Brighton Jones says it manages $30B with no outside capital

Brighton Jones says it manages $30 billion across 28 markets and has grown without private equity or other outside capital. Its Form ADV filed Oct. 8 with the SEC reports $18.9 billion in regulatory assets, a separate measure from the AUM figure the firm cites. The $30 billion figure comes from a Nov. 2 WealthManagement.com profile of the firm's ownership structure.

Jon Jones co-founded the firm 26 years ago with Charles Brighton after both left Deloitte, WealthManagement.com reported. They built a "personal CFO" service around a client's whole balance sheet rather than the investment portfolio alone. Jones said Goldman Sachs announced a business line of the same name in October 2024, which he took as a sign the firm was on a new growth trajectory.

The two figures measure different things. AUM as a firm states it and regulatory assets on Form ADV are not the same quantity, so a comparison that mixes them will misstate the gap for a principal benchmarking against Brighton Jones or any peer. Asking a peer or a seller for the Form ADV number puts both firms on one definition.

More than 135 of the firm's 316 employees are owners, according to the profile and the filing, about 43% of staff if the two counts are read together. The filing also lists 3,808 accounts, which against $18.9 billion of regulatory assets works out to roughly $5.0 million per account.

Jones said the firm can hold the employee-ownership strategy for another 26 years and beyond if it keeps bringing on the right advisors and support staff. WealthManagement.com reported that the firm's plans include becoming a 100-year firm.