2 min read April 2023 — Focus: spoke with Garrett Alton, executive vice president and southeast region president of Wilmington Trust, about his organization’s 99% client retention rate, a more collaborative horizontal business structure, and Atlanta’s strength as “the most diverse city in America.”
What have been some highlights for Wilmington Trust over the past two years?
We doubled in size from six employees to 13 in the last year. Several of those are brand new positions, so we really added to our staff quite significantly. The new positions are focused on client relationships, business development, wealth and investment advice, as well as tax and estate planning. We also added a fiduciary adviser/trust officer to work with our multigenerational families, and a senior private banker to assist our clients in leveraging their wealth appropriately. Many of these hires are filling positions we have never had in Atlanta before. Also, we are completely flat from a management perspective which encourages collaboration, teamwork and respect for individuals’ opinions and insights. Besides hiring new employees, we had a record-breaking new business year in 2021, with 2022 looking to break that record. Most importantly we pride ourselves on our 99% client retention rate! This is key to our success and empirically demonstrates our clients satisfaction and trust in us.
We are really excited that we just extended our lease for ten years in a penthouse suite in the Terminus Building. We are building a modern office and client space to serve our clients as well as creating an attractive and productive space for our team. The 2022 bear market has been a challenge for everybody, but we are clearly doing something right as our client retention and new business numbers prove. This is our 20th year in Atlanta, and our 120th year in business! We really needed to restart our business in Atlanta when I took over in 2020 to update and expand our team, rebuild/update our office space and to get out there and share our compelling offering to the ultra high net worth community, and we have definitely accomplished all those goals.
How does the horizontal business structure help your operations?
In the past, most clients worked with one individual. Today’s clients, especially the ultra-wealthy, want a team and company they can trust to deliver results for generations. A team is better to achieve this, rather than an individual advisor. The flat management structure of our organization achieves this by focusing our resources on our client-facing team of experts, and it is very attractive to our clients. It is an institutional type approach, so they can see the vision of how their family legacy will continue on to their grandchildren and beyond, and they can feel confident in Wilmington Trust down the road.
What is your role in the current economy, especially if there is an economic downturn?
It is a challenging time to be in a bear market/recession for everyone. People need a long term, generational plan, and they need to keep it on track. Markets change and that is temporary, but the fundamental principles don’t go away. We have to be in that trusted advisor role to deliver on the high expectations our clients expect of us, so we are obligated to our client’s best interests at all times. Sometimes that means giving them advice that they don’t want to hear, and that is a hard place to be. It can be tough to make short term decisions over a long-term timeline. Asset valuations and allocation change, and there are opportunities to harvest tax losses, which can put clients back on track. The stock market is the only place where people don’t buy when it is on sale. This is contrary to everything we know, and it can be a dangerous place to be without a professional team. Another thing, we only deal with ultra-high net worth clients with a minimum of $3 million net worth, while other firms are more one and one and deal with less wealth. We are oriented toward what our clients are looking for, and I think you will keep seeing a separation between these bigger and smaller clients. It is getting harder and harder for big firms to provide these types of services with a personal touch, so that is where we shine. Our job is to keep people on track.
What makes Atlanta a great place to do business?
It is a phenomenal place to do business. Atlanta is the most diverse city in America. It is a melting pot of different cultures, but the diversity is real, especially in the city. Atlanta is thriving. When you put this all together, there is some of the best collaboration and creative thinking, and we are a very charitable community. People here give back tremendously and that is important. When you combine all this with an amazing business community that includes Fortune 500 companies, many technology startups and infrastructure, then the results are amazing. This is a great place to do business.
We need to continue being the city we have always been. There is some amount of division, but Atlanta will continue to be the city that works together and makes progress. We have big disparities with wealth levels in our city, and we need to work together to raise the tide for all ships. We are going to get there and find new solutions. It will not be easy, and it involves some hard choices, but we have the chance to continue to be a place that businesses and people want to move to. Our educational institutions are tremendous, and we have a lot of technology focus and infrastructure which leads to innovation. The startup and entrepreneur culture are strong here.
What are you excited about moving forward?
We are very dedicated and committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which will help to build a community for all. My team represents our market perfectly in terms of diversity. Our business is known for not being diverse in all aspects, and we hit the right balance. It fits well within our corporate infrastructure that we can give back to the community, because we are living and breathing our creed in public.
For more information, visit:
