience when I was at Black Diamond. Black Diamond was bought

by by Advent. Advent was a public company, it was bought by a se and given the scale of those transactions, but mostly employees found out about it on a random Tuesday, and then we were scrambling to figure out what the strategy was and how the pieces were going to sit together.

We have an opportunity in the context of these acquisitions to do a lot of work up front to make sure that the uncertainty that that can be there in these transitions is really limited to the uncertainty for clients and uncertainty for employees, because we say, well, this is going to look like and this is how it's going to work. Huge opportunity and that that helps people feel

really confident when when they make these decisions. So under normal circumstances, there's a lot of neat and great, there's a lot back and forth. But obviously these are not normal circumstances. How do you do these sorts of deals that require a little bit of staring each other in the eye and making sure everybody is comfortable with each other during a pandemic where we're kind of limited to zoom and not person in person meetings. What what's it

been like this year? Yeah, there's no question it's a lot harder, right, Um, I think you know the the uptick people look at the disadvantages, right, this is a at its core, this is a kneecapped to kneecap business. That's how advisors build their relationships with clients, particularly at the beginning, and this bond of trust that needs to form over an extended period of time of delivering value is just as true in this context of acquisitions as it is in the context of an advisor working with

our clients. And I'm sure many of your listeners that will resonate with them. But what's been really interesting about using zoom in the technology, It's actually enabled us to have a much quicker cadence and to have more people from the firms are requiring be engaged in the process,

and more people engaged on the Mercer team. We just did a call yesterday morning that went three hours with with the firm that's going to be joining us at the end of the year, and we had eight people from the Mercer team coming in in different time segments talking about how they're the employee benefits are gonna work, how the investment mapping is going to work, how our

state planning team is going to work. That would have been hard for us to do in a different context to fly eight people from Mercer across the country, get all their employees in our one room and do that um do that together. We we have a team and have always done that, but it's interesting where we've been able to engage multiple people and then there's some follow up questions, so we we get back on the phone right and get the zoom back from fired back up.

So I think our industry is wrestling with what is life look like affort with all this technology. I think we found that that it actually can be really enriching and help pick up the cadence and avoid the scheduling of where we're gonna fly across country to meet each other. UM. I think we would love to add that back in.

But there's there's a real learning here for us as an industry about how how the technology can help support these relationships and conversations on a much quicker cadence UM and involve more people where it's it's only an hour investment of their time. You go right at the questions that they have UM and address it. And if you're you need somebody to come in because something comes up, somebody can join join the session live rather than have

to jump on a plane and five clush country. So I think a little bit surprised about how well it's gone, a little bit of lemonade out of the pandemic, to

say the least. So in a previous conversation I discussed the sort of multiples that that we've seen in the industry with Peter Maluke of Creative Planning, and he pointed out that things started out fairly and expensively, but there's just such a wash of private equity money and with yields as low as they are, well run advisory firms are very similar to a bond and that they throw off a pretty decent yield with a very modest amount of risk. What are you seeing in terms of multiples?

Have prices for advisory firms gotten out of hand or or things a little more reasonable this year? Given all the experience we've had with remote work and the pandemic, this is one of the things where it has it tastes been around this industry for quite a while, right, So, having seen acquisitions, having seen how outside capital thinks about our industry, I think there's some things happening that are

actually quite fundamental, you know. I think I think Peter's right, you know, valuations, you're going up the right your your question. But I think what's happening is people are starting to realize the value. Right, So, who an independent are a a is is? And why that's different than a wirehouse broker. What does it really mean to be a fiduciary? There's obviously been a huge narrative in our industry about the

poduciary standards and the importance of that. Still shocking to me that not every advisor working with clients isn't required to be a fiduciary. We of course are your firm and and are, but that's not the way the rest of our industry is so people are learning that. From a business perspective, I think the outside capital who's really starting to learn that these are quality businesses, very high retention,

very high recurring cash flow. Why because the advisors do good work and the clients like it and they tell more people about it. Right, So in a cash flow business and a service business, for an outside investor, that's a little hard sometimes to wrap your head around until you see the patterns of success over a sustained period

of time. So what's happening in our industry, I think is is the outside capital in particular final starting to recognize the value of this industry most fundamentally in terms of the value it provides the consumer and how this industry continues to grow and how these businesses continue to grow. So that's a that's a big y, right when you

look at macro versus micro trends. Now you come into micro trends, you're you get to a little bit more about what Peter may have been talking about, which is there's a lot of well financed, purposeful buyers like Mercer and others that are interested in investing in the space. You have sellers who are interested in a transition for their clients, as I said earlier, a transition that feels like they're putting them in a home that's similar or the same in terms of values and offering that they've

