Keeping succession in the family

Trian Private Wealth Counsel is a family practice in almost every sense of the word. Timothy Trian founded the Oakville, On. based iA Private Wealth advisory team 1993, he became a portfolio manager in 1999. In 1998 his wife Laura Trian joined the practice, she took on the PM designation in 2013. In February of 2021, their daughter Amanda Trian joined the team and she earned the PM titled in 2022. By building their business around their family, the Trian Private Wealth Counsel team have established a clear succession plan, and a model for growth amid the intergenerational wealth transfer.

Timothy Trian explained some of the goals and advantages he had in mind when he brought his daughter into the firm while Amanda Trian outlined the steps she took to earn her place on the family team. They both explained how their arrangement has helped prepare them for an eventual succession and even noted that their multigenerational arrangement has helped make growth through book acquisition more seamless and effective.

“We think we're going to live forever. We think we can carry on in the way we're carrying on forever,” Timothy says. “You have to come to terms with the fact that you may not be doing this until you expire. Recognizing the need to have a transition and a succession in place is very important in our industry.”

Timothy Trian praises his firm’s work in ensuring that every advisory practice has a catastrophic plan in place. He notes how fragmented the industry can be, with many advisors working in small teams or in solitude. It can be challenging for those advisors to lift their eyes from the day to day and build out plans for a catastrophe or for a longer-term succession. Timothy notes that he and Laura have no plans to retire soon, and their firm is still in ‘growth mode,’ but they already have a successor designated and trained in Amanda.

Amanda and Timothy explain how she earned her place on the team. Timothy exudes pride in his daughter’s accomplishments, but he’s clear that she went through a rigorous process to get where she is. Having earned a double degree in financial math and business, she obtained her CFA charter in 2020. She also spent time on the distribution side of the industry, working for three years as a Wealth Sales Representative at SLGI.

“That's where I saw both bank owned firms and independent firms. And really, the independent story resonated well with me,” Amanda says. “I wanted to learn from a top team and I was lucky that my family’s practice is a great business. Even when other advisory teams tried to recruit me from my sales role, I knew I wanted to do this with my family.”

Amanda and her parents had frank discussions before she joined the practice. They articulated their shared vision of the work advisors do, as a calling and not just a job. They agreed to the responsibility that their work comes with and the opportunity they have to help their clients. In her work now Amanda has welcomed the opportunity to continue to work for women’s financial empowerment. The whole family practice has harnessed Amanda’s presence as part of their ongoing growth strategy, too.

One of the key tools for that growth is the acquisition of other advisors’ books. Amanda’s presence on the team has been key to that growth. She has been able to connect more immediately with clients’ children and grandchildren during their onboarding practice, and her presence on the team shows those clients and any advisors looking to sell their books that the Trian Private Wealth Counsel team is already set up for the next generation.

For all the advantages that a family business offers, it can come with some challenges. Amanda and Timothy explain that they try to maintain quite clear lines between work talk and family talk. While they’ll always make time for an urgent issue, if one of them raises a non-urgent work issue during family time, they can calmly put that topic off until the next working day. Amanda will even use the mental trick of referring to her parents as ‘Tim’ and ‘Laura’ in a professional setting and ‘mum and dad’ in a family setting.

While not every advisor has a child with a CFA designation and a business degree keen to take over their practice, the Trian Private Wealth succession model may hold value for other advisors. By building a multigenerational team, the practice has both ensured its succession and set up its next growth stage. While the unity that can be seen on their team may be due to the family dynamic, there is also a shared belief in the responsibility of advice that cuts across the generations.

“We’ve heard of cases where there's people who are wanting to acquire a retiring advisor’s book, but they only want the top 20% of the clients. And for an advisor who started from ground zero, with each account and client they've built a relationship with, that doesn't sit well,” Amanda says. “Everyone deserves the right to financial advice, in my opinion, and I like helping people no matter what. Of course, there's different size accounts out there and but if an advisor has built their practice with every one of their clients, they want to make sure all of them are taken care of, not just the big ones.”