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Story Greg G. Weber
“It’s a hard thing to not keep score in partnerships because people often assign different levels of value to different roles. We don’t do that.”
Photography Gus Cantavero
or even office site, that makes most sense for the moment. (The company maintains offices in Purchase and Paramus, New Jersey). Documents are scanned, stored, and distributed electronically. That mobil- ity, they say, keeps them nimble and free from the weight of in- and out-boxes piled high with paper.
The result, according to the Altium Gospel, is an ability to serve a much broader range of clients than just the super-rich, who once were the only class who could afford wealth consultants.
“Many of our clients are people who are so busy building their businesses and building their wealth that they spend very little time managing and protecting it,” says partner Jim Giangrande.
Once upon a time, the managing
and protecting was available only to the super-rich—Rockefeller and Vanderbilt rich. A team of dedicated accountants, lawyers, and bankers would be employed exclusively to manage every aspect of a single family’s affairs. Collectively, they became known as the “family office,” a term still used in the wealth-management field and still available mostly to the very rich. But many families this side of Kykuit have need of financial management, too. And that’s where companies like Altium come into play, providing family- office services to clients with a net worth of as little as $1 million or $2 million to as much as $100 million or more.
The partners attribute their success at broadening of the client base to a combi- nation of the kind of innovation that did away with offices for the partners, as well as a team approach that pairs the most appropriately equipped person in the company with a client’s needs.
To determine those needs, the partners employ what they describe as “a very deliberate process” that starts with an in-depth talk with the client to figure out
financial goals, which are infinitely vari- able depending on the client’s age, health, net worth, and so on. A client in his 40s with a net worth of $2 million will have far different needs and goals than one in his 60s with the same worth.
But it isn’t just about net worth or about investing or savings or earnings. It is factoring every aspect of a client’s financial picture together into one strate- gic plan, a relatively new concept.
“Ten years ago, our industry effectively did not exist,” wrote editor Jean Brunel
in the Winter 2008 issue of the Journal of Wealth Management. “Wealthy individuals were served by providers who did their best but, practically speaking, were not offering the right services, in large measure because they did not fully understand the true nature of their clients' needs.”
Before they came together three years ago to form Altium, the partners worked as those unconnected practitio- ners, doing their best to be jacks of all trades to clients. But as they collabo- rated more and more, from as early as 2006, and the notion of forming a busi- ness began to take shape, they asked themselves, “What if we built a compa- ny that took advantage of each partner’s unique strengths for the better of client and company?”
Thus DeStefano would focus on software and technology for both clients and the company, building an infrastruc- ture that provided clients with a unique yet repeatable experience. Giangrande would develop new clients, work with strategic partners, and recruit employ- ees. Mitch Brill would work on succes- sion planning for business clients and a good amount of client development. Jim Dowling would handle integrated finan- cial planning in all its forms including investments, cash flow and retirement planning, wills and trusts, and insurance.
Financial and other companies are often structured around the acquisition of new business, and partners get credit and get paid based on how much of it they bring in—a lot of score-keeping.
In the Altium model, Giangrande says, profits are split equally according
to a system of trust and belief that each partner is applying his unique strengths to the overall success of the company and well-being of clients.
“So we just said, ‘Let’s not keep score of who’s developing business. We all know that we’re strong in different areas. Let’s just take a leap of faith and give up the rest of this stuff and just do what we do best.’
“And that’s a hard thing for people to do; it really is,” Giangrande says. “It’s a hard thing to not keep score in partnerships because people often assign different levels of value to different roles. We don’t do that. We understand that we are so much better off being together doing different things than we ever would have been on our own trying to do this. We’re developing many more clients, and a higher level of client, than we ever did as individuals.”
The benefits of Altium’s approach become apparent for clients pretty soon after the trip to the coffee kitchen. A series of meetings lays the groundwork for a working relationship and a sketch of the client’s state of affairs and goals. As the sketch becomes a detailed paint- ing and the client decides to go on with the firm, his or her complete information is entered into a software application, a financial model that will form the linch- pin of the continuing relationship.
The partners and other members of the company use the software as a stra- tegic tool to manage the client’s plan and resources, and the client uses it to pro- vide an archive of important documents and a detailed status report of his affairs at any time, being able to log in remotely.
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