Tag: Multigenerational Wealth
RIA Edge Podcast: Building an RIA on a Family Office Foundation with Andy Busser

RIA Edge Podcast: Building an RIA on a Family Office Foundation with Andy Busser

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In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong speaks with Andy Busser, president and CEO of Pitcairn, about how the century-old firm has evolved from a single-family office into an RIA serving approximately 150 families and overseeing roughly $12 billion on their behalf.

Andy shares how Pitcairn combines investment management with trust, tax, accounting, insurance, family education and governance services to support families across generations. He also explains why the firm prioritizes character, curiosity and emotional intelligence when building its team, how it approaches growth and alternative investments, and how artificial intelligence is creating more time for deeper analysis and stronger client relationships.

Andy discusses:

  • How shared single-family office services combine investments, trusts, tax, insurance, accounting and family support
  • Why Pitcairn selectively evaluates new families to ensure long-term cultural and relationship fit
  • How hiring employees for optimism, curiosity, empathy, work quality and self-awareness shapes the firm’s culture
  • Why employee engagement is the firm’s leading leadership metric and how it relates to revenue and EBITDA growth
  • How the firm is exploring the use of AI to speed up analysis and planning, and create more time for client relationships and staff development

Resources:

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Connect With Andy Busser:

About Our Guest:

As President and CEO of Pitcairn, Andy guides the firm’s culture and operations, building on a century of gold standard experiences for clients and employees. Andy’s curiosity and energy set the tone for a team focused on deep relationships, integrated service, technological innovation, and continuous learning.

Before becoming CEO in 2023, Andy served as Pitcairn’s President of Family Office, leading the firm’s relationship managers, analysts, and client communications professionals. He came to Pitcairn in 2015 from Symphony Capital, a healthcare-focused manager of private equity and hedge funds, where he was a partner. Earlier in his career, he was a management consultant with The Wilkerson Group/Wilkerson Partners.

Andy advocates for helping families become empowered stewards of wealth across generations, a topic he speaks and writes about often. He presents regularly at events hosted by the Family Wealth Alliance, The UHNW Institute, and Family Business Magazine’s Transitions and Align conferences, and he writes a Forbes column on family office leadership and strategy. His perspective has appeared in Barron’s, Bloomberg, Crain Currency, and InvestmentNews, and on NPR.

He also represents Pitcairn in the Wigmore Association, a global collaboration among the chief executives and chief investment officers of independent family offices located in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Mexico.

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RIA Edge Podcast: Building a Multigenerational Wealth Firm with Kristen Bauer

RIA Edge Podcast: Building a Multigenerational Wealth Firm with Kristen Bauer

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In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong speaks with Kristen Bauer, CEO of Laird Norton Wetherby, about the firm’s approach to serving multigenerational families while managing about $18 billion in assets across six offices and two trust companies.

Kristen explains how the firm evaluates growth based on its impact on clients, employees and owners, rather than pursuing scale alone. She also shares how trust services, impact investing, advisor development, employee ownership and artificial intelligence continue to shape LNW’s long-term direction.

Kristen discusses:

  • How Bauer measures growth and its impact on the firm and client service
  • Why the firm moved back to using an in-house trust company, after outsourcing for many years
  • How the business development process works when targeting prospects with multigenerational wealth
  • The qualities LNW looks for when hiring advisors serving families across generations
  • How the firm is thinking about artificial intelligence and its impact on the business

Resources:

Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Kristen Bauer:

About Our Guest:

Kristen Bauer is the CEO of LNW, leading by example of analytical rigor and a passion for helping successful individuals and families use their resources to have the greatest positive impact. With more than two decades of leadership experience in private wealth management, family office services and business operations, Kristen was instrumental in shaping the vision for, and structure of, what is now LNW.

In May 2020, Kristen was named CEO of Laird Norton Wealth Management. In the next three years, she led the firm as it joined forces with two like-minded wealth advisories long committed to fostering clients’ financial and personal well-being above all else (Filament LLC and Wetherby Asset Management). The result is LNW.

Prior to LNW, Kristen was a senior leader at Tiedemann Advisors serving as Managing Director for the Pacific Northwest and leading Tiedemann’s national family office practice. Previously, Kristen served in leadership roles, including CFO and President, at Threshold Group, which began as the family office for a prominent Northwest family and was acquired by Tiedemann in 2017. At the start of her career, Kristen was Director of Finance at Medalia Healthcare and Manager-Assurance at Arthur Andersen LLP.

Kristen’s upbringing in Bend, Oregon instilled in her a deep appreciation for nature and the importance of working to leave a healthy world for generations to come. She is actively involved in supporting environmental nonprofits and causes.

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