Ep 323: Sustaining A $5B Advisory Firm To The Third Generation Of Leaders With Yonhee Choi Gordon

Financial Advisor Success

Michael Kitces

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News

4.8 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2023

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yonhee Choi Gordon is a Principal and the Chief Operating Officer of JMG Financial Group, an independent RIA based out of Chicago that oversees nearly $5 billion in assets under management for close to 1,500 households. What sets Yonhee apart is how, with her nearly four decades at JMG Financial Group, she has been instrumental in the company's succession plan and has personally recruited, trained, and retained the majority of the company's employees through a stringent hiring process to ensure alignment with the company's expectations and values.

Listen in as we delve into Yonhee’s career, including how she has been such an integral part of the hiring, training, and development systems, and how she evaluates potential candidates based on the actual tasks of the job, and how JMG structures its leadership roles and share of ownership. We also discuss why Yonhee believes that inconsistent definitions of advisor roles are contributing to the financial industry's rising level of M&A deals, why she teaches younger advisors to find their ideal role by first understanding their personal values and culture, and how her definition of success has evolved over time to focus on the impact and value she provides in the lives of the employees she leads.

For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/323

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with
0:06.8	financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading
0:12.1	financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success
0:17.2	and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next
0:21.9	level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.
0:28.7	Welcome to the 323rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest today's podcast is
0:35.1	Yanni Choi Gordon. Yanni is the principal and the chief operating
0:38.7	officer for JMG Financial Group, an independent RIA based in Chicago, Illinois, that oversees
0:43.8	nearly $5 billion in assets and her management for close to 1,500 client households.
0:48.6	What's unique about Yanni, though, is how through her nearly four decades with JMG Financial
0:53.5	Group, Yanni has been part of not only
0:55.5	the firm's succession plan to its second generation of owners, but now it's third generation of leaders.
1:00.7	And along the way, as personally recruited, trained, and retains the majority of the firm's employees
1:05.4	by implementing stringent assessments in her hiring process to ensure that new employees are in
1:10.4	alignment with the firm's expectations and values to that new employees are in alignment with the
1:11.1	firm's expectations and values to be able to succeed and grow with the firm for the long
1:15.1	run. In this episode, we talk in depth about how during Yanni's 36 years with JMG, she's
1:20.7	not only seen the evolution of the firm and his three generations of ownership and leadership,
1:24.8	but has been integral in building the hiring, training, and
1:27.5	development systems that's allowed the firm to transition to its current generation of partners
1:31.9	and owners, most of whom have been with the company for over 20 years after having first been
1:36.4	hired and trained by Yanni herself. Why Yanni creates and implements a unique kind of work
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Kitces, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Kitces and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.