Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the 84th episode of the “Financial Advisor Success” podcast. My guest on today’s podcast is Diane Compardo. Diane is a partner and team leader at the Moneta Group, an independent RIA with nearly $20 billion of assets under advisement and 40 partners, in which Diane leads a 16-person team with four other partners and $1.4 billion of assets under advisement, and has served as the chair of their governance committee as well. What’s unique about Diane, though, is that after nearly 20 years of building an incredibly successful advisory practice working with corporate executives at Moneta, she decided to substantially increase the size of her team and shift her own focus toward building and developing new advisors and partners at the firm … not just to grow the business, but as a way to re-energize herself after a proverbial mid-career crisis.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about the unique Moneta Group structure that provides shared centralized administrative compliance and support services for more than 20 independent teams of advisors affiliated with the firm, how the firm structures its compensation and revenue-sharing agreements with the teams, the unique partnership structure of the firm based on their relative contribution of profits to the firm, and how Moneta evolved into creating a governance board that sets strategy for the firm yet separate from the management team that runs the day-to-day business.
We also talk about how Diane’s own niche in working for corporate executives evolved. How she first created a specialization in working with them during her early days as a CPA at Price Waterhouse, working long hours and cramming 10 years of experience into just 5 years, why she ultimately left PwC to join Moneta and forged her own pathway to partnership, and how Diane structures her team meetings today with clients both as a way to improve client service and also to develop new advisors themselves.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Diane talks about how she uses checklists in her calendar to balance her time between work and personal life, the support system she’s created for herself by getting involved in local networking groups like the Women Presidents’ Organization, and how she re-energized herself from the low point of her career with the strategic and deliberate shift in how she was spending her own time in the business.
So whether you are interested in hearing about Moneta Group’s unique partnership structure, how a mid-career crisis re-energized Diane and helped her to focus on developing next-gen talent, or the strategies she’s used to build a strong network, then I hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast!