In this episode of The Trusted Adviser, Rob Pyne speaks with Michael Goodman. Michael built Wealthstream Advisors with a long-term vision for independence. He avoided outside capital and designed a succession model that protects ownership for future generations. Now a managing partner at Greenspring Advisors, he shares how a merger helped expand internal ownership, secure leadership depth, and strengthen governance.
Rob and Michael explore how values, structure, and timing shape a firm’s ability to stay independent. They unpack the realities behind succession without private equity and the mechanics that support multi-generational stability. This episode gives practice owners a clear view of what it takes to protect culture and continuity for decades.
LISTEN
SHOW NOTES
Topics Discussed
- Planning for succession early. Why leadership teams must start ownership transition long before retirement.
- Broad employee ownership. How expanding shareholders from 11 to 23 improves resilience and reduces key person risk.
- Independence from outside capital. Why private equity did not align with Michael’s client-first philosophy.
- Governance built for longevity. How elected boards and shared leadership sustain culture across generations.
- Values as a strategic filter. Why independence and alignment matter more than short-term valuations.
- Cultural integration after a merger. How Wealthstream and Greenspring combined systems without losing identity.
- Next-generation leadership. What it takes to prepare future owners for stewardship rather than short-term gains.
- Client alignment through internal ownership. Why keeping equity inside the firm safeguards trust.
- Designing structures that outlast founders. How governance, equity plans, and shared decision-making drive continuity.
Episode Highlights
(Timestamps are approximate)
- [00:01] – Rob introduces Michael; outlines Wealthstream origin story and Greenspring merger.
- [01:24] – Early succession planning shaped Michael’s view on long-term independence.
- [02:41] – Broad ownership reduces concentration risk; 11 owners became 23.
- [03:55] – Private equity offers liquidity but misaligns with client-first values.
- [05:12] – Accounting partnership roots shaped Michael’s belief in internal ownership.
- [06:48] – Governance must evolve ahead of scale; elected board supports continuity.
- [08:02] – Merger brought systems strength without cultural loss.
- [10:14] – Independence relies on structured capital plans that outlive the founder.
- [12:27] – Multi-generational firms need leaders who see themselves as stewards.
- [14:19] – Client trust deepens when decision-makers also serve clients.
- [15:43] – Shared leadership reduces pressure on founders and strengthens resilience.
- [17:22] – Michael describes the long arc of his succession planning journey.
- [18:59] – Equity expansion must balance fairness, contribution, and long-term health.
- [20:44] – Values drive governance decisions when valuations become distracting.
- [22:11] – Culture grows stronger when ownership broadens across high performers.
Quotes
“Independence survives when you plan early and bring people into ownership long before you need to exit.” – Michael Goodman
“Broad ownership protects culture and reduces key person risk.” – Michael Goodman
“Clients win when the people who serve them hold the decision-making power.” – Michael Goodman
“Governance must reflect the future firm, not the founder’s past.” – Michael Goodman
“Succession is a stewardship act built on values, not valuations.” – Rob Pyne
Resources & Links
- The Trusted Adviser: https://thetrustedadviser.com.au/
- Greenspring Advisors: https://greenspringadvisors.com/
- Connect with Rob Pyne on LinkedIn
- Connect with Michael Goodman on LinkedIn
- Follow The Trusted Adviser Podcast
Key Takeaways
- The merger aimed to strengthen employee ownership and governance.
- Independence in financial advisory can enhance client experience.
- A strong shareholder base is crucial for succession planning.
- Diversity of thought in leadership leads to better decision-making.
- Cultural alignment is key in successful mergers.
- Employee engagement fosters a positive work environment.
- Training programs are essential for developing talent.
- Maintaining a focus on long-term goals is vital for success.
- Personal connections among employees enhance workplace culture.
- Legacy planning should prioritize the well-being of employees and clients.
TRANSCRIPT
Rob (00:02.377)
Welcome to the Trusted Adviser. Right now, our profession is experiencing one of the biggest transitions in its history. There’s a wave of founders approaching succession. And at the same time, private equity has poured into financial advice businesses around the world, offering capital, liquidity and scale. And for many firms, that is the chosen path. But there’s a growing counter movement. Some firms believe independence should live beyond the founders. That equity should remain in the hands of the people who serve the clients.
and that their culture and decision-making should stay inside the business, not shift to outside investors. Today’s conversation sits right at the heart of that movement. In October, 2025, New York City-based Wealthstream Advisors joined with Greenspring Advisors who already had offices in New Jersey, Maryland, and the Pennsylvania States. And this wasn’t a private equity event. There was no external capital. It wasn’t a liquidity play.
