By Lawrence C. Strauss
Elias "Yaz" Hassan launched his career as a financial advisor three decades ago, fresh off a sales job in another industry. Those skills would prove very valuable to him.
Hassan, 52, is now CEO of the Hassan Oldham Group, which manages $1.9 billion in assets under the Baird umbrella. The practice, which launched in 2010, is based in Murfreesboro, Tenn., 35 miles southeast of Nashville. It serves about 300 families with portfolios ranging from $250,000 to more than $250 million. Barron's spoke to Hassan about his investment philosophy, his role in the practice, and several of his teammates' responsibilities, among other topics. An edited version of the conversation follows:
Barron's: Where did you start your career?
Yaz Hassan: I graduated from college in 1995 with a degree in finance. Everybody I went to school with was going to work in banks as tellers because there was an economic slowdown going on. Instead, I went to work for a good friend and mentor in the printing business, and I helped him reorganize his company and the bidding process [for winning new business]. When I had done that, he offered me a job learning how to sell. I rode with a sales guy and really liked the whole mentality of curating a client.
How did you go from the printing business to working as a financial advisor?
When I was finishing college, three of us formed a team and entered the AT&T Collegiate Investment Challenge, which provided simulated accounts of $50,000 to invest for around six weeks. My team placed second in the country. We were written up in the Tennessean, a local newspaper, and a manager at J.C. Bradford, a Nashville-based brokerage and investment bank, reached out to me and asked if I had thought about getting into the business. So [after the stint in the printing business], I ended up going to work at J.C. Bradford in January of 1996, when I was 23. The firm was sold to PaineWebber in 2000.
When you switched fields, did you find working at that printing firm was helpful for building relationships?
Yes, I learned that listening is more important than speaking. You have to listen to what the client wants before you tell them, or try to sell them, what they need. That has always stuck with me. I also learned this while working in a little convenience store in Knoxville when I attended the University of Tennessee. Running that cash register and interacting with all different kinds of people, young and old -- it opened my eyes to the customer service side of that job. I learned that it can be a lot of fun.
Could you talk about how your team is set up and a few of the players?
Once Justin Oldham came on board in 2010, I really learned that I didn't need to be a control freak, and I empowered him to be the chief operating officer of the group. One of the people we added since then is Whitney Heckert, a former elementary school teacher. She works on our marketing and our onboarding and new client relationships. She has taken on a very expansive role along with Ashley Apanowicz, who has been with us for more than 10 years. They make a very good dynamic duo. In 2022 we hired Karley Rouse, a financial planner who has her Certified Financial Planner credential. So, now with Justin and I and the three of them, the team is a very cohesive unit.
When it comes to asset allocation for your clients, how much of that is your decision?
I'm the one who ultimately decides on the models that we offer to our clients. Justin, our COO, is implementing those models and helps me decide on the portfolio models. When it comes down to, say, our all-growth exchange-traded fund model, we work on it together, but I'm involved in all of the asset-management decisions, whether it's a $250,000 client or a $100 million client.
What concerns are you hearing from your clients?
Everybody is concerned about cybersecurity and identity theft. That is a hot topic. We don't fill our clients' inboxes, so when we do send emails, they read them.
We've really pushed hard for them to understand the new tax laws and to take advantage of what President Donald Trump did with the estate tax in the Big, Beautiful Bill last year. I'm proud that none of our clients will pay a death tax, and we've got plenty of clients worth over $30 million. While we don't make any money doing the estate work, we take care of all things financial. We really look at ourselves as a multifamily office.
What are a few key shifts you've made in terms of asset allocation for your clients?
I was completely out of bonds and completely out of international stocks for the better part of the early 2020s. I just didn't feel like the risk/reward was there to put money into those asset classes. But last year I started adding to municipal bonds in a pretty big way. And I started buying Japan and India equities pretty heavily, as well as a little bit of European stocks.
How big an allocation do you make to alternative investments, including crypto?
It's very low. At Baird, anybody with a net worth of more than $25 million is going to have a sleeve of custom structured notes, very conservative notes. For clients interested in crypto, I use a few crypto ETFs. But other than that, I don't do anything with alternative assets.
So, your asset-allocation approach centers on traditional buckets such as equities, fixed income, and cash?
Yes, 100%.
How would you sum up your approach to being a financial advisor?
I try to be very upfront. Good planning and process is way more important than picking stocks or picking investments. That's really the gist of what I do.
After 30 years of doing this, I've seen a lot of trash come and go as far as products and alts and private placements. So, ever since the 2008-09 financial crisis, what I have done is as plain vanilla as you can do it, and it has paid off.
Thanks, Yaz.
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March 20, 2026 09:30 ET (13:30 GMT)
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