Ritholtz Wealth Management, the registered investment advisor with more than $5 billion in client assets, has moved its Chicago office to The Salt Shed, a multi-purpose creative hub in the city’s Salt District, which will serve as a second headquarters.
In 2018, the Chicago team, which includes advisors Jonathan Novy and Brian Rosen, Vice President Anna Chaiken and Director of Client Services Colleen Parker, became the first group in a physical office to join Ritholtz, outside of New York. They ended up being the blueprint for everything the RIA has done since then, said Ritholtz CEO Josh Brown.
Now, they’re serving as the blueprint again, with plans to build out similar physical office spaces in the big cities where the RIA operates.
“Physical office space is going to be a key part of our strategy in attracting talent, in a way I don’t think most firms are thinking about. Most firms are thinking the opposite way,” Brown said.
“We’re really leaning into this concept of giving people a life in terms of how they work and not just having them stare at a clock and grind away on a laptop all by themselves,” he said.
The Salt Shed is the former warehouse space of Morton Salt, and has been reimagined by hospitality collective 16 on Center. It now includes a music venue, which, Brown notes, is not operational during the day.
The new Ritholtz Chicago office is decorated as a tribute to old Industrial Chicago.
The new Ritholtz office space was designed by artist and designer Laura Novy, wife of Jonathan Novy, a Chicago-based advisor with the firm, as a tribute to old Industrial Chicago, with vintage furniture, nods to Morton’s and artwork from local artists and galleries.
“This office is a statement about who we are and how we serve our clients,” Brown said in a statement. “This isn’t a bank branch. It’s a space that feels like Chicago — creative, raw, real. We’re building a wealth management firm that defies the conventions of this industry.”
The Chicago office currently has 13 employees, but there are plans for more. Brown said it would make most sense to add operations and client service associates, since Parker, who leads the CSA group on a firmwide basis, is there. In addition, the operations folks are typically the ones who need that human contact most.
Artist and designer Laura Novy, wife of advisor Jonathan Novy, designed the office in Chicago’s Salt Shed.
“These are people who we’re counting on to carry out tasks all day long. It can get really lonely just checking boxes on Salesforce, and not getting a lot in the way of day-to-day contact with people that’s not task-oriented,” Brown said.
“It’s a watershed moment for the firm to be building physical office space,” he said. The proximity of the people to each other each day and the support that comes as a result of that is something special, and I think it’s something we’ve forgotten about as an industry.”
About a year ago, Ritholtz opened a new office in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. Senior advisor Michelle Katzen and advisor Jordan D. Hanson lead that office.
This follows news in March that two Ritholtz executives launched Exhibit A, a platform that provides financial advisors with visually compelling charts and context. Michael Batnick, managing partner and director of research at RWM, is leading the venture as CEO. Matt Cerminaro, a research associate at RWM who has been dubbed ‘chart kid,’ is chief product officer of Exhibit A.
Also in March, Brown announced that he’s backing AI-powered prospecting and lead generation startup FINNY AI.
