Ep 451: Evolving Your Leadership Style And Hiring Process As The Firm Grows From 1 To 20 Team Members with Maggie Kulyk
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Running a successful advisory firm takes more than great client service - it also means learning how to lead a team and build infrastructure to support growth. This episode explores how developing leadership skills, hiring intentionally, and leaning into personal values can lay the foundation for a thriving, mission-driven business.
Maggie Kulyk is the founder of Chicory Wealth, an RIA based in Decatur, Georgia, that operates virtually and oversees $760 million in AUM for 480 households.
Listen in as Maggie shares how she grew from a self-described "terrible" manager into a visionary leader by making key hires with complementary strengths to her own, delegating wisely, and developing a strong leadership team. We discuss how her firm finds and trains homegrown advisors aligned with its values, how Maggie structured an internal ownership track for future successors, and why breaking away from a broker-dealer and going fee-only was the right move for her long-term vision.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/451
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with |
| 0:07.1 | financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading |
| 0:12.4 | financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success |
| 0:17.4 | and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.2 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:29.4 | Welcome to the 451 episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is |
| 0:35.7 | Maggie Kulik. Maggie is the founder of Chickory |
| 0:38.5 | Wealth, an RIA based in Decatur, Georgia, that operates virtually and oversees $760 million |
| 0:43.5 | in assets under management for 480 client households. What's unique about Maggie, though, |
| 0:48.9 | is how she overcame her initial reluctance to be a manager to build a thriving business |
| 0:52.6 | that now has more than 20 team members with robust hiring and career development processes in place. In this episode, we talk in |
| 0:59.3 | depth about how Maggie went from being a self-described terrible manager to leading a sizable |
| 1:04.1 | firm with a growing staff count in part by evolving her approach to leadership over time, including |
| 1:08.6 | by delegating responsibilities that don't match her strengths. How Maggie's firm took a major step forward after she made a key hire whose |
| 1:15.3 | attention to detail and focus on systems complemented Maggie's strengths and vision setting and |
| 1:19.9 | moving quickly once decisions are made and how Maggie has found success by having her leadership |
| 1:24.3 | team manage the hiring process, with her only seeing applicants at the final stage to ensure a more sober-minded analysis of candidates, given her natural enthusiasm for people she meets. |
| 1:34.6 | We also talk about how Maggie overcame her initial reluctance to transition her clients to other advisors on her team, in part by hiring and training homegrown advisors in her firm's style, often finding |
| 1:45.3 | them through college financial planning programs as well as the amplified planning |
| 1:49.0 | externship program, how Maggie has found success in hiring by zeroing in on her firm's mission |
| 1:53.7 | and values and finding aspiring advisors who are attracted to them, and how Maggie's firm has |
| 1:58.6 | implemented a career path for new hires to advance from an |
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