Sustaining assets and building wealth over time—decades in the cases of many of its customers—is precisely the kind of investment strategy that’s distinguished Edward Jones for the last 87 years and led to its being named the Best Wealth Management Company in the North Bay in 2008 by NorthBay biz readers.
“Winning this award is quite humbling,” says Scott Holder, financial adviser and regional leader. “It’s fantastic that our clients feel that good about us to nominate us. The last six months haven’t been a great environment for firms like ours to operate in, so I think an award like this is recognition of the fact that we’re keeping individual long-term investors in our sights.”
A private partnership that’s grown into a global powerhouse, Edward Jones traces its roots back to 1922, when it was founded in St. Louis by Edward D. Jones, Sr., who tirelessly called on Midwestern farmers to build his clientele. Jones proposed to treat associates as partners and to offer fair, high-quality investments to clients. He was also a dreamer: He proclaimed that the firm would one day have more than 300 offices. Today, the company actually has nearly 11,000 branch offices and employs more than 30,000 people around the world, but according to Holder, it doesn’t feel like a giant corporation. “It still feels like a small company,” he says. “Our culture is a community of caring, and that extends to our associates, our clients and how we run our business.”
Edward Jones’ face-to-face approach to building business remains an integral element of the firm’s success. “We’ve always kept our mission of serving the long-term investor at the top of the list,” Holder says. “We serve clients of all sizes, and that’s helped us continue to grow and stay relevant even in the economy we’re faced with today.”
Another mark of Edward Jones’ success has been its aggressive attempts to diversify its workforce, a move that’s given the company a strategic advantage over more traditional, top-heavy asset management firms. “We want to build a diverse workforce in order to reflect the communities in which we operate. We’ve been striving to do that over the last several decades.”
The company’s operational philosophy is refreshingly straightforward. “We stick to what we do best: serving the needs of long-term individual investors,” Holder says. “The associates who work at Edward Jones reflect a lot of the same beliefs that our firm does. They want to work for a company that stays consistent with its culture and doesn’t change to suit the times. It sounds pretty boring, but it’s true.”
Boring, perhaps, but resoundingly successful; besides being recognized by NorthBay biz readers as the best company of its kind, Edward Jones was also named by Fortune magazine last year as one of the best places to work in America—a spot it’s occupied for some time.
“A market like this puts everyone to the test,” Holder says. “Our financial advisers are working longer hours and talking to more clients—and they’re doing so without losing sight of who we are as a company. Reinventing the wheel isn’t what you want to be doing when you have a formula that’s worked to provide value to your clients.”
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