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Episode 164

On this week’s episode of Next Mile, I sit down with Kristina Baron, Co-Managing Partner and Managing Director at Oxford Financial Group. Kristina started in the industry as a high school intern in a financial advisor's office and later worked at Goldman Sachs before joining Oxford. Today, she helps lead a team that serves roughly 700 families across the country.

We explore what it takes to coordinate advice for families whose needs span investments, estate planning, taxes, trusts, outside advisors, and multiple generations. Kristina shares why understanding a family’s values should precede any solution, how Oxford structures teams and communication to make complexity manageable, and why continuity depends on giving younger generations a voice. We also discuss data integrity, connected technology, practical AI applications, and Kristina’s concerns about how consolidation and pressure for new revenue streams could reshape the RIA landscape.

Key Takeaways

• Understand the family before designing the solution. Technical expertise only goes so far when several generations, advisors, and priorities are involved. Open-ended questions about values, concerns, and goals help determine what the family actually needs before specialists begin solving for it.

• Bring the next generation into the conversation before a transition happens. Continuity becomes harder when a family structure reflects only the founder generation’s priorities. Families can preserve important values while still giving later generations enough context and voice to understand, engage with, and eventually help shape the plan.

• Build the data foundation before expecting more from AI. Clean information and connected systems reduce manual work and give AI more useful problems to solve. The opportunity is to accelerate analysis and information retrieval while preserving human judgment and the personal interaction that complex families still value.

Quotes

"Facts help drive decision-making, but I think feelings and values drive even more important decision-making." ~ Kristina Baron

"We can't fool ourselves that we're the best at everything, so we need to work together as a team to accomplish it, and really understand what it is that you're trying to solve for." ~ Kristina Baron

"There's a way to still hold true to the values of generation one, while also allowing conversations and evolution into what's really important for generation two and beyond." ~ Kristina Baron

"There's a motto at our firm that some of us use, and it's, 'Let's ensure that we're never a hammer looking for a nail.'" ~ Kristina Baron

Links

• Kristina Baron on LinkedIn

• Oxford Financial Group

• Jeffrey H. Thomasson — Founder and CEO of Oxford Financial Group

• Morningstar Direct

• Goldman Sachs

• Kubota

• Marie Benedict

• What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

• Good to Great by Jim Collins

• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

Connect with our hosts

• Milemarker.co

• Kyle on LinkedIn

• Jud on LinkedIn

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Kyle Van Pelt