Lessons Learned From Building A $60B Advisory Enterprise: #FASuccess Ep 496 With Shannon Eusey

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 496th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Shannon Eusey. Shannon is the chairman and co-founder of Beacon Pointe Advisors, an RIA based in Newport Beach, California, that oversees $62 billion in assets under management for 25,000 client households.

What’s unique about Shannon, though, is how she led Beacon Pointe throughout its path to becoming a large advisory enterprise, from starting out as an independent RIA to adding partners through M&A transactions to bringing on capital partners to now transitioning out of the CEO role.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Shannon started Beacon Pointe alongside her father with an eye towards eventually building a large advisory enterprise (at a time when large RIAs were much less common), how Shannon and her team decided to start adding partner firms to contribute to Beacon Pointe’s growth (and why her firm places culture fit near the top of the list of criteria when evaluating potential partners), and how Shannon decided that adding a private equity partner would both provide capital to support her firm’s acquisitions and serve as a source of business-building wisdom as her firm evolved over time.

We also talk about how Shannon decided to centralize operations at Beacon Pointe with the goal of allowing local offices to focus on providing advice to clients, how Shannon and Beacon Pointe develops content and partnerships to boost the firm’s organic growth (alongside assets brought in through acquisitions), and why Shannon has met one-on-one with every new employee at the firm (to better understand their journey to Beacon Pointe and to let them know she and the executive team care what employees think).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Shannon shares how she made the difficult decision to step out of the CEO role (though she will remain with the firm as chairman and continue to work on priority projects), how Shannon has led research into women and wealth that has revealed lessons for how the financial advice industry can better serve this group, and how Shannon has found value by keeping a certain amount of ‘white space’ on her calendar to ensure she has time to step back from day-to-day business and consider the big picture of her role and the business as a whole.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about what it takes to build a $62 billion advisory enterprise, considerations around making acquisitions and taking on outside capital, or the role of culture within a large advisory business, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Shannon Eusey.