Jamie Hopkins, Carson Wealth’s former spokesperson and managing partner of wealth solutions, has been off the road and spending more time with his family and in his community since leaving Carson in the fall. He’s says he's even doing yoga most mornings.
In September, he joined Bryn Mawr Trust near his home in Pennsylvania. It had been acquired by WSFS, a regional bank out of Delaware, less than two years earlier.
As CEO of Bryn Mawr Capital Management, the company’s RIA, Hopkins is overseeing the integration and development of wealth management capabilities from WSFS, Bryn Mawr and a team acquired from Bell Rock Capital in Rehoboth Beach, Del., into an RIA unit and family office under the BMT brand.
After just four months on the job, he said he’s also working to offer outsourced, technology-enhanced corporate trustee services to independent RIAs.
“Technology has allowed small firms and large firms to compete really well and offer really great services,” he told WealthManagement.com. “But when I look around on the trust services side of the world, I don’t see that many great firms out there.”
Earlier this week, Hopkins spoke with WealthManagement.com about the transition, his new role, meeting Richard Branson and the next-gen talent incubator he created.
The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
WealthManagement.com: Tell me about the move to Bryn Mawr Trust. How big is the wealth management business there?
Jamie Hopkins: We have about 300 people on the wealth management team. We’re at about $82 billion in assets under advisement and $8 billion -$9 billion in traditional AUM on the fee side. And we’ve got about $1 billion in brokerage assets with Commonwealth.
We do not have a hybrid RIA and broker/dealer, it’s all separate. We have a trust business, we have an RIA, and then we have a brokerage division that’s not affiliated with the rest of it.
WM: So the RIA isn’t new? I was under the impression you were helping launch a new RIA under Bryn Mawr.
JH: WSFS had some RIA capabilities that we’re combining with Bryn Mawr Trust, and then we acquired the assets of an RIA in August before I got here. So, it’s kind of like a WSFS, a BMT and an outside firm kind of coming together as one RIA.
Right now, it’s still a lot of pulling everybody under one brand, one mission and one shared vision because, as you know, RIAs all have their own flavor when they exist out there in the world, and I think we’re trying to respect that.
My vision for the RIA is to build appropriate systems and processes and a shared vision, but I do think that different locations might have a different flavor and personality. That’s just the reality of where things are, so I want to allow some of that personality to shine through.
WM: Were you brought in specifically to spearhead this combination effort?
JH: That’s one of the reasons I came in. When WSFS bought BMT, the president, the CEO and then the head of wealth all exited—two according to the deal structure and then one over time.
So, now Bryn Mawr Trust is the brand that encompasses wealth management and trust services, and WSFS is the banking services side of the house. They needed somebody to come in and lead the vision and strategy over the private wealth team at Bryn Mawr Trust.
The RIA portion of their business has been really strong, and part of my pitch was, ‘If you want somebody that can build that, I’m a good person. If you want somebody from the traditional banking side of wealth, I’m not that person.’
Being that they hired me, they seem to agree the RIA side is where the growth opportunity is.
But I’ve also been impressed by parts of the trust business, and I’ll probably be more focused on taking that out as a service to the industry than I thought I was going to be.
I think there’s been a strategic convergence in the RIA world, so building out that side is probably not going to be groundbreaking compared with what anybody else is doing. Technology has allowed small and large firms to compete and offer great services, so being a great tech, planning and investment firm is important. But when I look around on the trust services side of the world, I don’t see many great firms.
I think we can be more disruptive there than I thought when I took the job. I go around to a lot of conferences, and I think the companies out there offering corporate trustee services to advisory firms are limited in what they’re able to do. There’s a really great opportunity to push that business forward, kind of how the traditional wealth business has been over the last decade, into much more of a technology-oriented service offering.
WM: And how would that work?
JH: A family office comes in and says, ‘Hey, we have this $100 million client that works with us. We manage their investments. We don’t own a trust company, so we can’t be corporate trustee. And maybe we don't want to be a trustee, or the attorney shouldn't be because there might be tax ramifications. We need Delaware Trust or Nevada, and so we want to partner with you—you be corporate trustee, but we're still going to manage the assets.’
