A few years ago, I created a personal mission to identify male financial leaders who led contrary to the profile of “pale, male and stale.” As the current majority, white men possess significant influence to elevate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging as a critical and valuable business proposition. Mark Tibergien rose to the occasion by engaging me in thoughtful and provocative conversations and by partnering together in various ways to advance the profession. Mark’s insight, humor and presence leave an indelible mark on financial advisors who understand the power of uniting the mind and heart in service of financial planning for the greater good. Mark, Thank you.
—Lazetta Rainey Braxton, Co-CEO, 2050 Wealth Partners
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Mark has been a great leader and coach to the financial services community. He loves to share his knowledge and practical application of the disciplines required for relevance and success and has a wonderful way of sharing his experiences through storytelling and the almighty flip chart. Thanks, Mark.
—Jim Crowley, CEO, BNY Mellon/Pershing
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Mark has shaped and influenced an entire industry during his career, which is remarkable in itself. But I've always been most impressed with how he has created deep, genuine connections with so many different people. Thank you, Mark.
—Mark Bruno, Managing Director, Echelon Partners
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The first time I met Mark was 30 years ago in a New Orleans saloon at an IAFP conference. There was a karaoke contest, which can be highly competitive in that music-loving city. Mark sang “House Of The Rising Sun” and finished second among more than 50 contestants, and many of them had professional talent.
Over the next 30 years, I got to know him well. It is fair to say that he probably did more to transform the financial advisory business from a cottage industry into a true profession than any other single individual. As busy as he was, Mark was always made himself available to our writers, editors and me and provided us keen, timely insights into the business.
In his career at Moss Adams, Mark served as a consultant to two diametrically different industries: tire retailers and financial advisors. In contrast to advisors, tire retailers had little romantic attachment to their business. They were in business largely to sell quality tires and make money.
I suspect financial advisors came to occupy a special place in Mark's heart because so many of them entered this profession to pursue a higher calling, a noble purpose—helping clients achieve financial independence and some other goal. But their idealistic aspirations also led him to become a major critic of their management practices, which at many firms were quite primitive, to put it kindly. In an often humorous and realistic fashion, he gave them some tough love. That was because he sincerely believed that advisors who ignored critical business priorities like profitability and succession were short-selling themselves, their clients and, most importantly, their clients short.
As a minority shareholder in a small business who spent the last 30 years privileged to cover an emerging profession of small- and mid-sized businesses, his words always resonated as much with me as with the advisor community. So Mark, for that we are all very grateful.
—Evan Simonoff, Editor-in-Chief, Financial Advisor Magazine