For Katie Cullen, Veterans Day honors the families behind the uniform as much as the people wearing it.
Cullen is the new chief growth and integration officer at Newport Beach, California-based Beacon Pointe Advisors. Having grown up in a military family and serving for 11 years as an Army Reserve logistics officer, she says the leadership principles she learned before turning 22 still shape how she helps wealth management firms grow.
“Not only is Veterans Day, in my opinion, an important day for veterans. It’s a very important day for their families who stand behind them,” Cullen, who is nine weeks into her new role at Beacon Pointe, told InvestmentNews in an interview.
Cullen joined Beacon Pointe this fall from BlackRock, where she headed the business consulting division for advisors. Her arrival in September – at the same time as Vanguard veteran Sarah Green, who stepped in as chief risk and compliance office – is part of the firm's broader push to achieve mega-RIA status.
With a father, husband, brother, brother-in-law and father-in-law who all served, Cullen's life has revolved around the military. From that vantage point, she realized how little financial education most people receive.
“I knew very well the importance of financial literacy – that most people are not taught about financial literacy early on,” she said. “You could spend your whole career, as my dad did in the military, and come out and still have a basic understanding of finances.”
Always being the new kid at school, she said, taught her to build relationships quickly, a skill she later brought to client work after earning her CFP designation. Over time she moved from advising individuals to coaching RIA founders and business owners, drawn by what she called the “compounding effect” of helping one leader improve outcomes for an entire team and client base.
“I didn’t go into financial services because I had a passion for finance,” she said. "Perhaps. I had a passion for helping people."
Cullen started ROTC at 18; by 22, she recalled preparing to lead a platoon of 20 to 30 people responsible for tens of millions of dollars in equipment. Among several principles she still carries from that training, she stressed: “Mission first, people always.”
“You have to deliver on the mission, but you have to do it through and with your people in mind always,” she explained.
And while strategy and preparation has its place, she also emphasized that the desire for perfect information can be its own trap.
“You don’t always have to have all the data,” Cullen said. “I find a lot of leaders will just wait – 'I need more data and I need more information.'”
The strongest parallel Cullen sees between military and RIA leadership is what the Army calls commander’s intent. under that principle, leaders have to state the goal and the reason for it, then trust their teams to work out how to get there.
“'This is what we have to do. This is why it matters. This is our purpose. And this is where we need to be ultimately,'” she said, describing how the best RIA executives brief their teams. “They give them the guardrails and they say, 'go do it.' And the most incredible innovation comes out of that.”
More fundamentally, Cullen sees clear paralells between the type of dedicated ethic among servicemembers and the fiduciary standard driving leaders in the RIA space.
“I make the decisions I do [as an advisor] in the best interest of the client,” she said. “The military does the same. They do things in the best interst of the mission and the people around them.”
At Beacon Pointe, Cullen reports to chief executive Matthew Cooper, who took over as CEO from co-founder Shannon Eusey earlier this year. She has an expansive mandate, running from before an advisor joins until years afterward.
“I feel like often in the industry, the whole idea of an acquisition or a new team or a new member coming on board is treated very much like a moment in time when it actually is a true process,” she said. “We've had a very incredible integration team for many years, but to have this built into my title, I hope, tells the whole industry how very, very seriously we take it.”
The process of integration, she argued, is the natural pathway to growth. Aside from ensuring everyone knows what resources and support are available to them, the process lets them "have an idea of how you fit in" and "feel a part of the team from day one.
"We have built out a lot of different programs, leadnings, different types of initiatives around helping them grow," Cullen said. "Grow as leaders, grow their practice, growth their client experience, growth their career pathing. ... That's all part of it as well."
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