built up over the years. Uh. And you get a lot more interest in this space. But fundamentally, um, you know, it's a good investment for us. You know, acquisitions we do, we average retention for years after the fact, even in years after principle may be retired. And I was on

the phone and I mentioned that stat too. You know one of firms who recently sold the business that I basically Mercer didn't screw things up right, and we added some value, but fundamentally that's what the business was before

we BoNT it. So that's that's why these things are interesting where Mercer really can add values in expanding the services for those clients to the clients are experiencing more value and we're often able to get growth turned back on in a business that maybe grew at one time, but over the last few years maybe had slowed significantly on growth. Um from a market perspective, but I think, yes, yes, valuations are going up, but that's because there's value and

people are starting to recognize it. So I have a bunch of more questions about this space on culture and lessons and the role of Barton as former CEO and now your head of M and A. But before I go there, I have to ask how important is private equity to these deals? How are they usually structured? Is it part cash, part turnout over time? What do these

look like? Sure? So you know, deal structures evolved in the industry, and you know, people like to say the market sex prices and the market set the deal structure too. We talked about valuation, but but you know, structure is just as important, um, I would say as the actual valuation. So you know, I think the structures vary, but usually

there's a significant amount of cash or capital up front. Uh, there's there's some in and turn out to make sure the business transitions well on retention stays in place, so that affilllates over time from maybe sixty percent up front and in and turnout focused around focused around retention and effective transition to the business. So that's that's from a structural standpoint. We provide opportunity for people to to have equity immerser. We have the opportunity actually for every employee

of the company to buy into the company. So that's may sound strange given the fact that we have private equity investors, but really important, you know, and I think, you know, we maybe unpack the private equity piece a little bit fundamentally what what private equity ownership does for us and being a person that that is leading a business that's had private equity involvement since since you know the two thousand eight right was was our our first

private equity investment. It is made the CEO C in the business accountable to become what we're capable of becoming. Right, So I am accountable to the board. If I don't do my job, well, um, I can be fired or let go And and fundamentally I think that's good for employees and good for the clients. Right, which is you know, is this is this business delivering on its promise to to its clients and if it's not, you know what

responsibility is the CEO? Who for that? So I think I think people miss that they just talk about it as as capital and actually think about it more as accountability and and responsibility and something for the business to to become what it's capable of coming. Quite quite interesting. Let's stick with this space and discuss the corporate culture. How do you, as CEO, maintain a corporate culture when first everybody is in far flung locations and forty five

separate offices. We we do something similar on a smaller scale. And second, you're adding new bodies, new organizations, and new people to a company that might have had a somewhat different prior culture. How do you integrate all of that? Yeah, I think when we're we just talked about acquisition, the first test is really culture. Right, So there's culture, there's strategy, and then there's financials. So it needs to make cultural sense and strategic sense before you even bother talking about

valuation of the business. So fortunately, we focused on buying financial planning firms. We focused on buying firms who believe and operate under the fiduciary standards UM, and we focused on firms who have a similar but not maybe always identical investment philosophy, but but investment philosophy that's rooted as an outcome of the financial plan rather than in alpha shop focusing on a particular sleeve or sector or or

investments type. So UM that's really important because you're starting from a place where there's there's good cultural alignment in terms of values, principles and a belief in how the client could be served. So when we're spread all across the country, the immersioner for years did a big annual event, and you know, as we got bigger, the event got bigger. We broke from that over two years ago and started

doing a lot of smaller events. We were just growing so quickly that we could add fifty sixty employees in three months after the event happened. I think the biggest annual event happened. So we moved the corporate headquarters back in the beginning of eighteen out at California to Denver, Colorado. Part of the purpose of that was to be central Um. We called it not headquarters, we call it Central Hub.

And in non COVID pandemic years, we would hold close to thirty different pier sessions in the Hub where people would come in meet their peers from other offices around the country. So we wouldn't take the Santa Barbara team and bring the Santa barbar team in. We'd take all the financial planners and get them talking to their peers, and that that helped foster the cultural cultural connection. Coincidentally,

this is a play from the Bin playbook. In a Bin and a Company, where I work at offices all over the world, they take consultants at each rank, and they take new managers from all over the world, and you'd build relationships with people working other parts of the world who maybe could be helpful for you as you got to a project later. So that was really helpful

in helping build a culture. We also have a number of programs and initiatives, including our Investors Program, employee resource groups that write different kinds that allow employees an opportunity to engage with peers and individuals who who maybe not only are in the same position, but care about the same things that they care about. UM, that's been that's been really productive in amportment. In the pandemic, we've had to work a lot harder. All of us are trying

to figure out how to do those things virtually. UM, it has to be much more purposeful. I think there were things that in non vandemic time that could be organic and a little bit free form. But we've we've evolved to a state where we're doing virtual happy hours, we're doing sessions where people are making Christmas cookies together