This was a perpetuation chapter, a merger designed to strengthen employee ownership and build a governance structure that could outlive the founder. Wealthstream’s ownership of 11 shareholders immediately went to 23 and soon to 27, all inside the firm. And the governance around that ownership is now designed for the next generation with shared leadership, professional management and a board elected by employee owners.
Joining us to explore this alternative path to growth and succession is my friend Michael Goodman, founder of Wealthstream Advisors and now president of Greenspring Advisors, Michael. Welcome to The Trusted Adviser.
Michael Goodman (01:36.536)
Thank you very much, Rob. I’m super excited to spend some more time with you today and talk about some fun stuff.
Rob (01:43.049)
You’ve graciously agreed to join me in the evening in New York. So I appreciate you sticking around for me. It’s an early one, but we are on the opposite sides of the world. So that’s how we roll. So great to chat to again, Michael, as always. I’d to start our conversation today right where we left off in that introduction. When you decided to join Greenspring, you weren’t looking for a liquidity event. You were looking to strengthen multi-generational ownership.
What was the moment, was there a moment when you realised that staying independent required growing the ownership base beyond your original founder group?
Michael Goodman (02:22.028)
Yes, so there’s actually a lot to unpack there, just even in this first question, we could probably spend a lot of time on that. You’re right, it was not a liquidity event, there was no cash transacted whatsoever. The first thing I want to emphasize is that this was not like a quick decision or something that just sort of an aha moment, if you will, this was more of an evolution of thought over a long period of time. And while succession is a key topic for our conversation today, as it should be, there were a lot of
lot of good reasons, a lot of motivations, if you will, to do this transaction and to join forces with Greenspring. So it was a lot more than that. But we’ll address the question more specifically now. And I’ll say to you that it was an awareness that grew over time that probably there’s two focal points for this. One was that we needed a lot of shareholders.
a strong shareholder base, if you will, to ensure that over time we would have the people to make those internal transactions. And the second thing about that was I’ve been working for over 10 years now selling off chunks of ownership to the employees. And I started at 50, which is fairly young for the industry, not young in general, perhaps, but fairly young to be doing that.
And I realized that even doing it at that and selling 10 % tranches every couple of years, I should have started earlier or I should have sold more if you will. the reason I’m saying that is because pre-merger, I own just shy of say 70 % of the firm, 69 % or so of the firm. And post-merger with no cash taken off the table, I didn’t sell one share.
Now, I own about 20 % of the firm, because it’s obviously a smaller percentage of a much bigger thing. that also, not just succession, it also takes away the key man risk. It takes away sort of the pressure that I felt and maybe the concerns that other people had around me owning such a large percentage of the company. So there’s other benefits and other motivations, but …
Michael Goodman (04:46.732)
Those two are probably the key thoughts around the why.
Rob (04:52.393)
Yeah, as you say, perhaps not in absolute terms, we’re of a similar age and you said you started about 50. I was a bit similar in our journey as well. But you realize when you start that process of succession, it does need to start relatively early for it to be successful. And you already had a number of employee owners in your firm, but you wanted to broaden that base of owners by joining Greenspring. You’ve now got that. So that allows for a more natural and perhaps staged succession with more potential owners taking equity.
as you move closer to the endpoint that you choose now, because key man risk is now, as you say, handled by way of that more diverse ownership. So yeah, it’s a good insight. So what experiences kind of over the years convinced you that outside capital wasn’t the right path for you and your team? Because that’s a very strong theme in the US now. There’s a lot of private equity in the market.
buying into businesses much like yourself and Greenspring that are looking for people just like you. So what was the moment where you decided or what experiences was it that convinced you not for us, we’re gonna do it this way.
Michael Goodman (06:01.582)
For me, was, and I don’t mean to sound all high and mighty about this, because that’s definitely not who I am, but it just never felt like the route to go for me. Maybe it’s because I come from sort of an accounting background, And, you know, accounting firms or law firms or engineering firms or even back in the day, back in the day, were investment banking firms were partnerships.
And I, you know, kind of viewed it as being a partner and a perpetual partnership. Maybe that has a lot to do with it, but surely there were other things along the way that kind of contributed to this perspective that I had. I think that the, one of the counter arguments was, you know, the money, right? So that I could clearly say that the money was, is, I don’t, I didn’t have not even entertained.
