Episode 106 - Brian Wodar

In this episode of The Cannon Curve, host Phil Buchanan meets with Brian Wodar, the 2024 Fran Demaris Award Winner and Principal and Senior Client Advisor for Bessemer Trust Company. Brian shares his unique journey from earning a teaching degree at NYU to becoming a trusted advisor in the financial services industry, offering a fresh perspective on what makes an advisor truly impactful.

Drawing from his background in education, Brian explains why authenticity, empathy, and storytelling are just as crucial as technical expertise when working with clients. His success has been shaped by a strong coaching culture where listening takes precedence over simply responding. Brian also discusses the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, setting boundaries, and aligning your role with your strengths. His insights into client-centered communication and mentorship make this episode a must-listen for anyone seeking to grow both personally and professionally in the wealth management industry.

Resources:

Brian Wodar, Principal and Senior Client Advisor

Bessemer Trust Company

Fran DeMaris Award Winner 2024 Article

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Transcript

Greetings Cannon Nation. It is Phil here with the Cannon Curve for September, 2025. Today is a special episode. We have with us today, Brian Wodar. Bessemer Trust Company. Brian was the Fran Demaris award winner for 2024. Now, just a little bit of insight on that. The Fran Demaris award is given to the top performing trust graduate of the Cannon Trust schools.

Now in order to be a top performer one obviously has to have academic prowess. They have to have a commitment to the industry, and Brian Wodar represents this at the highest standards. Brian is a senior client advisor with Bessemer. And Brian, I am so pleased to have you here today, and I'm thrilled to be here.

I really appreciate that very generous description of me. I thank you very much. Brian, let me ask you this question. At age seven when little Brian was running around out in the yard and somebody said, what do you want to be when you grow up? I am guessing you may not have said.

I think I'll be in the wealth management business. I think I will. I'll be in the business of advising clients on the various challenges and issues they face at age seven. Did you ever dream you would be doing something like this? No. I don't think it was Even in my vocabulary, I don't think I had ever seen anyone who did anything close to what I'm doing yeah, that's a definite no.

Alright you know that being the case how does one find their way into an industry that you are obviously so passionate about that you not just deliver great client experiences, but you really excel at being a leader in the broader community of practice. What did that journey look like?

How'd you get where you are today? I definitely did not start down the finance path. I went to undergrad and got a degree in literature. I really wanted to be an educator and really, I don't, maybe not my 7-year-old self, but maybe my 12-year-old self wanted to be some kind of an educator.

And so I, like I said, I had a degree in literature. I wanted to teach college classes in literature and writing. And so I pursued that and I did that for, I, I ended up with a master's in literature. I ended up teaching college classes for five years and I really enjoyed some aspects of it, but not all.

And I really was at a crossroads with my career. I ended up getting an entry level position. With a company in New York and my title was Investment Planning Analyst. And I had to learn all sorts of things about all aspects of investing, of tax planning, of estate planning and really just stumbled on the role, stumbled on the career.

But over time I found it really it really spoke to. A lot of the things I enjoy doing. And I found that when I was doing this job well, I was still being an educator. I was still helping people to make better choices about themselves and their lives and that really felt great. And so I just kept at it for a long time.

You've given me a bit of insight into probably what makes you so impactful, and that is a background in literature and the experience in the classroom. I talk to executives in business all the time about the most impactful people. In their organizations. And I am continually hearing, and this is no bias against, individuals that have a degree in business or finance or accounting or law or what not.

But I hear time and time again that individuals with backgrounds in majors like literature or philosophy individuals that can. Package their thoughts and communicate them with clients in a way that is non-industry jargons, if that is even a term tend to be the most impactful people have. Have you, you mentioned that you find that you're still in the education business, but that whole process of storytelling and client engagement, you would have to say that the time in the classroom and the time with your first passion, your first love has to contribute to that, oh, absolutely. It's funny, I remember sitting in my, I'll go back to my 12-year-old self again. I remember sitting in my sixth grade math class and someone asked a question and the teacher gave an answer, and I think everyone in the room could tell that the answer just didn't land. That the student just, didn't have any more clue about how to tackle whatever we were looking at.

Than they did before they asked the question. And that kind of stayed with me. And then I remember being a teacher in the classroom and someone asking a question, and I would provide an answer and they'd have that puzzled look on their face. And I'd say, okay, let me take this from a different angle. And so I would try to give the same answer different ways for different people and that I found to be one really important part of communicating it.