or holiday celebrations together, depending on their faith. So it's it's been it's been purposeful, a little bit more centrally coordinated to remind people that this is an important part of building our culture. Um. So you know, as you talk about acquisitions, you know, I can touch on that briefly. You know, I think we have similar origin stories and beliefs, but we it's important for us to recognize that we are this tapestry of of different businesses that have different

origin stories. So people sometimes confuse culture with norms and habits and traditions, right, So traditions are are important parts of a culture, sure, but fundamentally we think about it as principles and have people be willing to adapt and not just adapt to the mercer way. We we adopt practices at firms that we acquire, so you in some ways preserve, recognize and celebrate the heritage that was the way there some of the businesses that have joined us

as well. Very interesting and my final question on the M and A practice, there had to be some interesting lessons you've picked up along the way doing forty acquisitions in just a few short years. What did you learn what are some of the pitfalls to be avoided. Yeah, So I'm an analogy guy and the one that I'll use here and like to use his paddle boarding. Right. So I used to live in Florida when I was working at Black Diamond, and we lived on the ocean,

and I had a paddle board. Right. So if you've even if you've done it on vacation, you know, you get out on a paddle board and you get in the shop, and you get in the waves, and you see people kind of stand still and try and get their balance. Um. And anybody who's been on a paddle board, whether it's just you know, on a vacation or is actually owned one like I did, you know, the best way to keep your balance at a paddle board is to get it moving, right, So momentum plus having the

paddle in the water are critical to keeping stability. So I think you know, early on we tried to go very slow. We had this phrase of quote, do no harm, and unfortunately, do no harm maybe started to turn into doing no good. We weren't on the same systems together. We hadn't set up the umbilical cord to connect people with our estate planning team and tax team which were off and services that they haven't had, and well, the paces is measured and cautious for all a whole bunch

of good reasons. I think the biggest lesson is you have to have momentum, and the momentum needs to start from the very beginning um. And that's that's been really critical to to get a clear plan in place, the clear destination um. I think the other key learning we have, and this comes from me being a guy who is part of the business that was acquired twice and and wishing, you know, a couple of times I had to do over is one of the things that we do just

before firm joins us. So we're gonna have a couple of firms join us here. At the end of the year, we do an internal call at Mercer with all the heads of the departments, not just the executive team, but there's maybe twenty bole on this call, and we walk through who is this firm, Who are the people, what are their hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations. What's the vision

of what we're trying to create together. Because this relationship that was formed in the courtship process maybe didn't involve all those people and it's important for them to understand all that and to be walked through that. So it gives the selling ento the a running start, if you will, that the entire mercer team understands what we're trying to

create and understands what the discussions were. It understands what their concerns were of how things are going to go, or a certain piece of their client experience that needed to stay in place, whatever the discussion was. That those

two things have been really important. What's interesting is there kind of more vision oriented versus tactical planning, right, so sort of an understanding in terms of how are we going to come together and where are we going and we're going to move together, right, and having the teams understand that quite interesting. Let's talk a little bit about the lack of diversity in the financial services industry. Your firm puts on something called Investors, which is a woman's

initiative design to promote diversity in the advisor space. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, So invest hers a t R S Capitalized is a program that we put in place a little over three years ago, and I think you know, in our entire industry knows we we really struggle with diversity. A lot of the industry is still male, stale and pale as as folks like to say, And and the question is how do you affect change and something that feels at the outset very

difficult to change. So yeah, I'd like to go back and talk about like where where that idea came from?

And when I joined the businesses CEO in I mentioned a little bit earlier in the podcast that the first thing I did was travel the country and visit our then thirty offices were now closed to fifty offices, but the thirty offices, and the first thing that I saw was we had and we're very fortunate to have a number of incredibly talented women who are already part of our organization um as advisers, financial planners, the state planning team, on and on and on, and and then about of

our client advisory staff where women today we're we're a little over closer to um So we had a we had a good starting point. Uh, those folks didn't happen to be in leadership positions at the time, and we've also changed that both through this program and through merit. And these are talented people. We weren't doing it as any sort of just like, hey, let's become more diverse. These are talented people that we asked a step into

leadership roles all around the country. The second thing was I attended an event, um, and there was a animal of women leaders in our industry who were talking about all the trends around women in wealth and now women are going to live longer, and how many women are head a household a bunch of things that being a being a guy who loves data, we're all kind of clear to me and intuitive to me. Um, what I

was stuck on was exactly what we should do next? Right, So I understood the problem, I understood the metrics and why it was important, but trying to figure out what to do next was a real challenge. And uh, fortunately, go back to this. We have these talented people in the organization. I pad a couple of them on the shoulder and I said, look, we I really want to launch this thing. Um, I don't know what to call it.

