Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Brown.
Chad, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My experience is rooted in the institutional investment space where I have provided fixed income, capital markets, and risk management services at some of America’s best investment firms– companies like PIMCO, UBS, and Wells Fargo. I’ve had the good fortune to work closely with high-profile clients to help them manage wealth, sell private businesses, access capital markets, and implement risk management strategies for large concentrated stock positions for more than twenty years now.
I also have an entrepreneurial background as a therapeutic drug patent holder, NIH grant author, and biotechnology company chief executive and board member, and I think those experiences on the other side of the table have helped me better understand our clients’ needs. I see The RG Bar Investment Group as a forward-thinking wealth management firm, but I think a great deal of our success has to do with an old-fashioned understanding of the people we serve.
My partners and team members here at RG Bar have been friends as well as valued business associates for a long time, going back well over a decade prior to the founding of RG Bar, and my story isn’t complete without some mention of them and my beautiful wife, who has always inspired me both personally and professionally.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Lots of struggles, no doubt about it, but I keep finding that the universe has a way of leading us to ever greater opportunities, of opening a door even as it’s closing another– we just don’t always realize it at the time, right?
I think the obvious recent challenge I had to face was dealing with my previous employer, Wells Fargo. Until recently, Western firms justifiably dominated the financial landscape, having earned a trust based on demonstrable concern for clients. Firms like Wells Fargo, Sutro & Co., and Dean Witter made Montgomery Street the “Wall Street of the West.” Bankers like Darius Ogden Mills, who founded the Bank of California and then personally guaranteed its assets after an old-fashioned run on the bank, and Los Angeles’s first banker, Isaias W. Hellman, assured that those traditions made their way all the way down the coast.
And then, in my view, Wells Fargo messed it all up. The bogus accounts were one thing, but there was so much more. And then, when they got fined for their mortgage business, that was pretty much the last straw for us.
The RG Bar Investment Group was founded as a throwback to those Old West values of trust, honor, and courage, and given the scope of Wells Fargo’s misdeeds over the last ten years, that’s basically been like starting from scratch.
We’ve done a great job dealing with that, though. RG Bar operates as a boutique investment firm, but we maintain the capabilities of the largest investment banks by way of strategic partnerships with both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Integrity is our brand, and we control that here without any sacrifice in capabilities. That’s been really important to me.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The RG Bar investment Group is a forward-thinking wealth management firm that provides private portfolio management and financial counseling to high-net-worth individuals and families both locally and around the country. Our mission is to be an indispensable partner to our clients by helping them to design and implement strategies that allow them to live life the way they want.
As far as how we actually manage money, I’d say that concentrated stock positions are a big thing with many of our clients. We often have to barbell their portfolios with those stock positions and a non-correlated sort of asset, which tends to be municipal bonds. It’s not exciting, but it’s the right thing to do. And then there’s the question, when do you sell some of your company’s stock? At an early stage, we educate our clients about building a plan and evaluating various potential life scenarios, so that way, when the time comes to sell, it’s not the first conversation we’re having about it.
Our clients tend to be executives of public and private companies and entrepreneurs, so that’s just reflective of the sort of consulting we provide. We incorporate an integrated approach to ensure that their business, personal and family goals all receive the attention they deserve.
Our clients strike me as very representative of the communities where we have our offices. Besides our office here in San Diego, we have an office in San Francisco, and many of our clients are the kinds of innovative thinkers associated with these places. Since founding RG Bar, we’ve found that what we do resonates with them for three main reasons– our personal approach, exceptional guidance, and memorable service– so we just keep focusing on those things.
What were you like growing up?
I’m a fifth generation Californian, and I grew up on the Central Coast. That means I grew up surfing, skating, skiing, shooting quail, fishing, riding motorcycles and barbecuing tri-tip… I guess the motorcycle thing has changed, but everything else is about the same.
Contact Info:
- Address: 12340 El Camino Real
Suite 300 - Website: RG Bar Investment Group
- Phone: 858.952.1847
- Email: brown@rgbarinvestmentgroup.com
- Other: www.rgbarinvestmentgroup.com
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
