The co-founder of the US wealth management organization wants it to endure for many decades; he challenges the notion that a business's longevity equates to stodgy or dull. Eric Becker has written a book exploring the recipes for business endurance.

A co-founder of US multi-family office Cresset wants the firm to endure as an employee-owned organization for 100 years or more. And the succession plan is already being put in place.

Eric Becker (main picture) co-founded the firm along with fellow Chicago businessman Avy Stein in 2017; it now boasts more than $70 billion in client assets. Cresset recently merged with Denver-based investment consultant Monticello Associates, as analyzed here by our US correspondent. As a result, Cresset is on target to reach nearly $200 billion in assets. Prior to Cresset, Becker co-founded Sterling Partners (1983), a value-added, growth private equity firm that raised eight funds with over $5.7 billion of capital. At Sterling, Becker served for 32 years as senior managing director and co-chairman of the operating committee.

Becker argues that long-lasting firms don’t deserve a reputation for being old-fashioned and out of touch. Often, their ability to endure for such a period points to their resilience and willingness to get ahead of developments. 

A keen student of business and business history, Becker has written a new study, The Long Game: A Playbook of the World's Most Enduring Companies. In writing it, he pored through the histories of major organizations and said lessons from such firms inform how he views Cresset and wealth management in general.

“Our society is appropriately fascinated by the innovation economy…and interested in in the power of disruption. We should also be hearing from organizations that have lasted for more than 100 years and stood the test of time,” Becker told Family Wealth Report in a call.

There are misperceptions about long-standing companies, for example, claiming that they are “stodgy,” he continued. “But in their DNA is adaptability and resilience. We don’t give them credit for that.”

“We want to build a 100+-year employee-owned business,” he said.

The wealth management sector is full of firms stretching back decades and centuries. BNY dates back to the 1780s; JP Morgan, Bank of America, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co are old; Goldman Sachs dates to 1869. There’s an “institutional memory” that such an age conveys. 

Becker and Stein are already thinking of eventual succession. In April 2024, Cresset appointed former senior banking figure Susie Cranston as chief operating officer and president. (Her most recent role was COO and head of integration for JP Morgan Chase.)

“We have already been building our next-gen leadership,” Becker said. 

In July, Cresset updated its C-suite team: executive managing director Mike Silverman was named chief investment officer. The previous CIO, Jack Ablin, was promoted to chief investment strategist, and the chief compliance officer, Amy Hong, added the COO role to her responsibilities.

Becker spoke to FWR at a time when the North American and wider wealth management sector is going through a considerable amount of M&A activity and consolidation, some of it involving private equity money. In some cases, the sellers are seeking exit routes so that they can retire. Venerable names can eventually disappear as they are absorbed into the buyers’ brands.

Moments of truth
Becker argues that companies, like the individuals who run them, have “moments of truth” – whether to enter a market, leave one, invest, save, expand into a new field or change in some way.

“That is one of the most powerful things in the book and I have applied it to my own life,” Becker said. 

The wealth management industry has had its “moments of truth,” demonstrated by the shifts from wirehouses to more fiduciary service models, for example, a more recent one is the adoption of AI by firms. “We are already seeing tremendous innovation in our teams,” he said.

FWR asked Becker what he thinks about the constant focus on wealth managers' shift into private market investments, with developments such as widening access, “democratizing” the sector and the rise of so-called “evergreen,” open-ended fund structures.

“The incredible growth of alternative investments in our business is an opportunity and a concern,” he said. “There will be low-quality payers that shift into distribution,” he said. “We have to be very careful.”

Becker’s book, published October 14, is published by Rodin Books and runs to 184 pages.