S10 BARRON’S March 16, 2020
AMERICA’S TOP 1200 FINANCIAL ADVISORS 2020
Flexibility is key in wealth managementfor the ultra-
rich, says Josh Gully, co-leader of the New York–based
Gully/Schwarz Group at Morgan Stanley.
Within one family, there can be a wide range of ages,
economic needs, and financial knowledge, he says, re-
calling a client who sold a business for $80 million, then
asked the group to distribute $40 million of those pro-
ceeds to more than two dozen extended family members.
“Those 25 people couldn’t have been more different,”
Gully says. They ranged from a niece just out of college
“who was like a deer in the headlights when it came to
financial matters,” to a brother “who was equally suc-
cessful in his own right and wanted to talk about ad-
vanced topics around philanthropic goals and alterna-
tive investing.”
The group has purposely constructed a staff that re-
flects intergenerational differences, with advisors who
range from 26 to 58—including Gully’s daughter. “We take
a multigenerational approach very seriously,” Gully says.
Gully and Patrick Schwarz formed the Gully/Schwarz
Group eight years ago. The group now has some $3.5
billion in assets under management, serving 70 ultra-
high-net-worth individuals and their families.
Gully, 58, is pretty much a Morgan Stanley lifer,
having joined the firm in 1992, after business school.
Schwarz, 54, came to Morgan Stanley from Smith
Barney after the two firms merged in 2009.
Schwarz says his early stint in the U.S. Navy, where
he learned to both lead and listen to younger men under
his command, has served him well as a wealth manager.
“As a financial planner, you sometimes have to tell
someone in no uncertain terms, ‘You don’t want to do
that,’ or, ‘This is what you should do.’ And then in other
instances, it’s a discussion,” Schwarz says. “Clients pay
you to have an opinion, but they want you to listen. It’s a
balance.”
Because the Gully/Schwarz Group serves an ex-
tremely wealthy client base, it wrestles with more finan-
cial complexity than wealth managers who service the
merely affluent, says Schwarz. “It’s showing them how
to get to their goals by giving them a greater knowledge
of where they are,” he says. “And it gets harder with the
ultrahigh net worth.”—MATT MILLER
Photograph byVINCENT TULLO
$3.5B $30M $50M
Total Assets Typical Account Typical Net Worth
New York No. 29
JOSH
GULLY
Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management