Thomas Ruggie, ChFC®, CFP®, Founder & CEO of Destiny Family Office, joined Julie Cooling, Founder and CEO of RIA Channel, to discuss growing a firm to serve family office clients.
Destiny Wealth Partners is one of the fastest-growing RIAs in the country, with nine advisors and 30 team members in Central Florida. Ruggie started his own financial planning and investment firm four years out of college and now has four affiliated teams: Destiny Wealth Management, Ruggie Wealth Management, Nichols Wealth Partners, and Destiny Family Office.
While Ruggie doesn’t believe that he is great at sales, he has succeeded in growing his firm by keeping clients happy and doing the little things right. By keeping clients happy, Destiny is able to grow largely through word of mouth and client referrals.
Destiny Family Office serves 19 families who comprise 40% of AUM, with the remaining 60% of AUM coming from 932 households. Ruggie spends most of his time with family office clients, where he has built a niche of working with ultra-high-net-worth families that have large collections of exotic cars, watches, wine, whiskey, and sports collectibles. Ruggie seeks to do all of the legwork so that family office clients don’t have to work on their finances, as Destiny arranges for external tax and legal counsel. Working with family office clients demands significant offerings in alternative investments, where Destiny is able to offer direct investments in late-stage venture-backed companies to its clients.
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