Moneta’s enterprise service team enables entrepreneurship by handling tasks like information technology, compliance, human resources and training, allowing advisors to dedicate more of their time to serving clients.
“We go further than back- and mid-office support; we do things like strategic planning,” says Bowles. “We also work on marketing strategies, recruitment, operations—we build a pipeline of talent. We inject ourselves into teams not just from a back-office perspective, but also thinking about how we can align the team with Moneta as a whole. Since they service 21 teams, they witness different ways to build a sustainable business. They can step in and help teams to think strategically, make the right hires, understand the client makeup, understand the revenue forecast, transition their business to the next partner—all of those things that they have to deal with as business owners.”
The client service teams have a small, intimate feel, says Kittner, yet some teams have assets and clientele that rival entire RIAs. For example, McGinnis’s team, the Kukla McGinnis Brown Team, is among the largest with three partners and four additional advisors managing $1.58 billion in assets for 514 clients.
The enterprise-client service team relationship Moneta uses resembles the structure of many large accounting firms, and many among the firm’s advisors and partners are alums of firms like Price Waterhouse. In the 1990s, Moneta created a new model for team development including a new position, the “professional consultant,” that would be populated by advisors with professional designations interested in client services but not new business development.
Moneta maintains that its structure and the professional consultant position were driven by a desire to further enhance its client service offerings and accommodate its continued growth, rather than a desire to mimic the success of accounting firms.
Having a number of diverse client service teams under one roof facilitates information and resource sharing. Because each team is able to develop its own niche, and there are nearly 40 partners and 60 other advisors in one building, expertise on almost any planning-related subject is available in-house.
“If we were to go somewhere else, we’d be a stand-alone company without the resources we get from being part of Moneta, and those resources are important for our growth,” says McGinnis.
David Sadler’s team, the Sadler Georgen Harmon Team, serves 274 clients managing $1 billion in assets. The team consists of three partners and four additional advisors, with nine additional support staff members.
While Sadler and his advisors are proficient at providing family CFO services, they fall back on the expertise of Moneta’s enterprise service team and other advisors within the firm to help serve institutional clients like defined contribution plans.
When a client service team generates revenue, a portion of it goes to Moneta as a whole, with the remainder going to the team to pay its expenses. Teams are expected to pay their own salaries, bonuses, benefits, rent and equipment costs. After that, the remaining revenue falls to the partners on the team.