You're gonna have to figure out what to call it, because we don't need a male, stale and pale, middle aged white dude decide what what we should call a program like this, but I need your leadership and I will give you unconditional support, but you need to tell me what you're going to do. And what they landed on was a charter that had both both a leg of our strategy and purpose and charter that program to drive more diversity in our business and in the industry.

The second was to make sure we were really relevant and in tune with the needs of our female clients. So it has an internal purpose and an external purpose and at least for us, that's that's kind of the biggest learning is having both UM has been really important to get the flywheel on this turning and start to

start to help us make progress. The the elevation and empowerment of the talented women in our organization has helped us from recruiting, has helped us bring more talented the organization. We do scholarships, we have relationships with universities UM that that go to word this cause, but it's it's really the engagement of the women professionals in our organization that has been a draw for talent. And then our clients see that, right, our clients see affirm that reflects them,

reflects their values and it's helped us externally. UM. All those things work together to help propel it. It It. It was it was hard to get started and hard to know what exactly to do first, but you know, we had we had this great starting point of having talented women already in our organization who were passionate about this and and you know, had the energy and had had my support, um, whether it was funding or just verbal

support help get things going. So it's it's been a big success for us and the steering committee and the now hundreds of women that have been involved in that. We just did our virtual We usually do an annual event around investors at a nice retreat for a couple of days. We did that virtually over a two week period. We just wrapped that up and had more than half

of our company participate that. In concluding some men right who participated in that, who want to be better advocates, want to be better allies, UM, and and are just as committed to the cause as our women professionals are. You have a quote I really like tell us what we can do to quote stand together and do the next right thing. Yeah. So this came out of the very challenging times that we have had in around more broadly diversity in our country and the systemic inequalities that exist.

And yeah, I think, like a lot of leaders, I tend to note to the team talking about what we stood for and reminding them that in the air of diversity, there is there is, you know, we really needed to

do the right thing. And then it became, with some encouragement from some folks on my team, I posted it to social media together and it was talking right on the heels of the death of George Floyd and and and others just just tragic, and the team was just you know, had gut wrenched right and and I think stuck in this place of we know this is wrong,

but we're not quite sure what to do next. And I think, you know, as we have embarked on this, and I you know, far less progress to to be able to relay at this stage then we've made in our women's program and women's initiative. You know, I got to this point where it's we we've a needed to say something, being more importantly needed to listen. Um so that there was a huge desire and remains a huge desire to quote do something. The first thing that I

felt like it was important was to listen. So we held probably a dozen, maybe as many as twenty internal forums for our employees to talk about UM the issues around diversity and inequalities in our country. And that was really powerful. There was this desire to do something, but I think all of us are recognizing that we needed to ground ourselves and in understanding and listening first. So I think where we are today, We've we've taken a number of actions. We've we've I've joined a group here

in Colorado called Inclusive Economy. It's a group of about twenty five ceo s with some nonprofit UM nonprofit an involvement as well around helping Colorado become a more diverse economy. And I think what I've landed on them. I'm a liberal arts undergrad guy, so this has got an alliteration coming here. But it was about actions. You're taking actions. It's also about creating allies. I've connected with a number of advisors in our profession who care about the same things,

and we're trying to work together on these issues. And the Inclusive Economy program in Colorado is about allies, about twenty CEOs of companies in Colorado working together to try and drive effect to change. And it's it's also about accountability, right. Being being part of that male, pale and stale crowd, I think part of part of my job, you know, part of our job, is to hold my peers accountable, right.

And I think that's something that I've really learned this year is is you need to do more than just do the right thing yourself. You need to step up, particularly those of us are fortunate enough to be in leadership roles and hold others accountable. Um. And we need to be emboldened that we need to make progress, but not be discouraged that our starting point sucks. Right. We don't like where we are, we don't like what we can,

but there's there's no option in my mind. The other phrase that's in that that article that I put together is about relentless forward progress. Um. I've got some good friends who are who are ultramarrathonors, and when I have the time, one of the things I do is going I support them on these two mile runs and crazy

parts of the world. And you know their mantras, relentless forward progress doesn't matter if you're tired, right, and doesn't matter if you think you want to stop right, you have to make progress right, and I think that's you know what we're trying to do. Quite interesting, you signed the u N Principles for Responsible Investing some years ago. How has that affected the way Mercer is a steward

of capital? Yeah, so, our our TIEF investment officer, John Kelcagny, brought that to me and was a real advocate advocate for it um and it was one of those moments where you know you have me at hello, which was we we wanted to be part of change and um we felt like it was an important change and a number of our we worked all a number of separate account managers who also have been co signatories to to

