Ep 476: Making The Decision To Add A Partner (After Leaving A Partnership Yourself) While Approaching $500M AUM with Kathy Longo
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.7 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Building an advisory firm that can outlast its founder often requires challenging decisions, especially for entrepreneurs who intentionally left prior partnerships to lead a firm on their own. This episode explores what it looks like to design succession on your own terms, balance growth with cultural clarity, and make partnership, hiring, and operating-system choices that can lead to sustainable growth.
Kathy Longo is the founder of Flourish Wealth Management, an RIA based in Edina, Minnesota, that oversees $455 million in assets under management for 163 client households. Listen in as Kathy shares why she chose to bring on a partner after previously leaving a partnership at a previous firm to build a business she could drive individually (while also applying lessons learned from her own experience), how she completed an acquisition while minimizing risk by bringing on clients in smaller tranches, and how she adjusted her firm's operational, hiring, and career development practices to build a firm that can thrive for the long haul.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/476
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. |
| 0:28.9 | Welcome to the 476th episode of the Financial Advisor's Success Podcast. My guest on today's |
| 0:34.3 | podcast is Kathy Longo. Kathy is the founder of Flourish Wealth Management, |
| 0:38.5 | an RIA based in E-Dina, Minnesota, that oversees $455 million in assets under management for |
| 0:44.3 | 163 client households. What's unique about Kathy, though, is how she decided to add a partner, |
| 0:49.8 | despite previously leaving a partnership within a large RIA to start a business that she could |
| 0:54.0 | drive individually. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Kathy decided to previously leaving a partnership within a large RIA to start a business that she could drive |
| 0:54.3 | individually. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Kathy decided to offer an ownership |
| 0:59.2 | stake to an advisor on her team to both get the ball rolling on a succession plan that will |
| 1:03.9 | allow her firm to remain independent and to reward the advisor for his contributions and commitment |
| 1:08.1 | to the business. Why Kathy chose to issue a self-financed |
| 1:11.4 | loan for her new partner's buy-in for both tax planning purposes and a better managed |
| 1:15.3 | debt she had taken on to finance and acquisition, and how Kathy benefited from using an external |
| 1:20.1 | valuation service not only by receiving an accurate valuation for the firm for her new partner's |
| 1:24.6 | buy-in, but also by learning about the key drivers that would propel her firm's value going forward. We also talk about how Kathy has found success in the |
| 1:32.3 | latest stage of her growth journey, in part by working with external partners to better define |
| 1:36.3 | her firm's culture and values and align them with its compensation model and career paths, |
| 1:41.3 | how Kathy has used a recruiting firm and different assessment tools to improve |
... |
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