Rob (06:46.751)
Of course.
Michael Goodman (06:54.826)
an offer. But I know what the firm is worth, to have done valuations for years now and have many friends that have sold. you know, those numbers are just staggering. you know, actually, when I was talking with Pat about Pat Collins, who’s the founder of Greenspring, and we were talking about doing this deal, he said something that resonated in a way that I never articulated. I had the idea that I just wanted the people in the business being the owners.
But he used language where it said, wouldn’t you want, if you were a client, wouldn’t you want the people that I’m in contact with every day to be owners of the firm? If these people that I’m working with every day are owners, then I’m probably gonna have a pretty good client experience because the decision makers and the influence of the decision making that goes on in the firm is gonna come from the people that are having this client experience.
not somebody on the 70th floor of some fancy office building that are making the decisions of how to run this firm, not the people that are focused on growing it to a certain size and potentially doing a transaction, but the people that are closest to the clients. And that goes a long way for me in sort of…
making a decision like that and thinking that through. I’m not here to say that P is a bad thing. That’s definitely not my agenda. Nor am I here to say that’s not a right decision, a good decision, in fact, for some people to do take a deal with private equity. I’m just saying that for me, for these reasons, it never felt comfortable.
Rob (08:36.531)
Yeah, as you say, you’re not being high and mighty about it, but it was very much a values-based decision, not a valuation-based decision. so, yeah, it just didn’t feel right for you. And so the pathway that you’ve chosen is to retain ownership in the hands of the employees that are serving the clients. Therefore, that client experience is informing the decision-making for that business going forward. And that has much more of a perpetual feeling to it, doesn’t it? Because…
Ultimately, when private equity takes a position in a business, they are looking to accelerate growth potentially and get it to a point where it is an on-solid to another private equity player and there’s a first round, a second round as they move up the scale. the orientation is different. The emphasis, I guess, for decision-making has shifted somewhat from that client experience and training the staff and supporting the growth of the firm by way of that direct interaction with clients.
Michael Goodman (09:34.008)
Yes, 100%. And if you think about this for a second, I’m not looking for a retirement package. I am fully invested in working. And if you think about it, if the PE firms are willing to spend these multiples and this much money to invest in my company, well, wow, I want to be the benefactor of those returns over time as well.
Rob (09:59.839)
You
Michael Goodman (10:03.208)
I truly believe that it’s a great business. We run our business well. We are profitable. It’s a good, and I am so bullish on the future of our, even it was just Wealthstream pre-merger, I was bullish, but I’m even more bullish now because we, I believe we could do better, more, more better together is the way I describe it. More better together. And I’m optimistic, yeah.
Rob (10:25.855)
Yeah, I love that. As you say, it wasn’t a liquidity event. You didn’t take a dollar off the table. This was a complete equity merge that said, now we’ve got more firepower, essentially there’s more of us, there’s more capabilities, more opportunity for growth. that’s, you say, you wanna be a part of that. You wanna be benefiting from that rather than hand it off to someone else to take the benefit. You’d sort of, I’m happy to stay here and help grow this thing. So yeah, and I totally relate to that as well.
So in the process, Michael, you’ve shifted from being a founder who’s been hands on the wheel, you still have your hands on the wheel to an extent here because you made the most of decisions on the formal governance structure before when you were running the firm at Wealthstream. What’s that shift been like for you personally as you shifted from being a CEO founder into a president role at Greenspring?
Michael Goodman (11:17.346)
Yeah, well, that transition actually started probably about seven years ago in the sense that even within Wealthstream, we had initiated a management team and really all decisions were made within that group. Of course, as the majority shareholder, if there was ever a situation where I felt we were going in the wrong direction, I had the right to grab the wheel, as you say. But that was not who I am. Even when we were five people.
I remember going in the conference room and talking with everybody and saying, Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. What do you all think? I’ve always been a sort of a consensus oriented leader. And so we created this management team. It’s been a fabulous process. We implemented traction a long time ago and going through that process has gotten me very comfortable with allowing for other people to really drive some of the decisions and who felt compassionate or strong about it.
So now making this transition into this new venture here with Green Spring with a formal board and a management team of which both I am on is a really interesting process and not too dissimilar than what we’ve had. I’m just getting more used to the players. In the old co, if you will, I lived and worked with them every day for years before we created that team.
