Episode summary
Ep 498: Hiring A COO And Creating Partnership Paths Early To Drive Enterprise Value On The Path T...
Financial Advisor Success (Kitces)
· · Hosts: Michael Kitces, Adam Van Deusen · Guests: Christine DeMao
Summary
Christine DeMao describes how Gibson Capital built succession and leadership depth long before today’s rush of private equity interest. Roger Gibson started formal succession work early, and the firm used a fiduciary-network structure to finance ownership transfers while preserving independence. That long runway let the firm test future leaders in a standing management forum, where emerging partners learned budgeting, hiring, culture, and other core decisions before receiving equity.
A central part of that system is a “role grid” that maps every major firm responsibility against each person’s decision rights. Christine says the grid clarifies who is informed, consulted, managing, or deciding, which reduces confusion in a distributed leadership model and helps the firm plan for retirements and role shifts. The firm also turned its partnership expectations into a document and short presentation that it shares with new hires and revisits in performance reviews.
Christine also explains why that framework matters personally. She left the firm once, returned years later, and after a severe burnout-related health crisis in 2022, she changed how she leads. She now emphasizes rest, delegation, and modeling healthier work habits, while the firm continues to prioritize fewer, larger clients and enterprise value over short-term growth.
Key takeaways
- Gibson Capital’s succession planning began 18 years before Roger Gibson retired, giving the firm time to develop future owners internally.
- Christine says the firm’s role grid clarifies who informs, consults, manages, and decides across every major function, reducing confusion in a distributed leadership model.
- The firm’s path-to-partnership framework requires client-first behavior, strong character, high job performance, personal development, and enterprise-value contribution.
- Christine says her 2022 health crisis changed her leadership style, pushing her toward delegation, rest, and a healthier standard for staff.
- The firm still targets about 50 clients per advisor and an average client size of around $13 million, reflecting a deliberate focus on fewer, larger relationships.
Notable quotes
“Roger was just way ahead of the curve. So, uh, he really began our succession plan process in earnest 18 years ago”
“they sort of recognized who are the people within the firm today who carry the work like owners”
“we refer to that matrix, that role grid, and that decision-making spreadsheet so that it's easy to say”
“clients come ahead of the firm, the firm comes ahead of the individual and professional commitments come ahead of financial rewards”
“I woke up one morning and literally could not get out of bed and called 911 and was taken by ambulance to the hospital”
How the episode opens
Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsus to hear stories of how leading financial adviserss navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business. And now, here's your host, Michael Kits.
Welcome everyone. Welcome to the 498th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Christine Deo.
Christine is the chief operating officer of Gibson Capital, an RAIA based in Wexford, Pennsylvania that oversees approximately $3 billion in assets under management for 200 client households. What's unique about Christine, though, is how her firm since its early days has taken an intentional approach to succession planning, including by creating a path to partnership document that clearly outlines what the firm is looking for in new partners. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Christine's firm has had four rounds of partnership offerings, which have included not only executives and senior adviserss, but also operations professionals as well.
How Christine's path to partnership document lists the prerequisites for becoming a partner, including embracing a client first. philosophy, having strong character, being effective in one's functional job, and adding to enterprise value, as well as other positive factors such as making intellectual or culture contributions to the firm, and how Christine's firm introduces this document to new hires early in their tenure to set expectations and to help color performance management conversations. We also talk about how Christine and her partners keep an open dialogue going to identify team members who might make good partners one day.
how Christine's firm cultivated next generation leaders by bringing them into management conversations on a regular basis before offering them a partnership opportunity and how Christine created a role grid to map out responsibilities across the firm which helps avoid pitfalls that can come with a distributed leadership structure.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- coo hiring
- path to partnership
- enterprise value
- leadership culture
- burnout recovery
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Gibson Capital
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Financial Advisor Success (Kitces), this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Kitces. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
