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Founders · 3 min · Oct 18, 2026
Corient let employees help choose its brand name
Kurt MacAlpine
Partner & CEO, Corient
Built Corient into a $525B wealth manager with one compensation plan and one P&L across the firm.
David SenraHost · Host, Founders
Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016.
About this segment
MacAlpine opened the naming process to employee focus groups and held a partner vote on the finalists. Giving colleagues a voice helped them embrace the change.
From “Managing $525B & Building the World’s Largest Multifamily Office | Kurt MacAlpine, Corient”, Oct 18, 2026. Watch the full episode
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“every single person who wanted a voice in the process had a voice.”
Takeaways
- Employees could volunteer for focus groups on the name.
- Finalist names were presented under the same brand treatment.
- Partners voted, and colleagues could see their input reflected.
In this episode
Full episode- 5:22Misaligned advisor incentives leave clients with less expertise4:09
- 45:00He used long-term fixed-rate debt to fund the pivot4:56
- 1:00:20Corient fully integrates acquisitions on day one3:50
- 23:21Corient removes internal barriers to collaboration4:41
- 51:50Mubadala gave Corient a faster route to private ownership7:22
- 39:22CI's shareholder mix amplified its stock swings5:49
- 31:30Independent firms face a steep investment hurdle past $5 billion3:20
1:04:22Corient let employees help choose its brand name2:38
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 1:04:29
So, we're building the company. I need to pick a brand. And you need to pick a brand for the business. That can be an emotional thing for people, right? Entrepreneurs oftentimes will name the business after themselves, right? So, there's a, you know, it extends beyond just the name. It actually becomes personal. So, there's really kind of a lot of different ways you can handle it. But let's just say two extremes. One extreme is you pick a name and tell people what the name is, right? So call that the fastest pathway to an outcome, but the least collaborative.
- 1:05:00
of possible way that you can do it or the other end of the spectrum would be how broad can you go so i'll just tell you exactly how we picked the name accordion which i think is a pretty neat story so i did a talent hall across the firm and said look we're at a point now we're an immigration journey we need to name the firm and i have no idea what the name's going to be i don't actually care what the name's going to be but it's really important to me that everybody here who wants to be involved in the naming of the firm has a voice in ultimately doing so so i said look we're going to hire a third-party firm to help us with this. Our chief marketing officer and I are going to facilitate a series of focus groups. Anybody who wants to participate in a focus group can put their hand up. And the goal is ultimately taking an infinite list of names and narrowing it
- 1:05:43
down to finalists. So the firm was a lot smaller at that point in time. We had like 75 people participate in these focus groups. So we get all the way down to a list of finalists. We then had a firm mock up the finalist names. I ran a town hall across the partner group. My chief marketing officer presented the names. And branding's kind of fascinating, right? Because if you like, you know, a certain type of, if you like golf and you have a logo with a golf course behind it, you're more likely to vote for it than if you don't like sailing and you have a logo with sailing behind it. So we mocked everything up under the same brand. I did a partner town hall, we presented it, and I did a live vote, and we named the firm together. And the reason that was important was on day one, every single person who wanted a voice in the process had a voice.
- 1:06:26
It was totally transparent. Everybody knew where we were going. So on day one, when people were calling and telling their clients about the firm, anyone who was here had an opportunity to name the firm and be a part of it. So that those little decisions, one, it changes how people think about and embrace change. And I try to take that concept and apply it wherever we can. I think it leads to way better outcomes because you're just getting more people providing input. And people embrace the change better because they can see their input reflected in whatever you ultimately decide.