Nick Francia remembers his early days as a financial advisor at UBS when he'd enter a meeting with clients and clearly be the youngest person in the room.
Not infrequently, someone would remark on his age.
"They didn't mean anything by it," said the 36-year-old Francia. "But it's an insecurity that you already have walking into a room, and they've just highlighted it."
Francia's experience is common in an industry in which clients who have spent decades accumulating wealth are often accustomed to working with advisors who've spent nearly an equal amount of time helping them manage it. Even among advisors who've enjoyed early career success — such as those who made
Still, younger advisors say credibility isn't about age; it's about specialization, team support and being prepared to take on clients handed down from older colleagues.
In wealth management, time is the ultimate asset
Matthew Gallo is a 34-year-old Merrill broker who's at the No. 4 spot in this year's ranking, but he was just 29 when he
"And that was somehow going to be a barrier from building a relationship with a client that might be entering retirement," Gallo said.
In wealth management, longevity tends to go hand-in-hand with success. A book of business's strength is often directly correlated to the amount of time an advisor has put into building it and cultivating key client relationships.
Given the time it takes to stand out, it's little surprise that FP's top 40 rosters skew toward the upper end of the age bracket. The average age in 2026 is just shy of 37.
Yet plenty of brokers come in below that. Francia, Gallo and Ryan Bass, a 35-year-old at Raymond James, have all found ways to take what some might perceive as the liability of their youth and turn it into an asset.
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Younger advisors can build trust through expertise, teaming
With his 37th birthday fast approaching, Francia is almost exactly at that mean age of brokers on this year's 40 Under 40 list. His first appearance, though, came when he was considerably younger. He arrived on the list in 2021
Francia, who's risen to the No. 3 spot this year, started at UBS just over a decade ago. The real turning point in his career came, he said, when he received an invitation from a senior colleague to join a team specializing in
Francia said he quickly learned the best way to distinguish himself — and make his age nothing more than a number — was to master a specialty. The Capital ESOP Group, Francia said, is UBS' only practice dedicated to ESOPs, which compensate employees with ownership shares in the companies they work for.
"If we're focused on how you can be successful as a younger advisor, it's all that much more important to have a niche or to be able to focus on something specific, because that's what allows you to walk into a room, into a boardroom, in front of very successful individuals, and be able to speak about something that's different," Francia said.
Of course, it also helps to have a strong team, he said. The Capital ESOP Group now numbers about 15 members. Francia said most business owners built their companies in part by surrounding themselves with reliable partners.
"So I think when they look at our business, they see the same thing," he said. "Everyone has their own dedicated lane and role and responsibility. Everybody's an expert in their own right. Everything that they touch, they do it every single day. And so the clients feel that, like they know that they're well covered, because we've built a practice like a privately held business."
Bass, in the No. 7 spot in this year's
Now a member of Silverman Partners of Raymond James, Bass works alongside certified public accountants, certified financial planners and other experts to provide financial services to businesses and wealthy families. Bass himself specializes in working with high net worth clients, often helping them access alternative investments like private equity and private credit.
Bass was able to overcome misgivings about his age in part by emphasizing that current and potential clients would be working with his entire team, rather than just him.
"I didn't ever talk about me," Bass said. "I talked about the resources of the firm. I talked about … all the different specialties we have on our team, and just talking about others and kind of building up others. And I think that goes a long way from trying to be a one-man show, where you're trying to convince everybody how smart you are."
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Succession can give young advisors an early boost
Having family in the business who can usher you into the fold is a common way to get ahead quickly in wealth management. Matthew Gallo said he knew from an early age he wanted to be in the brokerage business from watching his father, Robert Gallo, who retired from Merrill in 2023 after a 40-year career at the firm.
Matthew Gallo had joined Merrill full-time about a decade earlier after working there for three summers in college. Yet, even with his family connection, he struggled early on.
"The first six months were really, really tough," he said. "In those days, you still had training programs and metrics to meet. I remember that being such an adjustment from school. I also remember in six months learning probably more than I did in four years of college."
Gallo, now the lead advisor at the Gallo Group at Merrill Wealth Management, also had to find ways to combat perceptions that his age and relative lack of experience made him ill-equipped to help longtime clients manage their money. Like Francia and Bass, Gallo said the crucial step was to show mastery of his subject matter.
"If somebody was coming to sit down with me, the first impression might be, 'Oh, this guy's young and maybe doesn't always know what he's talking about,'" Gallo said. "But my goal was to ensure, by the time they left the meeting, they'd feel really comfortable and maybe think, 'Wow, I learned something.'"
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Why youth is becoming an asset for advisors
Today, Gallo, Francia and Bass have all found reasons to consider their youth an asset. Part of that change in attitude comes from recognizing the advantage their age gives them in an industry in which many older advisors are expected to leave in the coming decade.
The research firm Cerulli Associates has estimated that roughly 110,000 advisors, almost 40% of the industry,
Gallo said clients seem to feel reassured knowing that younger advisors on the team are ready to take over from his father and other recent retirees.
"There are two sides to every coin," Gallo said. "So we asked: How can we, as a team, leverage anywhere where we can help, where we can add value, and the fact that our age may give us an opportunity to work with a family for a very, very long time."
Bass said the business owners he works with have usually put a good deal of time into deciding how they'll hand down their companies. They expect their financial advisors to have done the same.
"For them, it's often like they spent all this time building this beautiful business that they exited, and now they've got a tremendous amount of wealth," Bass said. "And we're doing all this planning for them. But they're asking: Who's going to execute on that and be there for the next generation?"
Francia, too, no longer views youth as a hindrance. He may not have hit his 40th birthday yet, but his 15 years of industry experience give him a well-established place in the industry.
Looking back at the start of his career, Francia said one of youth's most overlooked advantages is time. Your 20s, he said, are often the only period in your life when you can fully devote yourself to building a book of business and developing deep expertise.
"Yes, you're younger. Yes, you don't have the experience," Francia said. "But you have the most valuable asset, which is time on your side. You can choose to allocate that time to learn and be the best person or the best educator or the best communicator or the best anything."
"That's the decision you're going to make in your 20s," he added. "And that's going to set you up for your 30s, your 40s and your 50s."