the UN Principles for Responsible Investing as well. What's interesting is not only are we signatories, we we actually have some pretty unique capabilities under the hood and Mercers Investment Offering to provide s R I or E s T investing capabilities that are very customized and come at no additional expense to the investors, so very very cost advantage and even even more cost advantage than some of the funds and resources that are available through Vanguard and other

places that are known for being low expect us and I think a lot of the industry, the internal narrative, right has been well, this is something important, but it it feels very small and it's certainly not as as

big as it has been in Europe. Um And but I think you're starting to see uh interest from investors and that interest turned into capital investments in so um pocketed now regionally in different parts of the country where investors really are interested in seeing their advisor have these capabilities, um so that they can tail or tailor investment portfolios too,

things that they care about, right. So um. You know this this extension of we need to act a certain way in the world, but we we want our money to act in the same way. Right. So um, it's just been hard. It's been hard to access for for the regular consumer. And you know, we're happy to be playing a small part in helping democratize that access and have people be able to do the right thing with their money but not haven't have to cost them more

money or or come with inefficient portfolio. So um. So it's been a it's been a good success for us. Very interesting. So let's discuss the future of financial advice. You're the perfect person to ask this question, how have client expectations evolved over the past few years. Well, I think investors now expect a lot more than an asset allocation strategy and investment portfolio. Right. That is important. It's an important part of somebody's financial plan. And obviously consumers

remains very interested in investments. It's just those those options and the role of an advisor helping put things together. In for an investor, there's a lot of places they can get that now from you know what the industry might call robo advisors, to large retail shops that used to be known as discount brokera shops, but now are

making those things available and that's good for the consumer. UM. For for us UM, we've been following the path of the consumer to provide more services right beyond beyond asset

allocation and investments. So that has manifested itself in a business that offers comprehensive financial planning, which has always been part of our core offering, has manifested itself and us having a dedicated a state planning team, we will draft documents for the clients and not cookie cutter plans, customized plans. We have a tax team that does individual and business

work together. But I think one of the other ingredients that's really important about Mercer is the way that the team is aligned is to work all as one team

together and not multiple different departments. Right. So, um, you know, having been a guy who had the fortune to live near one of the Mayo clinics, um when I was living in Jacksonville, Florida, you know, Mayo Clinic does a very nice job of this in medicine, where it's not just your going in for heart surgery or cancer, it's it's a place you want to go if if you think something's wrong with you but you're not sure, because all those professionals across those different disciplines are there to

help diagnose and figure out what's going on. So, fortunately, when we need consumers, there's not a health crisis, but there is a lot of uncertainty about their financial affairs, and they're they're looking for somebody to help solve a problem that maybe is becoming more complex. Right, they have an investment problem, and they have some tax questions, they have some issues around their estate, or there's a recommendation

that may need to involve all of those parties. Right, if you want to set up a acid protection trust, right, They they simply don't want to have to go talk to three different professionals to to get that put together and have the meter running at least two of those three places to be able to put together that strategy. So I think as investors and the consumers have both aged and matured, there's an expectation for for those of us that are in the seat at the professional advisor

to help them ease that complexity. And part of the complexity the exist in our industry is that it's still it's still split up in a lot of places, so you know, mergers, vision and ideas, to bring those expertise all under one roof um, and then to align those professionals around one standard, which is, let's let's work together to provide the best set of recommendations and the best execution of those recommendations to get the plan in place and to get it finished. UM. So that's certainly where

we're going. But I think there's part of a broader secular shift of of the sophistication and evolution of our entire industry. So let's stay with the concept of that evolution. I'm intrigued by the idea of a state planning as well as tax planning, not as discrete departments within a big company, but as something that is integral to the

entire or financial planning process. How do you manage to keep this part of the regular process and not have these become their own little neighborhood separate from the rest of the wealth planning process. Yeah, well, that goes to culture, but it also goes to the mandate, right, it's going to so we we don't charge for the state planning. It's included as part of our advisory fee for clients. UM.

So it's complementary if you will. Two, And we don't charge hourly rates in either a state planning group or our tax group. Right, So we do charge an annual fee for preparing the tax return or especially if there's a business return, there would be a fee for that as well, to get us to prepare their turns. That's commensurate with what folks would experience in the industry. But our lawyers and our accountants also thereby or not measure the way it happens in other parts of the industry

around bill of all hours. UM. Our principle is serve a client, follow through and deliver the estate plan that was part of the recommendation in the financial plan. And oh, by the way, if there's an outside of state planning attorney that the client knows that they've worked within the past, maybe they have existing documents in place that need to be updated. Our lawyers will get on the phone with their lawyers. Right, So we're we're not trying to to

earn a buck on on fulfilling the estate planning. We're just trying to help the client finish the recommendations that are in the financial plan. So to pull this off, you need to have a little bit more scale, and there's where still it's still it's twenty one billion dollars. We're small in the landscape of of other firms out there, but we're big enough to be able to have these