It's not just. What is the factual answer? It's where can I meet this person halfway where they are so that my answer lands with them and they're able to move forward. And I definitely do that with my clients, with my teammates that, I do a lot of listening. I try to talk much less than my clients do when I'm talking to them.

I want to hear everything that's on their mind. I want to understand where they're coming from, and certainly I want to provide solutions. I want to help them take next steps. But I need to understand where I'm meeting them first before I can actually be successful in that. The last point incredibly powerful meeting people where they are.

It means that we have to communicate with them. About where they are. And it's less the story about us. It's less the story about our firm and all of our vast resources and capabilities. And it's more about an engaged conversation. And that's what you're describing right there, an engaged conversation.

And again, I go back to, to, to your teaching background. You are no longer the exception of individuals that we are seeing in our technical programs like the one you took the Cannon Trust School curriculum. We are seeing a lot of former teachers making their way into the industry.

For the exact reasons that, that you're describing. It's men and women who have developed a skillset of taking an issue and being able to describe it or engage with the client. In multiple different ways, multiple different tasks different perspectives that they bring to the table.

And that puts clients at ease, just like it puts students in your class at ease when you could explain it in their terms, not your own. That's a powerful tool, right? Oh, absolutely. And you mentioned jargon earlier. I, there I remember in my career I made the mistake of using jargon in.

Meetings with clients and you'd get that puzzled look on, they, you'd either get the puzzled look on their face where you, they know and you know that they don't want, they don't know what you're talking about or. They'd have a blank look on their face. Like I don't want to seem like I don't know what he's talking about, but I don't know what he's talking about.

And you really it, in whatever professional role a person has, there is jargon that they use in the office, and you just have to eliminate that when you're talking to. People who don't live and work in your office, it you have to meet them where they are. And if you can't and this is one of the critical things, I think for any professional you need to understand what each person's definition of success and failure is.

It's not necessarily what you think going into the rule, into the room. You have to ask, you have to find out. And then you have to attempt to help them get there. And that's a very personal thing. It's not just, what jargon makes the most sense. Yeah, I'll refer to that as the as the PhD quandary.

You and I have had professors, whether it was undergrad or grad school that we knew. They were subject matter experts in their field. There was no, no doubt about that. But you sat in the classroom, like you just described, the clients with this lost look on your face, and you're like, what are they talking about?

And then you had to go do your research and your studies and things like that. And more than that, that leaves a student frustrated. And the exact same thing happens in the wealth management field. But when you, you come across those individuals, and I'm going to put you in that category, when you come across those individuals that, that not only get the technical side of the business, and you obviously showed high academic achievement in in, in, in the trust schools, but.

Understanding the technical nature of the business doesn't mean that you'll ever be a great advisor if you can't communicate with clients where they are. And I just I think that is that, that's so insightful. Let me ask you this, you, you were an investment research analyst.

Boy, we can put a lot of buzz words together there. You made the you made the ultimate transition into the trust and wealth management field. How did that occur? Did you, I think you wound up going back to school, maybe getting a master's in finance. What was the story there?

Sure. Yeah. So I start, like I mentioned, I started at an entry level analyst role. That was in late 97 and I was really quite a novice in the whole wealth management field. So it made sense to me to go for an MBA. I was working in New York NYU has a great nighttime program and my employer was, had a generous package to help me go there.

So I did. And I learned a heck of a lot in the classroom at the same time as I was learning a heck of a lot. At work and the really, the, one of the main things that drove me in the direction I ended up going is that where I was working, we had a legacy analytical tool that was used to help people make asset allocation decisions.

And it was very useful for. Someone who was in their mid to late sixties thinking about retiring. They've got some personal assets, they've got an IRA and how do I do asset allocation around that. And it was helpful. But we started thinking about, okay, what if we're going to work with folks who have significantly more complexity?

What if we're going to work with folks who have significantly more wealth than that? And we needed an analytical tool that could really address. All of these aspects of charitable planning and estate planning and trust work and it, we just didn't have it. And we looked around to see if there was something like that in the industry and there wasn't.

So I, I spent three years building that tool, and while that was, a slog living in a spreadsheet, it also meant that I had to learn the guts of how this trust works and how that trust works. And how this charitable strategy works. And from that, I could really, I really gained an understanding of how all of these pieces work together.

And it allowed me to be in a position where I could advise people about really complicated things effectively. And that was really an important it was really an important seed that was planted in my head to allow me to continue growing in this direction. It, it is amazing. As I sit here thinking about it, it would've been very easy for you to get very what I refer to as wonky.

