Jorge Bernal

Jorge Bernal, SageView Advisory Group

In June, SageView Advisory Group announced its appointment of Jorge Bernal as chief operating officer and tasked him with stewarding the firm’s plan to accelerate its growth as a provider of comprehensive wealth management solutions for individuals and families. Bernal joins the firm after serving as co-head of advisory services for Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management. 

In 2021, SageView announced a strategic and financial partnership with private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners. Owing somewhat to this relationship, SageView has acquired six firms since a year ago July and plans to continue its expansion through this December. Bernal will play a key role in the execution of that vision. PLANADVISER recently spoke with Bernal. 

PLANADVISER: As a professional with significant experience on the wealth management side of the business, can you speak to the connections between retirement plans and wealth management services?

Jorge Bernal: Retirement and wealth are most definitely complementary, from our point of view. First, the economics are complementary, and it’s a natural evolution in the marketplace. Consider this current moment of volatility. The fact that we can be there, as your adviser, and speak to your employees about their financial lives beyond the retirement plan is a real value-add. We feel we are uniquely positioned to be able to talk to clients in this respect.

Forgive me if I sound corny, but we’re rooted in doing what we feel is the right thing to do, and so we’re not just obsessed with watching the scoreboard tick up. We’re focused on how we can provide the best value for the clients we serve. They are the core of our success. During tough times like this is when you earn your keep as the adviser. So, to provide services beyond the 401(k) plan, it’s just the natural extension of what we’ve been doing historically at SageView.

Speaking about our talent, we have advisers who are quite competent at serving both sides—retirement plans and wealth management clients—but that’s not really our end vision. We want our plan advisers to be laser-focused on their plan sponsors, and we want our wealth managers to be laser-focused on the individual wealth clients. There are skill sets that cut across, but dealing with a DC [defined contribution] plan with 50,000 people in it is very different from sitting down with an individual and discussing his potentially significant wealth. That nuance is important, and it means we’re basing our strategy in the team approach. 

That’s the beauty of our approach. We have great advisers lined up against each of those channels. I can say the level of trust and commitment here is just fantastic.

“We want our plan advisers to be laser-focused on their plan sponsors, and we want our wealth managers to be laser-focused on the individual wealth clients.”

PA: How do you see further merger and acquisition activity feeding into SageView’s mission?

Bernal: The first thing to emphasize is the importance of cultural fit. That’s the top priority in any transaction. We’re being so, so selective in whom we may ask to join us. We clearly have some lofty aspirational goals we want to achieve. 

Our conviction for enacting more deals is based in the knowledge that having the right talent and the right partners is critical. We need advisers to want to be here. For us, that means we have a need to ensure we have the critical infrastructure that advisers can leverage—everything from the dedicated compliance support service to HR [human resources] support and everything on the client service side. We want to make this the place to be. We want to build.

PA: How do you expect that the partnership with Aquiline Capital will support this vision?

Bernal: Our having a strong PE [private equity] partner is incredibly important for our future. In my short time, I’ve already seen how it’s been an incredible partner. This is an advantage we may have over others. [Aquiline] has shown through its words and actions that it’s going to let this team do what needs to be done. 

It trusts our CEO and founder, Randy Long, completely, and that was a huge factor in my making the decision to come here.