dedicated departments with individuals. So we we also keep every client is assigned a point advisor who manages the relationship. If you want to use the medical analogy, that's that's the general practitioner, but the specialists are deployed into that relationship based on either a client request or be more more frequently, the point advisor's recommendation of let's get our estate planning team involved, and then the estate planning team is involved right being able to help take care of

the clients. So I think where this is broken down in other parts of our industry. Um, there's some large tax firms that have wealth management practices, and maybe that's something that you're referencing. They are different departments and it feels like that to the consumer, you might as well be going to a separate accounting firm altogether, because you

are jumping into a different silo. So you have to tear down the silos and not let them let them get built, I think, and and make sure that that everybody understands the same principle is that there's one goal in mind at serving a client. That makes perfect sense to me. You mentioned that a twenty one billion dollars, you're relatively small. This is kind of the fascinating thing about the r are industry. It's kind of weird in that nobody really has meaningful market share. So how do

you think about the competition and do they even matter? Yeah? I think I think it depends on how you frame it, right, So I think I think Fidelity is probably the largest financial services firm in our country yet it's still meant that you measure it maybe has mid single digit market share, So very very fragmented industry. So at twenty one billion UM. From a financial advisory perspective, you have the wirehouses out there Mortgage Stanley, Merrill, Lynch that are our trillions, right,

So they're much much larger than we are. To me, that's the that's the competition or or the exact opposite of what we are and what we want to become. We operate under a fiduciary standard. We serve our clients were purely an independent registered investment advisor. We don't have an investment banking division, we don't have other things that

could introduce conflicts into the client relationships. So when you talk about fragmented, then you get in the segment of the industry that are registered investment advisors or produce series. I think a lot of us leading these firms recognize that there's more to be gained from us working together UM than from us seeing or perceiving each other as competitors. So I'm part of an industry study group. I've been part of that group for over fifteen years. I'm very

active in events. We share information on around our initiatives with each other because we believe that helping the entire category grow UM firms that are adhering to that produciary standard is in is in the best interest of the consumer and ultimately helps us. Right, we can we can help each other, UM punch above our weight class if you will, from an industry perspective when we when we work together. So I think that's uh, I think that's important. I think you can look at you, look at look

look at competition as well. They provide similar service to us at the margin. You know, I'm interested if the client doesn't choose us, that they find another good home that's going to serve them in the right way. UM. So I don't think of that as competition. I look at that as another consumer that was better served if they made the right choice. So, UM, I think it's

interesting and it is a little weird, right. It's very different than how it felt when I was in technology and there in any category there are two or three main players. That was that was competition. Um. Every everybody looking at buying your piece of technology was looking at the direct competitor and evaluating against each other. That's competition.

This is this is not right. This is this is different and I think has been one of the things that is really drawn and attracted me to this industry is this collegiality. Uh that that mercer doesn't have all the good ideas cornered and hasn't figured a lot of things out as an industry. You know, all of us are smarter than any any one of us, So it's it's great that we have that culture to be able to share best practices and share learnings and to help

each other. So let's stick with the industry as a whole. We just had a giant merger announced earlier this year, the Schwab TD merger. How do you think this is gonna impact the industry at large? And is there going to be more consolidation in the custodial space. Yeah, I'm you know, short term bearish, long term bullish on this one. And as we talked about earlier, I worked at SWAB for twelve years, so I've I've got some insight, not just a SWAB but from the other side of it.

I think, you know, ultimately it's it's good for our industry and and you know, frankly, the writing was on the wall when we go to zero dollar transaction piece. I can't remember working at Schwab where we dropped price in and it was a better company moment, right, and that was back in the I think, you know, a long time ago, and um, you know, it's a really great transition that we're going through. But I think these businesses are going to come together. Uh, they're going to

put the capabilities of the two organizations together. The short term bearishes, it's going to take some time for that to happen and maybe divert interest around operational issues in the short term, but long term, I think it'll create a healthy partner. And ultimately that's the most important outcome of this is as an advisor, when you work with a custodian, you really need that custodian to be healthy.

And for that custodian to be healthy, they need to not only have a good business serving advisors, they need to have a good retail business as well. And the better those businesses are doing, the better it It results in investment and in support for firms like US. So I'm I'm bullish on sort of the opportunity and what it might mean. I'm not concerned about consolidation of different custodians. There's there's enough choices out there, and there's new ones

that could emerge top solve that issue. Quite interesting, I want to throw you a little bit of a curveball. In the nineties when you left Bain, you were deciding on two companies. You ended up going to Schwab, but the other one was a little startup in Seattle that ended up growing into Amazon. When you look back on that decision, what are your thoughts had had you been employee number fifty, I gotta imagine those stock options would have been pretty valuable. Yeah, who knows, right? Who knows?