Whereas here, I know that we’ve spent a lot of time doing our due diligence and meals and talking, but I don’t know them in the same way. So I’m just sort of getting used to that, but so far it’s gone very well. I’m very excited actually about the diversity of thought. One of the challenges within OldCo is, you know, I sort of hired and trained a lot of the people. So I wouldn’t quite go as far as to say they were mini-mes because that’s not the case. They all had their own views and backgrounds, but
in in green spring now there’s more diversity of thought and that’s actually I believe going to be a better thing in the long
Rob (13:19.519)
Absolutely. You know, as you were just saying that you were a consensus driven leader, it reminds me of why we’ve connected so well, you and I, when we first met back at the Practice Management Symposium in Austin, Texas a few years ago now. Because that’s kind of been our approach too. it’s, you want to bring everyone along for the journey. You might have good ideas, you might have ideas that you wanna…
air with the team, but you really want people to buy in and believe in it and actually help shape your thoughts as you’ve been growing your business. And now as you say, you’ve got this greater diversity of thought and that can only be a strength because that idea of, I mean, we both oriented towards using dimensional for our investment philosophy and, you know, believing in the market, believing in that sort of consensus of the wisdom of the crowd, I suppose. Yeah, so we sort of are aligned in that sense and
Michael Goodman (14:09.624)
That’s right.
Rob (14:15.231)
there’s more value listening to many opinions. And I know that some people struggle with that because it’s like, just do what I tell you to do. But in reality, you just don’t get a good outcome, you? Because, you know, no one’s got a mortgage on knowledge and having the contribution of others always makes it a better outcome. A little slower sometimes, perhaps. A little bit longer to get to a point of view that we can all agree upon, but a better version of the decision making typically is what I’ve discovered too.
Michael Goodman (14:44.876)
Yeah, it’s sort of like the work you put in upfront will have hopefully a longer payout for having spent the extra time upfront. It’s the same thing with hiring, right? If you hire slow and fire fast, most people hire fast and fire slow. So you want to spend that time upfront to make good decisions. Absolutely. I know that you’re doing the same thing. We’ve talked about this many times.
Rob (15:09.553)
Indeed. So as you built out the board and the management committee together with Green Spring, which governance decisions that did you want to stay connected to or mattered most to you and why were those important to you to stay connected to?
Michael Goodman (15:26.158)
Well, think the most, you know, we could talk about that also for a long time, but I think the most important thing to me was around the overall strategy of the firm. Like, what do we want to look like in five to 10 years? And I just have this particular interest and niche around the M &A side of the business, as well as the finances side. You know, that could be because of the CPA background, I’m not sure, but those areas always…
I found those fascinating and wanting to be involved in those areas. The &A is super exciting to me. The idea of trying to figure out both the qualitative and the quantitative elements around a deal is just so rewarding to me if it works. Obviously, in those more often, you say no to a deal, then you say yes. But that’s part of the labor of love, I guess, of doing that. But strategy, bigger picture, longer term plan.
I love the idea of trying to visualize what we could be. Most often I get reactions from some of the people that, well, that’s a little crazy, it’s a little too much. But that’s kind of what I love to do. I love to try to think about what we could be and then use the diversity of thought to make it into a more practical solution.
Rob (16:44.223)
Yeah, very future focused role isn’t it? Thinking about where we are, where we could be and always looking to create a bit of a vision or a path forward and as you say, airing that amongst the team, getting thoughts and contributions but ultimately helping to shape direction still very much and as you say, being involved in the M &A space and looking for like-minded firms, businesses that are looking to do what you’ve done which is to level up and join and grow something special together so I can see how that’s still
I mean, because as you’re running a business yourself in the past, mean, all those two functions you’ve just described, that’s a lot in and of itself. And when you’re running a business on your own, or even with employee owners together with you, there’s a lot of responsibility across a smaller group. And as you get bigger, can start to niche down into certain areas and become really good at certain functions of those executive decision-making roles. yeah, I can totally connect to that as well because I’ve just found we’ve got…
you know, lots of decisions to be made across a whole spectrum of things. And the more people you’ve got, the more hands there are to help.
Michael Goodman (17:49.644)
That’s right. mean, one of the big advantages for both organizations going forward is, and like you say, in any small organization, there are certain employees that are just wearing multiple hats. So now the ability to get rid of a couple of those hats on both sides, because there’s somebody on the other side that can take that hat, and now really focus and be more expert around a particular topic. You know, I recently saw
Greg McEwen speak about essentialism again. I’d seen it many, many years ago. The idea of really drilling down and really being the best at what you are doing as opposed to trying to be the best at three things is you’re 100 % right. And that’s one of the things that we’re really excited about going forward.
