Why I started Golden Tree
I spent the first part of my career inside big institutions: seven years at J.P. Morgan, from business banking to private wealth, then leadership roles at New York Life and MassMutual. I learned a lot there. I also learned what I didn't want to be.
Those places train you to run a script. Same approach, same pitch, whether it fits the person across the table or not. Too often the job was selling, not solving.
The other thing I kept seeing was that the professionals working for the same client didn't talk to each other. The banker said one thing, the CPA said another, the advisor said something else. Clients got tossed from one professional to the next, and nobody connected the dots. The client was stuck in the middle trying to figure out who was "more right," and a lot of the time they just froze.
I was part of it too. I'd refer a client to another professional and never hear back. No feedback, no full picture. I was stuck in the same broken cycle I was complaining about.
So in 2020 I started Golden Tree to fix that. One team that sees the whole picture, the books, the taxes, and the business decisions behind them, and actually talks to each other. When a client needs an attorney or another licensed specialist, we stay in the loop instead of handing them off and hoping.
We've grown by buying established practices. Any business owner knows that when the foundation and structure are strong, buying grows you a lot faster than starting from zero. It also means the clients of a retiring owner land somewhere that will take care of them.
Where I want this to go: the kind of strategic thinking the big consulting firms bring to the largest companies in the world, built for the middle-market and family-owned businesses those firms don't serve.
Erik Cascio