Maybe maybe I would have sucked and gotten fired in six months and it would have been a disaster, right, You don't you don't, You don't know, right, And I think, yeah, it was a great opportunity. I had the instincts that

it was a great opportunity um at the time. But you know, as we talked about a little bit earlier, my entry point to Schwab was pretty unique, and I stepped into an interesting chair as the chief of staff to the vice chairman, and I got to work down the hall from Chuck Chua my office, the office directly next to me was Chuck's driver, and and you know, Chuck would walk by my office every morning, right and he'd say hello, and he'd stopped and sometimes you'd have

a chat. And yeah, I think it was just a unique opportunity to join a highly entrepreneurial organization to work down the hall from you know, just somebody having an immense respect for and was part of shape in the industry. And it represented what I was really looking for at the time, even if I couldn't have put words on it in the moment, was to join an industry, join a profession, join a business that had a real purpose, and a purpose that was something other than yourself or

or the company itself. Was about serving clients and some things that have become we're at the time and had become a big part of why it's stuck around this industry for so long. So yeah, maybe it would have worked out great. Yeah, you know, maybe it wouldn't. I wouldn't have stucked, and maybe I would have done well.

But you know, you can't make those kind of choices, you know, or or kind of use that in hindsight, Well, what if I chose this, I'm I kind of feel like there's probably four or five decisions like that that I've I've made in my career to go right and set a left and in all the past would have

been would have been great. Right. So you just youve got to enjoy the road you're on and enjoy the journey and enjoy the opportunities that you have right now and not not look back on anything like that with regret. I certainly don't. I like that philosophy. I don't know if you've had the same experience, but I've had to convince people that Charles Schwab is a real guy and the person you see on TV is not an actor. Have you ever had people raise that question with you?

I actually haven't, But you know, he he is this you know, larger than life figurehead, right, and this this huge company that's his namesake, UM, which which is interesting. You know. The interesting thing about Chuck and is uh, he's quite shy, right, you know, So he's and I don't mean that as a sperience. He's you listen to every word that he says and meeting so it's I just think I look back on that with so much fondness, and that's something that I hope to represent in the

in a CEO chair. Now you got to look at how he made decisions internally, and it was always about the clients right and him mathematically. Some decisions were very brave from from a financial perspective. That you be sitting and meetings and there'd be an intense debate over a particular issue, and Chuck could just be quiet for forty five minutes of the beating and he finally just lean in and very quietly say, look, there's only one choice here,

what what's right for the client? And um, you know, it's such a great environment to have had the great fortune and to to grow up in and those kind of decisions made right. Business. Business is about a lot of things, but at the core, it's hard to build a great business if you're not doing the right thing for clients, and clients don't like you, and your employees don't like coming to work. So um, yeah, I think those are those are really important things. So I take

away from now quite interesting. I know I only have you for a few more minutes, So let's jump to our speed round. These are our favorite questions we ask all of our guests, and we run through them quickly. Let's jump into them. We're all working from home these days. What are you streaming? What do you doing to entertain yourself?

Give us your favorite Netflix or Amazon Prime shows you're watching. Well, I think, like a lot of people, we've burned through just about everything, right, so from from streaming or watching. So I think the the podcast. I'm a big podcast listener. I still like to get out and hike and run. So you know, I love Cereal, both both the classic episodes as well as some of the later series. Um,

you know, I love how stuff works. Um yeah, I love sort of learning and getting something that's really out of field and out of out of industry, right from from a learning perspective. My son and I started rewatching old old episodes in the office together, which is which is I had a lot of fun. He's fifteen, and it's fun to go back and sort of have that moments of nostalgia and rewatch some things. Because again we've we've burned through so many different different mini series. I'm

looking for some recommendations too. I'll shoot you a list of my favorites. Uh. Let's let's jump over to mentors who helped shape your career. Well, we talked about Uh, you know career. We talked about some of the experiences that I had a swab in other places. I think the the thing that I think of a lot, and particularly this year is my mom um uh and my mom. My mom passed away earlier this year, not COVID related,

just from age and and wear and tear. So you know, it's gave me a lot a chance to reflect on the lessons that that she taught me that are more important than than business and life. So she's a Kiwi. She's a New Zealander. The first moved to London, then moved to New York in her early twenties and you met my dad and stayed. But but like a lot

of Kiwi's, she's this intrepid spirit. She was an adventurer um did a lot of mountain climbing and skiing uh in New Zealand that you became part of a family tradition. But like a lot of Kiwi's into all my family that are in that part of the world, they have this this wonderful elegance to enjoy life, to live life and not worry about sort of the little things and the clear things true in an incredible sense of humor.