Rob (18:34.879)
Indeed. And when we were talking about this chat we’re having now, and we talked about your role and Pat Collins, as you say, is a CEO at Green Spring and you’ve got a great relationship with Pat built over many, many conversations and years of knowing one another. You’ve described your role in a baseball analogy. You’ve said you’re kind of like a bench coach now with Pat. What feelings or fears did you have as you, you know, to work through being comfortable with working in Pat?
working with Pat as the CEO in that role as you describe as a bench coach. And for people who don’t know baseball, perhaps you can explain that one.
Michael Goodman (19:10.296)
Sure, sure. I do want to emphasize that that is not my only role. It’s just one of the roles, but yes. so the idea here in baseball is that there’s obviously coaching staff and there’s the manager who’s the head of all the coaches, or the CEO in this case, right? And typically, this was much more popular in the past and I see it so much today.
Rob (19:15.679)
Yeah.
Michael Goodman (19:36.878)
But it was very common, especially in the past, where there was what they called a bench coach. And this bench coach was probably somebody that had been around longer, probably somebody that was a manager at one point in time. And this was somebody who would be there as support, as a good, loyal partner to the manager. And if there was a challenging decision, the manager has all the skills to make the decision. I don’t want to imply for a second that’s not the case.
But here’s somebody that they can talk it through within a non-judgment zone where they’re going to have a good feel for the exact business. They’re inside the organization. It’s not an outside consultant of some sort. They’re into business. They’ve run the business. And they can give some feedback and experience around decisions or ideas, et cetera, that they’re there as sort of an internal consultant, but also to the team. So the team can lean on. It’s not necessarily the manager all the time. It can be one of the players.
It could be a young player that’s coming up and just needs some, the benefit of the experience that somebody has to share to somebody. Or it could be even an experienced player that just wants to get some feedback. So the idea here is just that you’re almost like an internal consultant to the team.
Rob (20:55.519)
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And that’s a valuable resource to have on the team. As we’re talking about that at our own business, we’ve got first generation founders thinking about their own succession plan. But the idea is very universally accepted that we would love them to stay around even if they’ve sort of stepped back increasingly from client responsibilities and perhaps moved into more of a part-time role even, which is not the case for you, but for our situation.
The next generation people are saying, look, we’d love you to stick around. We’d love to have people with experience that we can just bounce stuff around with and still know that we’ve got someone else there to talk scenarios through with that’s been there before and has the experience. So yeah, we’ve been asking ourselves that question because when you run a great business, you don’t really wanna leave it. mean, you wanna retire, I guess, or have more time and flexibility if you’re getting to the guys that I’m talking about in our business. But…
but staying connected in that way and you’re staying very fully connected at 100 % is a great resource for the firm to have. And you now play that role as you described with strategy. I’m a big fan of the Vern Harnish books and the scaling up book in particular is one that I’ve got on my shelf. And he talks about the four things to focus on in a business, people, strategy, execution and cash and essentially breaks me to those four now.
That’s a lot for anyone to tackle. But your role in strategy also does play, you play an important role in execution as well, do you not? You actually are helping to shape strategy together with the executive team. But then you’re taking a responsible role there for making sure the strategy executed. it’s a decision’s made on where we’re going, your project managing effectively supporting the execution of strategy in the direction, is that right?
Michael Goodman (22:50.062)
I would say that’s a fair way to describe it, but just to emphasize a couple of things. I’m not going to be the person that develops it. I’m going to be on the team that develops it. And I’m not necessarily going to be the person that implements every piece of it, but I will be the sort of accountability partner for those things to work with the other teammates that are implementing those pieces of the strategy, as well as potentially implementing some of them on my own, but also going out to industry.
to see what other firms are doing, to understand how they’re managing some of those challenges and opportunities and strategies, and bring that knowledge back into the team so that we have a full lens, if you will, of what it is we’re working on.
Rob (23:37.418)
Yeah. And you mentioned earlier that you’re not planning to retire anytime soon, that you’re energised, more so even than before, because now you’ve got a bigger team and you’ve got, you can actually probably narrow your focus on things that really do have a great interest for you in the business. And you mentioned &A. So I may have answered this question, but I just want to get your perspective here on staying engaged, what matters most to you? What kind of work really energises you now in this new chapter as you’ve merged in with Green Spring?
