We sat down with Derek to learn more about him and what attracted him to this career.
PPWP: Let’s start with the personal stuff because we know there are some big changes there. Tell us about your family.
DW: You’re right. I have a daughter Charlotte who we adore and is a real piece of energy. My wife Caitlin and I really do cherish every moment of seeing her grow. But as you hinted, we do have a second along the way due in November. We are super excited, but realize we’re moving to “man to man” coverage very soon.
PPWP: What brought you into the financial services field, were you always interested?
DW: This might surprise folks given my career path but does not surprise the team. From my childhood through early college, I really enjoyed all aspects of science and the idea of entrepreneurship. The latter certainly has a bent towards understanding aspects of business. I always enjoyed solving puzzles too. As I grew through high school and college I realized I enjoyed solving problems for people, especially problems where multiple aspects had to come together in a single solution. Over the same period, I loved science (and I still do!) but realized I did not want to work in a lab, which seemed to lack the people component. I ended up changing my major at Rutgers from Biochemistry to Economics, which, looking back, was a much better fit for what I was looking for.
PPWP: That’s interesting. Economics is technically a science, a social science. Some may argue more social than science.
DW: That’s right. It certainly delivers on the “people” part of my puzzle solving interest. Human behavior is fascinating to me. We don’t always act rationally. I’ve become a huge fan of Daniel Kahneman who pioneered the field of behavioral economics. Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow is full of insights in this area. It delves into all sorts of behavioral biases and heuristics. A simple example of a bias is Overconfidence, such as “90% of drivers believe they are better than average.” Biases can be quite detrimental to optimal investing and wealth building.
PPWP: Do you read a lot?
DW: Well, I like to read. At least, I like the idea of reading but finding time is hard. What has worked for me over the past few years is audio books. I’ve been able to get through quite a few excellent books on audio and of course some worthwhile interviews and podcasts in audio as well. It’s been a great method for me to consume information and continue learning.
PPWP: After college, how do you end up in this career field? It seems everyone has a different story on the door opening or at least window, if fate keeps the door shut!
DW: It’s interesting. As we discussed, I grew interested in the field during the latter part of college but never saw a pathway. I owe a great deal of gratitude to an early mentor of mine, Bruce Milstein. During my senior year at Rutgers, my roommate had just finished his internship with Merrill Lynch and had a great experience. We were at the library late one night, I remember vividly. Anyways, he just finished his internship and asked if I’d be interested in something like that. Of course I would. It was the first time a doorway to Merrill Lynch was potentially in my path. The opportunity would be in Merrill’s East Brunswick office.
Interestingly, my roommate and I had quite different experiences. He worked for a less experienced advisor who was a little less structured in his processes. I worked for Bruce who was tough and very experienced. He demanded excellence, structure, and rigor. It was challenging but I brought this every day. My buddy probably had a more “relaxed” experience, but my internship pushed me daily and really forced me to grow and develop.
Then I moved to the Merrill Advisor Call Center down in Pennington. It’s an incredibly large campus. The opportunity was essentially of firehose of experience. I got to encounter all sorts of scenarios from clients and learn various ways to solve some of their challenges.
Bruce moved over to Merrill’s Florham Park office and he reached out to me when a support position on their management team opened up. The role was like “Business boot camp”, with very high expectations and accountability. I would service advisors across several teams and see the many different ways they provided solutions for clients. I jumped on the opportunity, which allowed me to develop close relationships with many of the advisory teams in the office. This is where I ultimately got to know Dick Eger and Michael Lehman really well. Dick and Mike both ran independently successful practices, and made the decision to combine forces and formally create the “Lehman Eger Group.” Not only were they highly respected advisors in the office, but really great guys. We quickly found we shared the same vision and values. Having just teamed-up, there were a lot of moving parts, which is where we found the opportunity for me to join the team. During this same period, Patrick York had successfully built his own business. We always knew, liked, and respected each other. Finally, around 2017, it was clear we’d all be a great fit together. The rest, as they say, is history.
PPWP: What gets you really excited about this type of work?
DW: I get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing big, tangible wins for clients. When we are able to show a client that we’ve saved them not tens but hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes, I love that. I also enjoy providing simple solutions for complex problems. One other thing I enjoy on the job is pushing boundaries. Often, a client may be “risk averse” but needs coaching around volatility. It’s risky to own certain assets – like stocks – that move around quite a bit each month but it’s also risky to not meet objectives. The latter can happen when clients don’t take enough risk over long periods of time. It’s easy to avoid risk but sometimes it’s necessary to meet long-term objectives. One of our jobs is to coach clients on why this makes sense.
PPWP: Where do you see our industry going over the next 10 years?
DW: This is one of my favorite questions. I think all the talk of Robo advisors and AI is great. Our clients have complex situations. Sometimes incredibly complex. Technology, at least for services like robo advisors, is serving a client base where we might not be able to add a lot of value. In fact, that technology might help people early in their wealth accumulation journey and we fit when at a different point. I think technologies like this ultimately give us scale, and help provide value to a broader investor base.
There are also some big tailwinds that I’m excited about. We have the largest retiring population in our country’s history. At the same time, some advisors themselves want to retire. So we have the most retirees on record being serviced by a shrinking advisor population. Not only will we have the opportunity to help more families, but we’re also very focused on partnering with like-minded advisors to help in this mission. I think this will be an inflection point for the industry. Now that we’re operating as an independent advisory firm, I think we’re incredibly well positioned to serve our clients in this changing landscape. I couldn’t be more excited!
PPWP: Thanks for your time Derek!