Month: November 2025
RIA Edge Podcast: Cresset’s Eric Becker on the Power of Purpose-Driven Growth

RIA Edge Podcast: Cresset’s Eric Becker on the Power of Purpose-Driven Growth

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Cresset’s rise from a family-led vision to one of the nation’s leading multifamily offices shows how purpose and culture can shape enduring organizations.

In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong speaks with Eric Becker, co-founder and co-chairman of Cresset, about the firm’s mission to build a 100-year wealth management business focused on families, not just finances. Eric shares how Cresset was designed by clients, for clients, to combine investment excellence with family governance, education and community.

David and Eric explore how RIA principals and executives can avoid short-term thinking, especially amid the frenzy of day-to-day operational planning and the quest for the elusive “personalization with scale” client service model. Eric suggests lessons other RIA leaders can learn from his study of the world’s longest-surviving companies, which he captured in his recently published book The Long Game: A Playbook of the World’s Most Enduring Companies. 

David and Eric discuss:

  • How Becker and his co-founder started Cresset because they couldn’t find a wealth management platform that met their own family’s needs, making them their own first two clients and fundamentally shaping their client-centric approach
  • The goal to put the “family back into family office,” moving beyond investment management to include governance, education, health resources, concierge services and community
  • Becker’s belief in pursuing “just the right amount of growth” and his four-pillar framework for managing expansion without sacrificing service quality or burning out teams—that includes culture, people, numbers and business model.
  • Cresset’s unique employee-ownership model (60% employee-owned, 30% client-owned, 10% strategic investor) and how this structure aligns incentives for long-term thinking
  • 100-Year Business Thinking: Drawing from his book The Long Game, Becker explains why building for longevity actually creates more valuable, attractive businesses and better serves clients who are also thinking generationally about their wealth.

Resources:

Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Eric Becker:

About Our Guest:

Eric Becker is the Founder and Co-Chairman of Cresset, an award-winning multi-family office with more than $70 billion in assets under management. Alongside Founder and Co-Chairman, Avy Stein, Eric was one of Cresset’s first two clients. He and his team designed the firm to meet a specific need, and also for growth and sustainability; His desire to build a “100-year-old” firm led him to study some of the longest-running companies across different industries, and recently published The Long Game: A Playbook of the World’s Most Enduring Companies, which captures his observations on what they all have in common. 

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RIA Edge Podcast: Client-Centric Growth and Innovation with Jon Beatty

RIA Edge Podcast: Client-Centric Growth and Innovation with Jon Beatty

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The future of RIAs is being shaped by technology, talent, and a renewed focus on client-centric leadership.

In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong talks with Jon Beatty, head of advisor services at Charles Schwab, on the eve of Schwab Impact, about how the industry is adapting to the accelerating pace of technological change and what qualities differentiate the most successful advisory firms. 

In the conversation, you’ll hear:

  • What Beatty looks forward to the most at Schwab Impact, the firm’s annual conference for advisors and industry executives—and it’s not only what’s happening on the stage.
  • The takeaways from Schwab’s most recent Independent Advisor Outlook Study that Beatty found most revealing.
  • How some firms are maintaining, or even growing,  profitability even as they add new client services on top of a fixed revenue base.
  • How the most successful advisors are evolving in their use of technology, including artificial intelligence.
  • The key to balancing scale and efficiency without sacrificing personalized client service.
  • The most critical metric RIAs have to track meaningful growth.

Resources:

 Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Jon Beatty:

About Our Guest:

Jon Beatty is a member of Charles Schwab’s Executive Council. As Managing Director and Head of Schwab Advisor Services, he oversees the business that serves over 16,000 independent advisory firms that trust Schwab with $4.7 trillion in assets under management. 

Schwab Advisor Services provides RIAs with everything they need for custody and beyond, including innovative technology, the latest wealth management solutions, and an unmatched breadth of solutions to help advisors take their businesses further, all powered by more than 3,000 dedicated Advisor Services employees. 

You likely won’t meet anyone more passionate about helping independent advisors succeed than Jon. He joined Schwab 28 years ago and has been a member of the Advisor Services leadership team for 16 years. Jon has dedicated his career to working with RIAs and loves to hear from clients and prospects on how Schwab can best meet their needs.

Jon has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wittenberg University. He is registered with the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., and holds Series 7 and 9/10 registrations.

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