And that’s different from a lot of the previous offerings out there. They don’t want to bifurcate the two and often try to keep them together. We do a lot of that business today with family offices and high-net-worth clients, where we’ll step back and be corporate trustee.
It’s something we do really well. But historically, most of that has gone to ultra-high-net-worth clients. It hasn’t trickled down, especially in the RIA world. There have been people who’ve attempted to do this, and there are some partners out there. But there aren’t a lot that offer corporate trustee services at scale. I do think there’s a big opportunity to take what Bryn Mawr Trust does out to that group and partner more deeply with them.
Having been at Carson, looking around at trust providers when we added people, there’s a lot to be desired. And having been a consumer of that service, I can understand what people are looking for, which is going to be beneficial.
WM: How do you see your role here? Where else is your experience going to come into play?
JH: Long-term, I’d love for it to shift a little bit, but this year I’m focused primarily on two things. One is helping to set up a strategic vision for the firm; I’ve already kind of mapped out for the team where we’re going from here through 2026.
The other is building our brand. Bryn Mawr Trust has been around a long time, and we have a great brand in the area. But expanding that is a big part of my role.
Then eventually, my role will shift to recruiting. Implementing the strategic plan this year and next year is probably going to take some time.
Long term, great companies need great talent, and I think CEOs and leaders should spend more of their time focusing on that. To be totally honest, recruitment and development is where I’d like to spend all my time at some point. But for the next year, there’s a lot of technology, a lot of branding and a lot of organizational strategic things that need to get done first.
WM: How will this be organized between the outsourced trust, the in-house wealth unit and the larger ecosystem? How do you see all those pieces working together?
JH: It’s not a huge deviation from where we are today, but aligning more under the Bryn Mawr Trust brand. I’ve been public on that. The team knows it, and we’re making some changes there. We’ve started revamping our website and marketing materials, which probably won't be done until the third quarter.
The way I view it, Bryn Mawr Trust has been around 100-plus years. We have great longevity there, but we’re a trust company at our core, and we offer different services. And that’s how we’ll be more organized.
Right now, if you look at our website, we’re very entity-based. If you click on investments, it gives you three different entities you could invest with, and that’s the wrong way to approach it. We need to be service-based out to the world. If you come to us and want delegated or directed trust services, you’ll be able to engage on that side. If you want private banking services, which I also think there’s an opportunity to take out to the financial world, you can come engage us on that. And if you’re an individual, you can also engage us either on banking or on wealth management.
So, it will be organized as a top brand with services underneath it.
WM: You mentioned the importance of talent. Who are you going to be going after? What is it you’re looking for?
JH: One difference for us is that we’re regional. I want us to be the leading trust and wealth business in our footprint by the end of 2026, which I think can happen. We’re in Delaware; we’re in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the foreseeable future; and we’re going to stay in our area. We’re a community bank with WSFS at the core, and out of the 10 largest banks in our area, we’re the only one that’s locally headquartered, and that matters to a lot of our clients.
There’s an appeal in the local market for somebody who’s there, and to work with people who grew up in the same area and care about it and give back to the local community. So that’s where we’ll be targeting but, more specifically, we offer a broad arrangement in terms of service capabilities—we can do corporate trustee, we do tax filing, we do tax prep, estate administration, guardianship, special needs trusts, private banking, banking, investment management and all the way through. So we want to find advisors looking to be in a place that’s more of that one-stop shop. For some people, it may be too much, or maybe they aren’t interested in having that all under the same roof.
WM: Have you formally defined a target clientele?
JH: I’m still working on that part. One is clearly the people within our footprint. From a banking standpoint, we can work with almost anybody—our clients range from people who are setting up their very first college checking account to people with multiple billions under our family office.
