By Weld Royal
Kelly Gaur grew up in Michigan as the child of physicians who considered investing in the stock market a form of gambling. Gaur didn't challenge their perspective, and set her sights on following her parents into medicine. During her junior year of high school, she found that AP calculus made sense in a way that chemistry did not. A mentor helped her to think about her math strengths and how they would suit a finance career. Despite her parents' views on markets, Gaur took a job at JP Morgan's private bank, and then Citi's.
Along the way, her career path started to look too predictable and she worried about stagnating. "I didn't love that I could almost see it play out in 20/20 vision," she says.
On this episode of The Way Forward: Next Generation podcast, Gaur, now a regional vice president and shareholder at Mercer Advisors, talks about why she walked away from private banking in favor of the RIA model. She shared why she thinks splitting business development from client service makes sense, and why the industry is especially promising for those who like analytical rigor. "If you are technical, if you like math, if you're interested in taxes, do not rule this out as a career," she says. "There are so many different ways you can take it."
Career pivot. After several years in private banking, Gaur thought about making a move and began talking to others in related fields about what they liked in their jobs. A private-equity investor asked about the possibility of becoming an investment advisor. The question jolted her into investigating the world of RIAs.
She realized the field offered something the big banks couldn't: A personalized approach and a model where all the moving parts -- tax, estate, investments, planning -- could be offered together. Plus, the analytical rigor required for incorporating topics including tax law, estate planning, and pending legislation, appealed to her.
Gaur's career journey led her to Mercer Advisors, a firm with about $95 billion in assets under management. Her job is to find prospective clients, get to know them, and match them to an advisor whose experience fits their situation.
She might connect a Microsoft employee in New York with a San Francisco advisor who has a client list full of Microsoft clients. She might pair a Manhattan entrepreneur with a Michigan-based advisor that is highly knowledgeable in business ownership issues.
You can't take shortcuts when building a relationship with prospective clients, says Gaur. "Your balance sheet and your cash flows tell 1% of the story," she says. "Your emotions and your passions tell the rest of it."
That view shapes how Mercer approaches organic growth, too. Golf outings may work for some clients, but they don't appeal to others. Her team is holding an event with a women's venture capital organization that includes wine and watercolors. "Wherever our clients are, we'll meet them there," she says.
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 20, 2026 06:45 ET (10:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
