Liz Nesvold, who resigned as president of $40.7 billion RIA Cresset earlier this month, has landed a gig at Emigrant Bank as vice chair.
She’ll work closely with units across the bank that touch the wealth management business, including Emigrant Partners, New York Private Trust, Sarasota Private Trust and Cleveland Private Trust, said Chairman and CEO Howard Milstein, in a statement. She’ll also work with the units serving the high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth markets, such as Summitas and Personal Risk Management Solutions.
“As the wealth management industry becomes increasingly complex, now more than ever, leaders of wealth management firms need strategic partners who understand their businesses – especially the sanctity of the fiduciary duty owed to clients – and the opportunities ahead,” Nesvold said in a statement.
Nesvold will serve as chair of Emigrant Partners, which provides capital and advisory services to RIAs, and will work closely with Jenny Souza, president and CEO of that unit.
Emigrant Partners has become one of the most active minority investors in wealth management firms, investing over $530 million in 30 wealth and asset management companies over its 17 years. The firm acquired Fiduciary Network, an RIA aggregator, in 2018. The unit now has 20 partner firms representing $100 billion in assets under management and advisement, and combined revenues of more than $400 million.
Nesvold has a long history of working with Emigrant. In 2017, she represented the bank in its sale of HPM Partners (now Cerity Partners) to private equity firm Lightyear. She also advised the bank in its sale of Emigrant Partners firm Pathstone to Lovell Minnick Partners, as well as six other Emigrant Partners transactions.
She left her post at Cresset, a fast-growing RIA, a few weeks ago, after just nine months in the newly created role of president. According to sources with knowledge of the departure, the departure was anything but abrupt. One industry insider told WealthManagement.com they believe Nesvold felt limited and was frustrated by shifting mandates at the rapidly expanding RIA.
Chicago-based Cresset was founded in 2017 as a family office to serve the families of its founders, Eric Becker and Avy Stein. The duo soon began offering comprehensive wealth management for ultra-wealthy families nationwide and, by the summer of 2020, had completed three acquisitions and grown to $9.5 billion in assets and eight offices.
Prior to joining Cresset, Nesvold spent four years helming the asset and wealth management unit at Raymond James Investment Bank, which acquired the 12-year-old firm she founded and ran with her husband, Silver Lane Advisors, in 2019. Prior to Silver Lane, Nesvold spent 15 years with Berkshire Global Advisors.