The growth of United Capital is a fascinating case study in how being early on a trend, M&A, technology, financial life planning, and a charismatic leader all came together to create one of the industry’s biggest and most innovative RIA firms. Today, we’ll take a deep dive on this story through one of firm’s longest tenured employees, Matt Brinker.

Starting at $0 in 2005, Joe Duran founded United Capital, and one of his early hires was Matt Brinker. Matt joined the firm when it had about $300 million in AUM and rode it all the way to $24 billion in AUM. He left after 13 years when the company was sold to Goldman Sachs in mid-2019.

Most recently, Matt was the chief business development officer and head of acquisitions for the firm.