When you're designing technology tools when you're digging deep into the analytics. It would've been very easy to fall into that path. But it seems that. Something occurred along the way that caused you to realize something that Daniel Smith, who's the director of our personal trust curriculum references to all the time, and that is your clients are not a math problem to be solved.

They're individuals and families with very. Personal and real issues that a spreadsheet or a financial planning tool can assist. But the most important dynamic in that is the advisor that's engaging and doing the discovery. How did you avoid the trap of getting too wonky right there and leading down this this robust path of wealth and advice.

That is super easy to answer. I avoided the trap by falling straight into the trap. And I became that wonky guy and I remember that we had this offsite session where a senior member of the firm asked us to describe what we do, and we went around the room and we all did. And he said, great.

You're all right and you're all wrong because if you make this a story about math. Nobody cares. And if you make this a story about your client and their success then they care and you're going to have a client that's going to be engaged with you. And it was I certainly fell directly into that trap and.

I'm glad to say I had a, I had a lot of senior folks that I worked with who cared, not just about me, but cared about everyone around us that, how can we do what we're doing better? How can we be constructive? We've all worked with folks who might get a little angry or loud but most of the folks that I worked with were very much.

In the mode of being constructive and helping people to get better so that we could all be a better team. And there was a lot of mentorship that I had along the way that really helped me there. There was one time after I had done this analytical work and I was being released into the wild to go and speak to clients.

I remember the first day I'm in a car with a senior guy that I'm working with. We've just walked out of a client meeting and he goes, Brian, that was great, except that wasn't great. And here's all of the things that you need to do differently. And it's mainly stop answering questions before you know what the question is.

Listen, ask more questions. When you think you know what the answer is, maybe you don't ask another question. And so it was things like that where it was just, okay, don't. Don't hurry to show someone that you can solve every problem. Wait, listen, ask, listen more, and then solve their problem, and then you're a valuable member of their team.

So I, I found a lot of value from that, that two, two things about that really stand out to me. Number one, tell people this all the time. Slow down. In order to speed up. And by that I mean slow down and listen, understand all the dynamics that are at play, all the wants, hopes, wishes, dreams, fears, and then, and only then.

Be in a position to be a solver. And when a client feels that they are vindicated, that they are well heard, when they've got somebody that listens and then thoughtfully offers suggestions and ideas, they're very quick to make a decision to affiliate with your firm. But on the other hand, if. If all you do is answer questions, all you do is talk about yourself.

That puts client in a situation of asking the question to really understand me, or they just. Really good at what they do. So I think that part is wonderful. The second part that stands out to me is you found yourself in what I call a high performance coaching environment where. Peer coaching and peer accountability occurs.

It's not just, it's not just leadership. It's not just executive management, but it's an environment where, because of a passion for ensuring that the client is vindicated, is heard, is examining, we understand complete issues. It sounds like that that people were very comfortable not in.

Telling you what to do, but in helping you to think through how you can be more impactful. Did I hear that right? Yeah. Yeah that's absolutely right. I remember early in that process being on the one hand being really glad that. These folks were taking an interest in me improving in what I'm doing, but improving in what I'm doing means that I'm doing something inefficiently.

That's a kind way of putting it. And, that takes a certain amount of willingness to have your ego bruised on a pretty regular basis to, to say, okay I feel. I don't know about you, but when I was in my late twenties, early thirties, I felt like I was ready to take on the world. I knew everything and nobody needed to tell me anything, and I was wrong, and I was reminded that I was wrong about that on a frequent basis, and that was a difficult pill to swallow from time to time.

But look, life is a work in progress. I certainly don't know everything now. But I feel like I have the tools. To, like I said, to slow down and] listen and ask more questions so that so that, the technical knowledge that I have. And of course part of that is from Cannon and everything I learned in trust school, the technical knowledge is super important, but you have to know how and when to apply it.

And a lot of that is, like I said about listening and asking questions and being patient, like you said. I like that. Go slow to go fast. That's exactly right. Yeah. One of the things and you obviously absorbed this very well through our programs, but one of the things that I've challenged all of our course coordinators, all of our instructors, is when they are delivering content, and of course you went through the personal trust curriculum when they're delivering content.

It is it's incredibly important that we communicate the tax code and the types and uses of trusts and all of the, all the techno technical pieces that that go along with this business, but. The synthesis of that information and how you use that in conversations and when you use that in conversations is equally as important.