From a retail standpoint, we have something that hits most people in our footprint. Within the advisor community, I can be a little bit more targeted. I do still think higher-net-worth and independent advisory firms are more likely to need corporate trustees. So, there are groups of firms that are more likely to need this type of service than others, but that’s still a little bit to be determined. Once we take it out to market this year, we’ll see who it resonates with better and then refine it from there.
WM: You mentioned 2026 earlier. What’s your game plan look like between now and then?
JH: Brand simplification and attracting some talent to the organization are both really important and getting a refined version of our technology stack or experience out there. That one is already in play. We’ve got a lot of technology pieces we’ll roll out throughout the course of the year that should enhance both our trust-as-a-service offering and our end-client tech experience.
That’s just where the world is today. Technology is allowing us to deliver a better product and service out there to end clients than it ever has before. I’ve paid close attention to that space over the last seven years, and I think there’s an opportunity for this organization to adopt some of that, get it out and enhance that experience. If I can do all three of those things over the next nine months, I’ll be pretty happy.
WM: What was it like for you coming to an older banking institution from Carson Wealth, which is known for being pretty cutting edge about its technology?
JH: [Carson is] definitely at the leading edge of technology. What it gave me is the experience of seeing what we looked at and what we chose to pass on, and there are some things we might have chosen to pass on during my time there that I think are actually great additions here. It's a different market and a different offering.
Hopefully when we’re talking in two years, Bryn Mawr Trust will have that kind of technology reputation in the trust world. That world is behind from a tech standpoint; I don’t think anybody questions that it’s not keeping up with the RIA and custodial tech worlds, but we can catch up quickly with some of the right adoption strategies. Carson built some proprietary stuff, but that’s something I have very little appetite for. I want to integrate the good tech that's out there, and I’m impressed by what’s coming down the pipeline.
WM: I saw a recent photo of you and Richard Branson on LinkedIn. Tell me about that meeting.
JH: Short answer, it was the best trip I’ve ever been on. It was a wonderful thing.
It was a group of entrepreneur dads in financial services and other professions. My small group had a manufacturer, a home builder and a data tech person. I got invited by somebody to this gathering on Necker Island, which is where Richard Branson lives, but you can also just book this resort and go there.
The whole first day was about being a dad, a whole day talking about what it’s like to be a dad and things that work for the family, how to talk to kids about feelings and reward things and some games people play with their kids. My wife and I have even put into place three of the things I learned from other dads.
Then the other two days were more traditional, entrepreneurship conversations about talent and technology. It was nice to hear the perspectives outside of our industry because I feel like all I ever hear is about RIA firms’ technology, versus a manufacturing company in the U.S. and how they’re competing in tech. So, I really enjoyed that.
Branson was really only supposed to come for 90 minutes, but he ended up spending four days with us—and he likes the group. He’s joined our text chat, and we text with him. Very surreal experience.
To be honest, it’s cool meeting Branson, but the dad stuff was the really impactful part for me. If I’d left after that day, I would still say it was one of the best uses of time I’ve taken in the last couple of years.
WM: I know you’ve continued to serve as president of FinServ Foundation, which provides scholarship and internship opportunities along with coaching and mentorship for young professionals in the field. How is that going?
JH: We have over 500 students now at 34 universities participating. Kate Healy and Danny Harvey joined the board, so we have two more great people.
I will be at the Fearless Investing Summit with Nitrogen, because they partnered with us, and take 35-40 students out there. The mentorship part of that’s been really impressive—Nabia [Jenkins-Johnston] does that, and she loves it.
It’s just been wonderful to see that up and launched and all these students moving through it. And now we have a bunch of people in the first cohort that are two years into their careers now. They’re now talking to other people, and people are asking them for advice. That’s pretty amazing. We always need mentors.
I do think we need more companies to reinvest back in long-term goals or long-term visions for next-gen talent development. Everybody wants advisors with 3-5 years of experience, and a lot of places don't have great development programs once young people get hired there. That's one thing I would like to see in the future.
But FinServ is a great program, and if people want to get involved or meet up at the conferences and meet the students or interview them, we're happy to help facilitate that.