1) Shannon Eusey co-founded Beacon Pointe Advisors with her father 15 years ago and it has grown to $9 billion in assets under management, proving wrong a professor who gave her a poor grade on an MBA business plan for the company. 2) Eusey learned about the financial business from her father, a former naval aviator and financial services founder. She started the company with her father and eight employees before gaining clients. 3) Beacon Pointe Advisors operates independently and acts as a fiduciary for both private and institutional clients, working with a proprietary research team. It has over 100 employees and $2.5 billion in assets from acquisitions.

1. 88 ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL Local breaking news: www.ocbj.com MAY 15, 2017
she said.
Eusey attended the University of Cali-
fornia-Irvine, where she played Division
I volleyball and earned a degree in social
sciences and a minor in business manage-
ment. She then worked as a senior manag-
ing director at Roxbury Capital
Management LLC, which was based in Los
Angeles. She didn’t agree with its large
market cap-focused investment style and
thought instead of a “better, more holistic
way to help clients.”
Their Own Way
She completed her MBA, and then she
and her father decided to start their busi-
ness. Flint left one he’d founded, Canter-
bury Consulting in Newport Beach, a
registered investment adviser that now has
$16.4 billion in assets. Eusey and he in-
vested more than $1 million, including hir-
ing a consultant to come up with a name.
They chose Beacon Pointe, not for a geo-
graphical site, but because it symbolized
providing clients with “the clear direction”
to prosperity.
They had eight employees before they
even had clients. “In hindsight, we looked
stupid because we just had no revenue,”
she said. “Eight employees is a lot for a
company with no clients.”
Eusey, chief executive of the firm, was
confident it would succeed in the long run,
though, because “we had something special
with the model.”
The firm isn’t a broker-dealer and
doesn’t push its own investment products,
unlike Wall Street firms. Unlike other
wealth managers, Beacon Pointe is independ-
ent, works with both private and institutional
clients, has its own proprietary research team,
and acts as fiduciaries for clients. The 2008
financial crisis was its most challenging
time, because “everyone thought the world
was coming to an end, especially in the fi-
nancial market.”
The firm’s survival is a testament to its
strategy.
“A difficult market is really where you
make your money,” she said. “If you can
minimize volatility, you’re able to com-
pound wealth at a much higher rate.”
An indication of its conservative outlook
is its relatively high allocation of cash,
30%, of the $127 million in the firm’s only
two mutual funds. The Port Street funds,
named after the neighborhood Eusey grew
up in Newport Beach, returned 7.72% and
5.85% last year. She said the firm offers a
variety of other strategies to clients who
want higher returns.
About $2.5 billion of the firm’s $9 bil-
lion in assets under management is from
acquisitions.
Today, the firm has more than 100 em-
ployees in places like Arizona and
Philadelphia. It has picked up awards along
the way, including Forbes 100 Fastest
Growing RIAs and Barron’s Top 100
Women Financial Advisors.
She Has It All
Eusey identified with the awards lunch-
eon keynote speech by Markall Inc. Chief
Executive Robin Follman-Otta about a
woman trying to do it all.
Her husband, Rick, is a stay-at-home
dad, and they have four children ranging in
age from 10 to 17. In her spare time, she
teaches a class once a year at UCI on
wealth management. She also enjoys run-
ning marathons, including Boston, New
York and Berlin in recent years.
She said, “You can have it all if you pri-
oritize and you’re passionate about what
you’re doing.” ■
While taking an entrepreneurial class for
an MBA at the University of California-
Los Angeles, Shannon Eusey wrote a
business plan for a company she wanted to
start.
“I got a B on the paper; the professor did-
n’t think it would work,” recalled Eusey. “I
still have the paper in my desk.”
The professor clearly missed the mark,
because 15 years and $9 billion in assets
under management later, Eusey has made a
success of Beacon Pointe Advisors, a busi-
ness she co-founded with her father, Garth
Flint.
Eusey, 47, was honored on May 2 as one
of five winners of the Business Journal’s
23rd Annual Women in Business Awards
(see profiles of the other winners, pages 1,
6, 9 and 11).
“I was totally stunned” to win the award,
Eusey said afterward. “Looking at the in-
credible women in the room and the busi-
nesses they have built, I was deeply
honored.”
Weaned on Business
Her father, a former naval aviator who
flew in Vietnam, has a deep background in
financial services, including as a founder of
the Kidder Peabody West Coast Institu-
tional Consulting Services and as an invest-
ment consultant for Merrill Lynch.
“I grew up around the dinner table where
my father discussed how much he loved
this business and he loved helping clients,”
Beacon Pointe Co-Founder Proves Naysayer Wrong
By PETER J. BRENNAN
An A+ From Wall Street
Eusey: ʻGrew up around the dinner tableʼ
learning about business from her father
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