Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

Welcome to Lay of the Land Weekly Impact.

This is the 2025 Smart 50 edition where I, Jim Haviland are speaking to people that Smart
Business thinks are pretty smart and trying to figure out how they got here.

So Bradley, thanks so much for making time today.

So you've been through a bunch of conversations already today.

Absolutely.

You've met a bunch of people.

a bunch of great people.

you're talking about your favorite subject.

I have.

It's my favorite subject is Clearstead and the smart people around me at Clearstead.

Brilliant.

Well, give me little bit of your story.

So you've been at Clearstead for nine years, something like that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just coming up on my 10th year.

Absolutely.

OK, great.

Maybe give me the arc for you.

Are you a native Clevelander?

Yeah.

came out of of Cleveland, not too far away, about an hour away.

So but I actually stayed in the area and went to John Carroll University for undergrad and
decided to stay on in Cleveland, Ohio I worked with some wonderful institutions Key,

National City PNC before landing at Clearstead, which was Heartland and Company at the
time right and Really been part of that growth story.

So again, we're we were advised on about 50 billion in assets 280 employees So we're
growing rapidly Offices in 12 different markets right now.

That's fantastic.

And I know I was looking at your

LinkedIn numbers, you guys have been growing pretty substantially from a headcount
perspective, but I mean that assets and their management must be rising even faster than

that.

It is.

absolutely right.

And really, that's just a piece of the story.

at ClearSted, we're very uh

Our mission really is to deliver holistic, fiduciary-driven financial counsel to our
clients, and it integrates financial planning, estate planning, tax planning, investments,

trust services, family office services.

So it's a major suite of services that we provide for the families we work with, and then
also our nonprofit institutional clients we're very proud of.

And is that what makes it particularly smart?

Obviously, there's nothing new about financial services, nothing new about family offices,
but...

all that together?

Is that what makes it smart?

What's the smart part?

I would say the smart part is again, number one, taking a founder led business and
transitioning that into a employee based uh owned organization.

We have 90 employee shareholders that are actively involved in ClearSted.

Are you an ESOP then?

You're not an ESOP.

Okay, 90 shareholder partner, you know.

Absolutely.

And I will have to say this was part of the DNA early on.

It was really to make sure that those people growing the business and trying to be

acting like owners and leaders with their clients that they're working with, uh or
actually had a piece of the ownership as well.

So my predecessors, uh Tom Hartland and Dave Fulton, I would credit that with those
gentlemen.

Yeah, I mean, think it's, you we always, as leaders, ask everyone to take ownership,
right?

I've actually seen that as a core value.

everyone takes ownership, but well, but I'm not an owner.

Let's solve that problem.

That's really been a

Important part of our secret sauce because it changes the dynamics it makes sure that our
advisors or consultants saw the different department leaders Really have skin in the game

number one.

Also, it means everybody checks their ego at the door It's all about the client making
sure we have a exceptionally well-run client experience that we're being giving our best

fiduciary counsel Again, it really aligns people's interest around what's most important
and frankly, that's the client and making sure that we're delivering

That's awesome.

I've worked with a number of law firms where there's a lot of partners, lot of owners of
the business.

How do you keep those two things separate?

your ownership stake versus where you sit in the org chart?

Yes, absolutely.

What's really important is, again, the way we keep them separate is we focus every day on
the client.

The ownership is secondary.

If we do right by our clients, if we do right by our colleagues, the rest will take care
of themselves.

we make sure that

What is most important is clients and teamwork.

Brilliant.

So what lessons have you learned that make you the leader that you are?

So obviously, you're doing well.

The business is growing.

You've been able to carry through the success of your predecessors.

What are some key lessons for you?

Yeah, number one is culture.

The most important, often talked about, but often misunderstood, I should say.

is culture and making sure that your partners are all aligned and have the same values,
have the same mission, have the same focus.

Because if those are not aligned, uh clients will see friction, employees will see
friction.

So number one is just really making sure there's alignment of culture.

You know, I think that's so important.

know we counsel that with our clients as well, that alignment, the point is alignment.

You can be right and still lose if they teach that at Wharton.

Well said.

it's by not getting everyone's buy-in.

And that's really what makes a difference.

Very much so.

Very much so.

Number two, if I could make one of the comments.

Yeah.

It's thinking multi-generational, long-term focus.

You think of some of the nonprofits that we work with.

Again, they're thinking about infinity, in essence, of how do we make sure that our
institution is run for many generations to come.

Same thing with a lot of the families we work with.

It's really to focus long-term.

So Clearstead is run to not think about short-term implications.

We focus on are we delivering the right service to clients long-term.

It all shakes out.

in the end, it'll all be fine.

We like to quote the infinite game on this.

Yeah, so that's great.

And what have you are there there mistakes that have happened along the way that have been
big educational moments for you?

There have been.

And I wouldn't just say for me, I would hope for all of our 280 employees would say the
same thing of, yes, there is a continuous improvement mindset at ClearStand.

It's always been that way.

And that also means it's OK to fail, just fail gracefully and make sure that we all learn
something from it.

But that continuous improvement mindset, I think is really important.

That creates the innovation machine that helps us always think about, we really exhausting
all possibilities when we're trying to find the right solution here?

If we're not stumbling sometimes, we're really not trying.

I love that.

so tell me about mentors for you.

When you think about where you've learned your big lessons, where does that come from?

Yeah, would say professionally, there's a number of mentors I've been able to follow in
some pretty big shoes here.

not only our chairman emeritus Dave Fulton who I've worked with for many years and have
lot of respect for him and Tom Hartland who started our firm, but I would say there's a

lot of in Northeastern Ohio, again a lot of people that were influential in my career who
really helped set me up for success and also gave a lot of positive feedback over the

years.

Some that are not with us anymore and some that are I would say a few, Sam Miller from
Forest City.

that family and the Ratner family have been really good to me over the years.

I'd say Bill Summers, who used to run McDonald and Company, was a wonderful visionary and
wonderful leader.

And I'm still in contact with Bill and I think the world of Bill and all the way to again,
there's current leaders in their business community, Umberto Fidelli, who's just amazing

with how much he gives back to the community and what he does to the business community
and nonprofit.

So there's a lot of he's very, very self aware about

about what he's doing and why he's doing it.

I know he's been on Lay of the Land a number of times and, uh cause we kiss, like
everything he says is gold.

Yes.

I'm just amazed at some of these people that I've just described it, how much, you know,
giving back to Cleveland and the Cleveland community is so important to them as much as it

is building their business.

They realize they have large shadows, large footprint, and they need to give back.

And that's very impressive.

Well, it's always enlightened self-interest as well.

The more we make

Cleveland a great place to be, easier to recruit people and it's more fun to be here.

Very much so.

Yeah.

Well, so what, do you need, anyone you need to thank for this particular recognition?

Is there anyone you want to give a shout out to?

I would just say Smart Business overall.

Again, I've started to get to know a number of the smart business folks and they've just
been wonderful to work with and get to know.

I think it's an important thing that they're doing here in our community.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's why we're here.

We align with the notion we have to make these stories learnable and present so that we
can all celebrate each other in our successes.

Well said.

All right.

Any closing words of wisdom for young entrepreneurs coming up?

I so, you know, let's feed it forward.

You've been successful.

You and I have got a little gray hair.

you have any favorite words that you would say to youngsters coming up?

Yeah, I would echo a comment I made just a moment ago of don't be afraid to fail.

Failure is part of the growth.

sometimes you got to really stick your nose out.

But I think what you'll find is you'll be handily rewarded for it.

All right.

Very good.

Thank you sir.

I appreciate your time today.

Thank you.

All right.