Michael Goodman (24:07.214)
Yeah, so it’s funny, know, the mission is to help people live their ideal life. And I would say that that’s still what energizes me. It’s a little different in a sense now. It’s, you know, working with not as many clients at this stage, but definitely working with the team. I love, love being able to talk to a teammate who’s working on a particular issue, strategy, challenge, problem, concern, question, and sort of talk that through in a way that they can.
maybe I can ask them, the best scenario is I can ask them a question that they therefore answer their own challenge. Sometimes it’s, you know, you to steer a little bit more, but so I enjoy that. I still enjoy the business developments and the opportunities of coming across people that don’t even know they need our services and trying to understand sort of how we can be unique in their life and help them solve challenges for themselves. And I love the industry stuff. I’ve always been
a fan of the industry and the practice management items. I’ve read most of the books on practice management back in the day when there was actually print publications. I would read those every time they came in. And I still go to a lot of conferences. You and I have met, you know, presenting at a practice management conference. So I really enjoy the industry and learning about it. So being involved in those things are what it probably going to keep me pretty energized.
Rob (25:32.714)
Yeah, no, can certainly relate as well. We are in a wonderful profession and being able to connect with people as we walk through our own business life, but meeting other people that going through their own journey and swapping stories and sharing our ideas and key experiences, it’s truly a, it doesn’t feel like work to me sometimes. It feels like I’m sort of connected with people that are of a like mind and we’re sort of learning from one another and.
And here we are doing something similar again. So yeah, I can totally relate to that as well. So Michael, in merging the two firms, were there any cultural behaviors that you really personally wanted to ensure that wouldn’t change that you would bring from Wealthstream into Greenspring? And you would have taken time. You’re a very thoughtful, very considered guy. You don’t make quick decisions. So in that process of talking through with Pat and the team, the Greenspring…
what was it important for you to hold onto in terms of cultural behaviours that you would bring from Wealthstream?
Michael Goodman (26:34.894)
That was actually a rather fascinating experience, is where there were things that we did and when we met with Greenspring, we were looking for those things and it was pretty similar. Get back to the mission I just mentioned. Our mission was to help people live their best life. Their mission, unknown to us, was to help people live their ideal life. I mean, how close, right? We match up our core values.
almost identical in the way that they, the meaning of the core values, the way we put the team first and the client first before the company and all those kinds of things. The employee ownership, the desire for that to be broadly held, not just amongst some revenue generators. I would say that there were so many cultural alignments. The only thing, and I’m actually looking for something now, because it’s not a big deal, but there…
Whenever you have offices where they’re not all like down the block from each other, that you have offices that are a couple of hours or more away, especially one of being in a big urban center, some being in more suburban and some even rural, you’re gonna have different cultures within the overall culture. It might be a different work from home culture. It might be a different style of how they interact or talk to their clients. So one of the big things for…
big things for me was not assuming that everything we did culturally was the only way to do it or the best way to do it, but acknowledging that maybe this feels most comfortable for us and it’s in within the whole framework where somebody other office has a different policy around something like that, that that’s okay.
Rob (28:16.563)
Yeah, yeah, so you were open to bringing your own things, but also seeing what’s working at Greenspring and then making that a mesh of the two and finding the way forward that was gonna be mutually agreeable for all, but didn’t sound like there was much to vary there, because you had such alignment already, which is obviously why it’s working. It’s why it became an obvious right move for both parties to sort of bring the firms together, because there was that cultural alignment and belief about how things should be done.
Michael Goodman (28:43.278)
Yeah, when you get two organizations together, there’s this natural vibe or thought process for the people that, we’re going to get together and they’ll do something different, but we do it better, you know, or we’re right. there are, but the reality is both firms are incredibly successful firms. It’s not that one’s right or wrong. It’s just different. It doesn’t mean better or worse or right or wrong. It’s different. So you have to really take a
Rob (29:03.54)
Yeah.
Michael Goodman (29:12.462)
a step back, a deep breath and get into the why and what matters. And at the end of the day, sometimes you’re just gonna have to compromise on the two different ways to do something, not because one’s better or right or wrong, it’s just because it doesn’t matter, they’re both good. So it’s okay, it’s okay.
