Episode summary
Ep 513: The Path From (Unpaid) Intern To CEO Of A $3.4 Billion Advisory Firm with Neela Hummel
Financial Advisor Success (Kitces)
· · 1 hr 31 min · Hosts: Michael Kitces · Guests: Neela Hummel
Summary
Neela Hummel describes a career path that moved from unpaid intern to CEO at Abacus Wealth Partners, now a $3.4 billion RIA with about 1,550 client households and roughly 68 employees. She says she entered financial planning almost by accident after leaving software engineering and law school plans behind, then discovered fee-only fiduciary advice as a way to “do well by doing good.” From there, she first became indispensable in paraplanning and software work, then gradually earned client-facing responsibility by helping senior advisors with notes, projections, and follow-up work.
As her confidence grew, Neela shifted from support work to leading client relationships, then to learning how to close business and eventually source it. She says the hardest part was moving from being the most responsive person in the room to building leverage through delegation, especially once she was managing a team and had a child at home. Her approach to growth leaned heavily on trust, feedback, writing, and relationship-building with clients, CPAs, and estate attorneys.
The later part of the conversation turns to firm evolution: as Abacus grew and added partners, she helped push toward more professional management, standardized client service, and a clearer management layer. She also describes starting a women’s initiative and building team standards that could scale beyond one advisor’s style.
Key takeaways
- Neela Hummel says Abacus grew to about $3.4 billion in AUM, 1,550 client households, and roughly $26 million in annual revenue on track for the year.
- She says her earliest advantage was using technical work, notes, and live projections to make senior advisors more effective before she was fully client-facing.
- Neela says it took about six to seven years before her business development efforts became meaningfully repeatable.
- She argues that in advisory work, trust comes before sales and that the best growth engine is still client referrals and professional relationships.
- She says the hardest career transition was learning to delegate and stop being the single point of responsiveness once she needed to manage a team and source business.
Notable quotes
“We manage about 1,550 client households and are about 27 advisors and four associates and a couple of paraplanners”
“I was like, "Wait a second. Like you can sit on the same side of the table as your client”
“I wanted to be the Michael Kitces of financial planning, you know? I wanted to know as much as I could, and then I wanted to figure out how to close business”
How the episode opens
Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitces to hear stories of how leading financial advisors 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 Kitces. Welcome everyone.
Welcome to the 513th episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Neela Hummel. Neela is the CEO of Abacus Wealth Partners, an RIA based in Santa Monica, California, that oversees $3.4 billion in assets under management for 1,550 client households.
What's unique about Neela, though, is how she rose through the ranks of Abacus from starting as an unpaid intern to becoming CEO, giving her a valuable perspective on what it takes to build a successful career within the same firm. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Neela was initially attracted to the financial planning industry based on its ability to make a meaningful difference in clients' lives, even though she didn't have an academic background in financial planning, how Neela started gaining client-facing traction within her firm by offering value to more senior advisors, for example, by managing technology and taking notes during client meetings, and how Neela built the confidence to take the lead on client relationships herself at a relatively young age, in part by being responsive to client needs and leaning into her technical expertise. We also talk about how Neela made the jump to become a leader at the firm, first by learning how to juggle client and team management with the impetus to source new clients, how Neela later became the firm's chief of advisory services and started to help the firm's leadership professionalize the firm and its processes, and how Neela eventually became the co-CEO at the firm, finding that this two-person leadership structure was helpful in navigating major transitions for the firm and in her personal life.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- career progression
- advisory firm leadership
- client management
- business development
- equity ownership
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Abacus Wealth Partners
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Financial Advisor Success (Kitces)
-
Helping Clients Who Want A Retirement They Can't Afford - Kitces & Carl Ep 203 -
The Top Factors To Consider When A Client Plans To Move Abroad, With Ashley Murphy -
Ep 515: Crafting Deeper Client Relationships To Drive Loyalty, Referrals, And Gain Career Flexibi... -
Key Rules And Pitfalls To Execute Qualified Disclaimers Successfully, With Dave Haughton -
Ep 514: Optimizing A $160M AUM Solo Practice For Client Impact Over Scale with Nick Ibello -
Value-Based Pricing And Charging As Much As The Market Will Bear - Kitces & Carl Ep 202
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.