And just we've said this earlier, but just being technically proficient is. It isn't even half the game. It's a requirement. It's table stakes, no doubt. And boy did you, you absorb it exceptionally well. But it's that ability to put it into conversational practice that is so critical.

I've got a question now, Brian. So you, you were coached along the way and like me, you've come to the realization that the older you get, the more you realize how little you really do know, and that there is always something more to learn. Talk to me now about how you are coaching the next generation.

You are very involved in, your, what I call your broader community of practice not just inside your organization, but outside as well. How important has that been to you and how are you contributing back to that? Yeah. I think it's just echoing on something you said a moment ago.

As I was saying, when you're in your late twenties, early thirties, you're pretty sure that you know just about everything. You probably know very little. And when you get 20, 30, 40 years down from there, you realize that, you know very little, even though you know a ton more than you did 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah. The majority of folks that I work with are somewhat younger than I am, somewhat newer in the industry than I am. They all bring their own skills and passions, and I definitely do. Try to help them to be more effective in their roles and find a more effective work-life balance, which is now a completely different set of challenges because of the, greater emphasis on workplace flexibility, working from home and such.

And so some of the things that I. I encourage in my team and they hear me say this all the time, it is so much better to get a project done right and slowly than it is to get it done fast and incorrectly. I learned this myself very early on in my career when I, when a senior person asks me to complete a project and I did it super fast and super wrong, and he called me into his office and said.

Okay, Brian, you're new here and I like you and I really don't want to fire you. So do me a favor, take a day and get this right. And he was right. And I didn't get fired thankfully. But yeah, so there's that. And it's also that you really need to take control of. A boundary between your work life and the rest of your life.

My and. There's a lot of ways you can do that. And very simply you can do that by not responding to work emails, whether it's an internal work email from someone that someone that reports to you, someone that you to or it's a client email. Phone call, whatever it is, not responding to those outside of business hours.

Now, if there's an emergency, it's an emergency. It doesn't matter what time it is that's an emergency. If it's just a normal thing that someone happened to send you an email at about 10:30 at night, you really don't need to respond to that until the next day and it's my opinion. That if you have, if you're really a go-getter and you're working the, both ends of the candle and you're working the wee hours of the morning it's my opinion that if you send an email to a client at three 30 in the morning, they are more likely to respond to that as why are they working at three 30 in the morning?

So even if you are working at three 30 in the morning, and I super encourage you not to do that, but if you are. Good. Set it aside. Don't send the email to the client until nine 30 and they're going to think they're not going to have that impression that, there's something wrong there.

Yeah. Every action has consequences and perceptions are in the eye of the beholder. And you may view things a certain way, and it is interpreted entirely different. And you're so right. If it causes a client to question. Why are they doing this now? That's not the message that you're trying to get across.

And so I think that's a, I think that's a great example. Brian, let me ask you this. You again the Demaris Award winner for 2024. Set just a very high academic achievement. But you had some fantastic people supporting you for that nomination. And the CEO of your firm wrote a fantastic letter where he spoke to something that, that you've just referenced.

And that is, not just not just character as an individual, but as a contributor to colleagues and clients alike. And y that just says a lot about the individual that you are. And again, when we think, when we think mentoring, we always we always want to leave the rising generation in a in a better situation than maybe we were in early in, in my career.

Other than this issue of work life balance. Do you have another piece of the puzzle that as you look back on it now, you might say. I would've I would've tweaked this just a little different if I had the opportunity to replay tape one more time.

Sure. Yeah, there's I've gotten advice from a gentleman and I got this, I want to say maybe 15, 15 years into my career. Sounds about right. It might have been a little later than that. And his advice was this, do what you are good at and do what you enjoy doing. If there are aspects of your job that you're not good at, find someone else in the office who's good at it and have them do that part of the job.

If you are super successful in any job, whether it's wealth management, or otherwise. Every job has lots of different aspects to it, some of which you're really going to enjoy and excel at, and some of which I know how I work. If I don't enjoy doing something, I'm not going to excel at it because I'm not going to put my all into it.

But if there's someone else on my team, in my office who is capable and willing to do that, they should do that because they like doing it and they're good at it. So there is this, there's this kind of fork in the road when you get to a point and you say, okay, I don't know how to do that thing.

Should I learn to do that thing? And in my experience, if you take a few steps down that path and you're enjoying it, great. Learn how to do that thing and add it to your arsenal. But if you take a few steps down that path and you go, wow I really hate this is, I don't want to spend any time doing this, then don't.