Rob (29:28.863)
Yeah. And there’s a lot of goodwill in the room. As you say, no one’s really holding onto their way dogmatically. You’re actually open to working collaboratively because you’ve got that relationship already. So that’s what makes the difference, doesn’t it? In those situations where you are trying to figure out perhaps where there’s slight variations in the way things have been done historically. And when you were at Wealthstream running the firm there with your employee owners, how were you deciding?
who would become an equity owner, you actually had, think almost your entire team was employed equity owners in, was that right? When you were at Wealthstream? Okay.
Michael Goodman (30:02.83)
It was about half, half of the employees. And the reason for that is that we have a very large young pool of talent. And we were very big on hiring directly out of school. We had a lot of young folks. And we just felt that it would take at least, say, three years. this was not a fixed thing, but at the time, that was the policy. You had to be at the firm for at least three years.
You had to get to a certain level, but it wasn’t only on the advice or on the revenue generation side. It was the same thing on the operations or client service side. We had owners there as well, but it was about half the firm.
Rob (30:43.615)
You know, we haven’t discussed that before you and I, that particular point, but that’s just like the way we do it at HPH as well. So it’s just amazing as we keep talking, we find such common approaches to things, which is, guess again, why we’ve kind of hit it off so well when we first met. So yeah, we have a two year stepping stone and it’s not just for advisors either. And people go like, oh really? It’s only just, and certainly in the private equity world,
Michael Goodman (31:01.666)
Why am I not surprised?
Michael Goodman (31:10.67)
Yeah.
Rob (31:13.011)
I remember getting advice from someone who wanted to buy into our firm was a private equity player, well known one from the US was over in Australia looking to invest in firms like ours. Excuse me. And they said, make sure you hold onto the equity just for the revenue generators, just for the high performing revenue generators, because you don’t want to be letting equity in the hands of people who aren’t contributing to the revenue. And I’ve just gone, I just don’t agree with that. It just doesn’t resonate with me at all. In fact, you know, the person who’s actually executing on the advice or the person who’s actually getting the…
the tech team in order or the power planning team, they’re super valuable, just as much as the people sitting in front of the clients are and the salaries will reflect the roles, but they’re equally contributing to the success of the firm. So yeah, I can relate to that one too. So do you think, is that approach the same at Greenspring? there no difference there in terms of philosophy around that equity ownership across the team when you’re now you’re at Greenspring?
Michael Goodman (32:10.606)
No, there is no difference if anything, the difference of what we could point to is even more so. So, Greenspring was ahead of me on this. They had a program where they were putting profits aside each year for employees that were not owners of the firm to buy equity for them in a trust format. I’m using that word trust because I think that’s how you guys do it over there.
Rob (32:37.683)
Yeah.
Michael Goodman (32:39.202)
It’s not quite in a trust here, and it’s more synthetic here, but there is a contract and there is shares that are purchased for employees that, for whatever reason, did not decide to invest in the company, and they can basically get stock along the way. Like I say, it’s synthetic, but they would have equity elements.
Rob (33:01.011)
Yeah, so Wealthstream was well advanced along those lines as well. In fact, as you say, had a model already in place to try and allow for and encourage ownership right through that generations of talent in the team. And were they have a similar mind around that recruiting people from grad school coming out of university and bringing talent through and training them in the way that Greenspring was doing business, the way you were doing at Wealthstream?
and helping those people to go up the equity ladder, so to speak.
Michael Goodman (33:34.274)
Yes, I would also state that one of our stated goals is to have the best training program in the industry. And we were both working aggressively on that. I could speak for us for the years because I was part of it, but we’ve built relationships up with three schools where we’re regular contributors to the program. We speak to the professors regularly. We present at some of the student functions. We have scholarship at one of the schools. So this is something we’ve built up and worked on for a long time. And then once they come aboard,
a whole program and a career path all the way through the process. So this is something that’s been important to both organizations and is a priority now in the merged entity to have the best training program in the industry.
Rob (34:17.727)
Yeah, great. Has there been any surprises for you? I mean, you’ve done this very carefully and thoughtfully over many months. Has there been any maybe pleasant surprises, anything that really has really just kind of just maybe a moment that you thought, I thought this was a good thing all along and that just kind of really hit time for me just how good this merger is. Was there anything that’s happened where you just kind of like, you know, I didn’t even see that as a benefit, but now I can see it now that I’m here.
where you’ve just, it’s just reaffirmed and you reaffirmed your decision to join with Greenspring.
