Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 403rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!
My guest on today’s podcast is Eric Stein. Eric is a partner at East Bay Investment Solutions, a firm that provides fractional Chief Investment Officer services based in Charleston, South Carolina, that supports over $6 billion in assets under advisement across 26 advisory firms they serve.
What’s unique about Eric, though, is how he has chosen not to utilize the investment expertise he’s built throughout his career to gather individual clients and manage their portfolios as a ‘traditional’ financial advisor with investment expertise, but instead to really stay focused on being an “investment nerd” by landing his current role as a partner with East Bay, where he gets to serve as a fractional Chief Investment Officer for multiple advisory firms and all of their clients instead.
In this episode, we talk in-depth about how it works when advisory firms hire Eric’s fractional Chief Investment Officer service offering, including conducting investment research, designing model portfolios, and producing written market commentaries for advisors to use with their clients, how Eric’s firm differs from the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (or OCIO) services that have emerged for institutions, and how a fractional CIO also differs from a TAMP by still leaving the actual portfolio implementation responsibilities up to the advisor (which allows Eric’s firm to charge a flat fee as a fractional CIO rather than a basis point charge based on client assets that allows it to serve mid-sized independent advisory firms in a cost-effective manner), and Eric’s suggested considerations for advisors considering working with a fractional CIO, including most importantly finding a fit with respect to the firm’s investment philosophy.
We also talk about Eric’s own unique career journey, which started in commercial banking with stops along the way that included a variety of roles at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and working as an internal full-time Chief Investment Officer for a large national RIA before starting his current fractional CIO role, how Eric has leveraged recruiters over the years to both discover new opportunities and to quickly find a new position after being unexpectedly let go when large-firm investment departments go through downsizing (which is more of a hazard for those in investment roles than traditional financial advisor roles), and how Eric went through a metaphorical ‘dating’ process in approaching his current business partner and why their open discussions of business management contingencies before partnering up ensured their visions were aligned and has allowed the business to now grow and thrive for years.
And be certain to listen to the end, where Eric shares his views on working in massive national businesses versus smaller local firms, including balancing the opportunity to explore multiple positions within the same company with feelings of being ‘just’ a cog in a much larger system of gears, how Eric’s experiences as a manager and the journey he went through in learning how to start letting go and not micromanage team members, and how it was a tennis coach who ultimately taught Eric the value of remembering to pause from time to time to celebrate successes while also learning and moving on quickly from failures, that helped Eric navigate the ups and downs of his own career in financial services.
So, whether you’re interested in learning about navigating a career in the financial services industry as an “investment nerd”, what it means to hire a fractional Chief Investment Officer, or how to successfully create a business partnership that meets both partners’ visions, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Eric Stein.