Do let someone else take care of that, that so that I found that to be a really important kind of empowering set of advice because it really allowed me to focus on like I said, what I enjoy, what I think I excel at. And the reason I came to Bessemer, and this is not an ad for Bessemer, but the reason I came here is because I had been given a role that I really didn't enjoy and therefore I wasn't all that good at it at a previous firm.

And the role of senior client advisor at Bessemer really meets what if I could build my own job description, it would be this I'm working with clients who have complexity. And whether that's complexity from a very large family or very complex sets of trusts and partnerships and so forth. And they really need a team of folks who can advise them on how to continue managing all of this for the best benefit for themselves and their kids and their grandkids and great-grandkids.

And I really enjoy doing that. And that's what this job is for. And it's, it just, it. It just, I feel like I fit into this role just right, and I feel like this role fits me just right. When you're doing impactful work and you're passionate about that work it doesn't, there are days it's going to feel like work, but most of the days you're as energized late in the day as you were to begin the day.

It we all think about those voices in our head. I'm reminded I think I was. I think I was a junior in college, and I had been to a I wasn't certain what my, my, my life's arc was going to be at that point. And some will say I'm still not certain. But and certainly at that point, I wasn't sure what that arc was going to be.

And I had been to a career day and I was talking to my dad and I said, this shop sounds real interesting and it pays this amount of money, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember him saying, and I'm paraphrasing right here, but he said. Son, if you if you do a job for the money, you are working every day of your life.

But if you find out what you really are passionate about and enjoy, it's amazing how the money will follow you and it. Yes. Everybody's got the economics that they have to keep an eye on, but when you really do enjoy what you do, it is it's amazing the impact that has on you, not just intellectually, but emotionally.

And that's such a large part of a balanced life. There is to feel not only confident in what you're doing, but fulfilled in what you're doing. Yeah. I agree with that. I have a busy. Office life. I've got, a few dozen clients and one client is a family of, 12 or 20 people.

So a few dozen clients. There's actually a lot of people. And so there are times when there is a ton of things going on. Sometimes that ton of things going on is a giant pile of minutiae and sometimes. It is a small pile of extremely important, big, impactful events. And, but the reason I mention all that is that I do really enjoy what I'm doing.

So it's, it is very rare that I get home from the end of the day and I feel all stressed out. I might be tired, I might want to shut my brain down for a few hours. But not stressed because the things I'm doing, I enjoy. And that's, that's good for me. I hope other people are able to find that.

And again, just not to be a broken record, but by focusing, by building a career out of things that you enjoy doing you have that opportunity. Yeah. That is so true. I tell you the group that. Benefits from it as much as you and your family or your clients, because when you are fulfilled you allow yourself to always be in the moment with those clients.

And that's just, you're not all thinking about other things that you got to do. You're in the moment. And that's, that, that is so impactful. Brian, we always close the Cannon Curve with the same final question. We ask this of all of our guests you're familiar with it, having listened to other podcasts.

You've probably had a little bit of time to think about this, but if you of the Brian Wodar today could go back and have a coaching session, a counseling session with the 22-year-old version of yourself, and you could offer that individual. One piece of sage, wisdom and advice, what would that one piece of advice or wisdom be?

I've put some thought into this and I think I have my right answer. When I was 22, I felt like I needed to be, play a certain role when I was with my boss and a different role when I was with the clients and a different role when I was with my family. And my, so my advice to my 22-year-old self would be.

Forget about all those roles. Just be yourself. And the more you are yourself with your direct report, the people you report to, your clients, your family, the more you are that true self, the more effective you're going to be in whatever you're attempting to do. Whether that's simply, be happy with your family and friends or to be successful in your role.

So that's the advice I would give myself. Be your authentic self. That is sage advice. Brian Wodar it has been an absolute pleasure. Your perspectives, your insights, your accomplishments, the person that you have developed from this beautiful mosaic of a background is something to be respected.

And I'm sure that other listeners to the podcast will, reflect back on ways that they can emulate exactly the advice and counsel you shared. Thank you for being with us and thanks for having me. I really enjoyed this. Thanks. Brian Wodar, senior client, Emer Bessemer Trust. The Cannon Curve is a production of Cannon Financial Institute.

Executive producer of the Cannon Curve is Sarah Jones. Editing and mixing is done by Danny Brunner. This is Phil Buchanan, signing off for September, 2025. Thanking each of you for staying ahead of the curve.