Left to right: Kramer Nelson, Thomas Keeling, Kristi Childress, Cody Lummus, Andrew Smith.
Today we’d like to introduce you to Cody Lummus, Andrew Smith and Kramer Nelson.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The three founding partners began their careers in arguably one of the most tumultuous economic environments that shaped the financial services industry. While it is hard to contest that the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 was challenging, it provided valuable lessons to practitioners on how wealth management methods of the past would no longer work in the future. Luckily for us, in hindsight, by beginning our respective careers during this profound crisis, we were able to see the need for a superior wealth management offering. What we collectively realized, out of the many lessons learned, is that investors didn’t understand how their assets were invested and how each investment served a specific purpose towards their retirement goals. In short, we found that clients weren’t being provided the transparency they yearned for, which resulted in significant financial damage during the 2008 crisis.
Like most individuals beginning their careers in financial services, we each set out on our own path with large financial institutions in hopes to be a valuable tool of change in the aftermath of 2008. Sadly, we each realized that the lessons blatantly provided from the crisis weren’t headed by large financial institutions. The behemoth practitioners which we longed to work for in hopes to be at the forefront of change reverted to the methods of the past. It was as if the further individuals and financial firms distanced themselves from the events of 2008, the less they remembered of the destruction that ensued and the wealth that was destroyed.
We aim to change that.
Delos Capital Advisors was formed with the belief that wealth management is about helping clients reach their financial success by understanding their goals and tailoring their investment allocation accordingly. We often like to say, “We are putting the power back into the client’s hands.” The methods of the past with product pushing and one-size-fits-all investment strategies are no longer adequate strategies for financial success.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road has not always been easy, but we have learned a lot along the way. Just as people and cultures evolve, we believe so should our industry and how we go about helping our clients achieve financial success. The greatest challenge may have been just getting started. Coming out of school during the financial crisis did not make things easy. We did learn from those around us, as we all had great mentors early in our careers that helped encourage us and show us where opportunity may lie even when things seem in disrepair. As bad as things were, I do believe entering the business during that time helped us gain a better understanding of why our business needed to change and the opportunity that laid ahead.
Our next biggest challenge was that the unfortunate events of 2008 didn’t just manifest in $11 trillion dollars of wealth destroyed, but the perception and trust of financial service practitioners were shattered. The scars of the economic meltdown, to this day, have remained a constant reminder of how fast one’s wealth was destroyed. This has caused many in individuals in retirement, or close to retirement, miss out on the best bull market we’ve seen. Through our careers, our biggest task and the warranted challenge has been to restore faith to investors by empowering them through education and understanding of how their assets serve them.
Please tell us about Delos Capital Advisors.
Delos Capital Advisors is a financial services firm that brings an institutional style of investing to the individual client. We operate through two main pillars; wealth management and asset management.
Our wealth management is unique in nature as we use an asset-liability methodology that relies on a detailed aggregated financial planning assessment known as our Capital Needs & Life Goals Analysis. The result of this process is a highly customized asset allocation that accounts for capital needs, life goals, and outside assets, which integrates into our asset management pillar.
The asset management pillar is run in an effort to give clients an institutional styled investment strategy that provides risk-adjusted returns to help clients achieve their Capital Needs & Life Goals.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Looking back, there are probably a million things we could have done differently. When you’re starting your own business, there is no guide or “right” way to do anything. In specific moments, there are probably things we wish we had done differently, but reflecting on it now, every decision we made brought us to where we are now, and we definitely wouldn’t want to change that. All we can do is learn from our decisions and make even better ones moving forward — it’s how we grow.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5950 Sherry Ln Suite 225, Dallas, TX 75225
- Website: https://www.delosca.com/
- Phone: (972) 810-6695
- Email: info@delosca.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deloscapitaladvisors
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deloscapitaladv/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DelosCapitalAdv
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delos-capital-advisors/
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