Wealthspire's client meetings are its recruiting office

Wealthspire's client meetings are its recruiting office. Benjamin Sullivan, an assistant vice president and financial planner at the New York-based RIA, began his run there in 2020 as an intern. At Villanova he studied finance, economics, and real estate; a prior internship at Beacon Bridge Wealth Partners showed him fee-based fiduciary advice and convinced him to steer clear of insurance, annuity, and proprietary-product sales. Zach Gehring, now Wealthspire's New York City office lead, helped him land the spot.

That summer, Covid-19 wiped out many of his classmates' internships. Wealthspire moved its program to a virtual format and ran it anyway. Sullivan, who now helps run the internship, told InvestmentNews the program centers on real client meetings, with interns mostly observing rather than handling trades and meeting prep. A deck or a reading list teaches a newcomer only so much, he said; what lands is seeing the work applied to a real client's situation. The eight-week virtual stint still connected him with multiple advisors and internal teams.

Sullivan returned full-time after graduating in 2021, earned his CFP, and advanced into an advisor role. He took the firm's decision not to cancel as a sign of commitment to the next generation. His own path—intern to AVP, now helping to run the program—shows the model can work. The arrangement carries a real advantage: eight weeks of staff time and a seat at the table lets the firm watch a future advisor handle client work before making an offer.

A resume can't tell you how someone behaves in front of a client. The open market offers no equivalent preview. Wealthspire's version has a built-in test—the client meeting—and Sullivan is the evidence that passing it can turn a summer hire into a career hire.