Every advisory firm talks about culture. It shows up in recruiting decks, on website about pages, and in conference keynotes. But ask most firm leaders to define their culture with specificity — to explain what it looks like in practice, not in principle — and the answers get vague fast.

Eric Kittner, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Moneta Group, has a definition that cuts through the noise: "Culture is not a mythical figure. It's the sum of your behaviors — what people do when no one is watching."

That single sentence contains more practical wisdom about building advisory firm culture than most leadership books. Culture is not a mission statement. It is not a set of core values printed on a wall. It is the accumulation of thousands of small decisions made by every person in the firm, every day, without anyone looking over their shoulder.

In a recent conversation on the Next Mile podcast, Kittner explained how Moneta has built and maintained a distinctive culture while growing to significant scale — and why he believes culture is the single most important factor in a firm's long-term success.

Why culture is a competitive advantage in wealth management

In most industries, competitive advantage comes from proprietary technology, unique intellectual property, or network effects. In wealth management, the core product — financial advice — is largely commoditized. Any advisor can buy access to the same planning tools, the same custodial platforms, and the same investment models.

What cannot be commoditized is how a firm operates. The speed of decision-making. The quality of internal collaboration. The way an associate treats a client's phone call when the lead advisor is unavailable. The willingness to flag a problem before it becomes a crisis. These are cultural outputs, and they are nearly impossible for a competitor to replicate.

"When everyone is aligned, the culture thrives, and that has a direct impact on client satisfaction," Kittner said.

This is not soft talk. Firms with strong cultures retain advisors longer, which means clients keep their relationships intact. They attract better talent, which means client outcomes improve. They make faster decisions, which means the firm adapts rather than stalls. Every one of these translates directly to revenue, retention, and firm value.

The elements of culture that actually matter

Talk to enough firm leaders and patterns emerge around what separates firms with real culture from firms with aspirational culture.

Shared values that are practiced, not just posted

Every firm has values. The question is whether those values show up in daily behavior. At Moneta, Kittner ties culture directly to observable actions — how people treat each other, how they handle disagreements, how they prioritize client needs over personal convenience.

The test is simple: if you removed the core values poster from the wall, would a new employee still be able to figure out what the firm values by watching how people behave? If yes, the culture is real. If no, it is marketing.

In-office connection and mentorship

One of the more contrarian positions Kittner holds is about the value of physical presence. Not as a mandate or a surveillance mechanism, but as a catalyst for the kind of informal learning and relationship-building that cannot happen over video calls.

"There's no substitute for shared culture, mentorship, and in-office osmosis," is the principle at work here. Junior advisors learn by watching senior advisors handle difficult conversations. They absorb the firm's standards by being in the room when decisions are made. They build trust with colleagues through the informal interactions that happen before meetings start and after they end.

This does not mean remote work has no place in advisory firms. It means firms need to be intentional about creating the conditions for cultural transmission — and that some of those conditions require proximity.

Developing talent, not just recruiting it

Many growing firms focus their people strategy on recruiting: finding experienced advisors and convincing them to join. Moneta invests at least as heavily in developing talent internally.

"We're not just recruiting; we're developing talent over time," Kittner explained. "Mentorship plays a key role here. We invest in our next-generation advisors, providing them with the tools and experiences they need to succeed."

This approach has several advantages:

• Cultural consistency. Advisors who grow up in the firm internalize its culture in a way that lateral hires may not.

• Loyalty. People who are developed tend to stay. People who are recruited tend to keep being recruitable.

• Pipeline predictability. Rather than depending on the external talent market, the firm builds its own supply of future leaders.

• Client continuity. Next-gen advisors can be introduced to clients years before a transition is needed, making succession seamless rather than disruptive.

The investment is significant — it takes years to develop a junior advisor into a quarterback capable of leading complex client relationships. But the return compounds over a career.

How culture breaks at scale

The uncomfortable truth about advisory firm culture is that it breaks easily. Every growth event — a new office, a merger, a leadership transition — puts culture at risk. The patterns that work at 50 people do not automatically work at 200 or 500.

Here is where firms typically stumble:

The "founder's shadow" problem

Many advisory firms are built around the personality and values of a founder. The culture is the founder. This works until the firm grows beyond the founder's ability to personally influence every interaction. At that point, either the culture is codified and distributed, or it dilutes.

The acquisition mismatch

When firms grow through acquisition, they often bring in teams with different operating norms, different client expectations, and different ideas about how work gets done. If the integration plan does not explicitly address culture — not just systems and branding — the combined firm can feel like two firms sharing a name.

The remote erosion

Remote and hybrid work creates real benefits for flexibility and talent access. It also makes cultural transmission harder. The casual conversations, the visible examples of how leaders behave, the in-person mentorship — all of these require deliberate effort in a distributed environment.

The growth-speed tension

The faster a firm grows, the harder it is to maintain cultural standards. Every new hire who has not been fully acculturated is a potential dilution point. Firms that grow faster than they can integrate are effectively choosing scale over culture — even if they would not describe it that way.

A practical framework for culture at scale

Based on what firms like Moneta have done well, here is a framework for maintaining culture as a firm grows:

1. Define culture in behavioral terms. Not "we value integrity" but "when we discover an error, we disclose it to the client within 24 hours, even if they would never have noticed." Behavioral definitions are testable, trainable, and observable.

2. Invest in development over recruitment. Make internal talent development a strategic priority, not a nice-to-have. Assign mentors. Create structured learning paths. Give junior advisors real client exposure early.

3. Use cultural fit as a hiring and acquisition filter. This means walking away from talented people and attractive deals that do not align. It is expensive in the short term and invaluable in the long term.

4. Create rituals that reinforce culture. Regular gatherings, shared decision-making processes, recognition of behaviors (not just results) that reflect firm values. These rituals are how culture reproduces itself.

5. Measure it. Survey employees. Track retention by cohort. Monitor client satisfaction scores by team. Culture that is not measured tends to be assumed — and assumptions about culture are almost always more optimistic than reality.

6. Protect it during transitions. Every merger, leadership change, or office opening is a cultural inflection point. Assign someone to own the cultural integration, not just the operational one.

The culture-technology connection

One underappreciated aspect of firm culture is how technology either enables or undermines it. When advisors spend hours pulling data from disconnected systems, assembling reports manually, or reconciling information across platforms, they have less time for client conversations, team collaboration, and the kind of relationship-building that sustains culture.

"The future belongs to firms that can blend empathy with efficiency," Kittner noted. "Tech should buy you time to be more human."

Connected data infrastructure, automated workflows, and unified reporting are not just operational improvements. They are cultural investments. They free advisors to spend time on the work that builds relationships — with clients and with each other.

Culture is the strategy

In an industry where products are commoditized, technology is available to everyone, and talent is mobile, culture is the last remaining durable advantage. It is the thing that makes a firm worth joining, worth staying at, and worth referring.

Building it takes years. Maintaining it at scale takes relentless intention. But the firms that get it right — the ones where people do the right thing when nobody is watching — are the ones that endure.

This article is based on a conversation between Kyle Van Pelt and Eric Kittner on the Next Mile podcast. Listen to the full episode: "How Moneta Group Builds Scale, Culture, and Connection Without Losing the Human Touch."

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