So I think as we've gotten into and you know, not only the loss of her, but sort of all the other challenges you were facing. So as this this you know, disposition right to sort of enjoy, enjoy the journey you're on other than you know, regrets or worries or whatever where challenge you're facing, just to overcome it. She was she tough cookie. Um, so you know she's been. She's in my beacon throughout this year. Tell us about some of your favorite books. What are you reading now

and what are your some of your old time favorites. Yeah, I think you know. I'm a huge I was a huge fan of the Gladwell books. Um, you know nothing Gladwell's. Of course, there's sort of a lesser known for folks that like those that I've I've reread this year because I enjoyed it so much. Called The Talent Code and the Culture Code by by Daniel Coyle. So a couple of great books that that build on some of the

principles that Gladwell talks about. So the Talent Code short version and everybody knows the ten thousand hours Gladwell talks about. Daniel takes that a couple of steps further and talks about actually how those ten thousand hours really should work UM, and how the brain works when it's learning. It's not just the hours, it's actually the kind of practice, purposeful practice, and a key part of practice is actually making mistakes, so we learn more when we're making mistakes, the way

the brain actually works to be able to learn. So I think it's a really important principle to hold when you're trying to build a growing enterprise. You're just just navigating life. It's not about being perfect. It's actually about the experimenting and learning from those experiments about what worked and what didn't. The Culture Code builds that into the power of small teams and how teams in general should

operate UM. Some of the key principles about keeping it very flat, about creating safety and vulnerability and honesty UM in that environment. So a lot of great vignettes throughout, So highly recommend both of those and their good rereads. In the environment we're in, Huh quite interesting. I'm in the middle of a recent Gladwell book called Talking to Strangers, which really makes sense, and Uh, this period of political discord, I'm finding it quite quite intriguing. Every everything he writes,

is always a fascinating narrative. He tells really interesting stories. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad who was interested in a career in financial services? Yeah, I think there's the general advice i'd give, and then specific to this industry, it definitely applies, is join an industry that's growing and interesting to you. Join a company that's making a dent um and and growing um as well. Worry a little bit less about the position, right, the

specific role right. So I've had the fortune to join a great industry, to join great companies that were in those industry. All those things created opportunities for me well beyond the first job that I got as part of those organizations. So um simplified version of all that is, growth is really important. So a lot of great, very talented millennials that work for us, The best thing I can do for them is to have an enterprise that's growing um and gives them opportunities to jump around in

a ladder or two, maybe even before they think they're ready. Right, So those are that's really really critical. I think this profession is changing, right, So this profession has become more about client care in that bedside manner, if you will, of working with clients, then it has become about the math. Right, So I think the financial service industry the urgent. Yet this is really ultimately about caring for clients and helping people, and and that's where the industry is going. That's where

our professionals are going. That the math is still critically important, but the mask can be done by machines, the mask can be done by focus groups of people, whether that's on our investment team or other or accounting team, um in two areas. But I think that's where the industry is changing, and I think in a very very positive way. And our final question, what do you know about the world of investing today that you wish you knew twenty

five years or so I ago? When you refer getting started, well, I think it's just that just open up the account and get started. I think as an industry, we there is complexity, but you sometimes wonder whether it's created complexity or whether the complexity is real. And and they're right. I can remember sitting with my dad once. I had some means and you know, had a couple of good summer jobs painting houses, and you know, had some for

for college kids, some good income for that. And I'm like, well, what should I do with this? And I remember it's feeling very complicated and intimidating, and fortunately, you know, pushed all the papers aside and all the different fund choices aside, and he said, let's just do this, like, let's just open the account and let's just make this one investment and we'll see how it goes. I think, just just get started. Um, it's not as scary as as you

think it is. And there's there's no substitute for best investment strategy to start early and have patients right. So that's, um, that's really key. And I think I think all of us to take hard end right. The complexity that surrounds this industry, how do we how do we simplify it and get get our clients and others to make some very fundamental, basic decisions that are to be really important for them for the long term. Fascinating stuff. Dave, thank

you for being so generous with your time. That was Dave Wellen. He is the CEO of Mercer Advisers, a firm that runs about twenty one billion dollars in assets. If you enjoy this conversation, Well, be sure and check out any of the previous seventy five or so we've had over the past six years. You can find that at iTunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast fixed satisfied. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Give us

a review on Apple iTunes. You can sign up for my daily reading list at ridals dot com. Check out my week the column on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. Follow me on Twitter at rid Holts. I would be remiss if I did not think our crack staff that helps put these conversations together each week. Rufal is my audio engineer. Michael Boyle is my producer. Michael Batnick is my head of research ATKA. Valabrunn is our project manager.

I'm Barry Riholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.