Michael Goodman (34:53.4)
Yeah, still sort of early days, not even 60 days past past closing. But there’s been some things that I would have expected that have occurred that have been more more so maybe than I thought. But I think the biggest moment for me so far was two weeks ago when we met at all four offices, brought all the employees to a location together where we met up and the
energy and excitement in the room was, and obviously, you know, I have a different lens from the outside, but also from the feedback that I got from the people that were there, the excitement and the energy in the room was really fantastic. Many of the employees had met each other, I’d say a little less than half, I’m guessing, but a little less than half of the employees had already met in some, not everybody, a couple, because we did a lot of office visits.
where bunch of us would go down and there were also like director heads doing regular Zoom meetings for months before we merged to just sort of share best practices and things like that. But the excitement in the room, did, one of our goals is preserving that culture and having everybody get to know and trust and like each other. And so one of the things we did, we did some pre-work around sort of a SWOT process as we move into year-end planning, but as part of that process,
We also asked them to, it’s gonna sound a little cheeky, but we asked them to write down something that was unique about them that nobody else would know. And when we all got together, we created these bingo cards that showed, that had like, so I reeled in a 50 pound fish or something like that. I can play seven instruments. And we had all these bingo cards of these 60 some odd people around the room. And we said, okay, for the next hour,
you have to go around the room and find out who’s that person. And if you fill your bingo card, you get a prize. And watching the level of fun that was occurring in the room, sorry if I’m going into too much detail here, you could edit this out if it’s not worth it. it was the energy level was fantastic seeing everybody together and going through that process. Everybody’s polite, of course. Everybody’s nice, of course. They know, you know, it’s a work functional.
Rob (36:58.205)
No, great.
You
Michael Goodman (37:13.976)
but I really truly felt like we had the beginnings of a really great long-term relationship for these people.
Rob (37:21.023)
Yeah, I’m not editing that out, Michael, that’s gold. Because just seeing people connect, make effectively new work friends by getting to know one another, getting to, I was at a function, we had the Financial Advice Association Congress here in Perth last week. And I met a gentleman, actually, I’d met him previously at a conference last year. And we only met the once, but we had to share a story similar to what you’re describing, a little bit about.
his ambitions, his goals, his aspirations, and we had to do that. And it’s amazing how that sort of stuff really sticks because I’d met this guy once, maybe for 10, 15 minutes, about a year ago. And I saw him in the line queuing up for lunch at the Congress last week. And I said, Darren, how are you going? We met last year and I started to have you done this. And he goes like, how did you remember that? But those sort of things really stick, don’t they? It’s something personal, something that’s very memorable about what someone…
Michael Goodman (38:12.822)
Absolutely.
Rob (38:18.545)
is either unique about them or aspiration they have. Those stories really do tend to connect people and we’re all about connection. That’s what financial advisors do isn’t we’re people people. So I think that sounds like a great exercise that you’ve done and just seeing that energy in the room would have been great for you too, just to witness as well.
Michael Goodman (38:38.369)
my gosh, it was fascinating, fascinating and very exciting.
Rob (38:42.441)
So when you picture the firm, let’s say 10 years from now, what legacy do you hope your decisions today allow someone else to carry forward?
Michael Goodman (38:53.816)
Well, I would say that it’s a place where you can work about with something that you have a genuine interest in and care and people will encourage and support you to do so. I would say that it’s a place where you feel like I could, especially today where people change jobs so fast, that it’s a place that I could see myself staying for the rest of my career. A place where they feel that they can help and
grow other people, not just clients, but their teammates. And then it’s a place that continues to provide a good livelihood for all the employees and their family.
Rob (39:36.489)
Yeah, yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure having this conversation with you today, Michael, because I’ve even just today figured out that there’s more alignment even than I knew before we started this conversation. So, you you’ve got a business that’s truly multi-generational, ownership’s passing not just the next advisor, but to the broader team and building governance and leadership structures that allow the business to outlive you and Pat ultimately as well.
You’ve shown us that independence isn’t defined by the absence of private equity, really it’s defined by the presence of a clear vision for who should own the business, lead the business and shape its future. yeah, I really appreciate you sharing your journey, your candor as always, and a model of ownership that puts clients and employees first. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Michael, appreciate your time.
Michael Goodman (40:29.218)
Thank you, Rob. I would definitely feel the same way. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you on or off the pod. I always enjoy our time together. So thank you.
Rob (40:37.577)
Thank you, Michael. And for our listeners, thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed today’s discussion, please share it with a colleague or a fellow advisor who’s thinking about succession, governance or building something that lasts beyond themselves. I’m Rob Pyne. This is the Trusted Adviser. Until next time.