Bilal Little, Director of Exchange-Traded Funds at the NYSE and host of the ETF Central podcast, sits down with longtime friend and industry heavyweight Bryan Staff.

As founder and Managing Partner at Merchant Investment Management, Staff brings deep insight into the independent wealth space, capital strategy, and advisor empowerment.

From Cornell to Capital Markets

Bryan Staff’s career kicked off with a detour. After graduating from Cornell in 1997 with plans to pursue law, the late-90s tech boom lured him into finance.

He cut his teeth at Brown Brothers Harriman, eyeing investment banking just as names like Salomon Brothers and Kidder Peabody still dominated Wall Street. They’ve since disappeared, but Staff’s trajectory was just beginning.

By the early 2000s, Byan had moved from capital markets into wealth management infrastructure. That shift led him to PKS, a small Albany-based broker-dealer at the time, eventually growing it into a pivotal utility platform in the independent wealth space.

Building PKS into a Backbone

PKS wasn’t glamorous, but it solved a very real problem.

As advisors broke away from wirehouses to form their own firms, many still needed to process commissionable business—insurance, bonds, and the like—requiring a broker-dealer.

PKS became their home.

Staff’s insight?

Don’t force products on advisors.

Instead, support them operationally. That pivot away from a traditional product-pushing distribution model into relationship management helped PKS scale.

He realized early on that these advisors didn’t want Wall Street advice—they wanted a compliance partner, not a sales pitch.

Scale was everything. With PKS operating on razor-thin margins—2 to 3%—Staff steered away from hiring a salesforce.

Instead, he leaned into partnerships with emerging players like Dynasty Financial and Focus Financial, who were aggregating advisors and needed a BD chassis.

PKS filled that gap and flourished.

By 2016, though, the model had hit its limit. Staff and his father, who chaired the firm, knew they needed a balance sheet to grow further.

They sold PKS to Wentworth, freeing Bryan to pursue a vision bigger than running a broker-dealer.

The Birth of Merchant

Staff's next chapter came from a confluence of relationships and timing.

Having worked closely with Dynasty and Focus, Staff joined forces with industry heavyweights Tim Bello, David Mrazik, Marc Spilker, Scott Prince, and Rick D'Amico to launch Merchant Investment Management.

Unlike Focus or Dynasty, Merchant carved a unique lane: minority, non-controlling equity stakes in RIAs.

Their goal was to partner with the best wealth managers—regardless of where they custody assets—and help them scale without selling their soul or control.

It wasn’t just money.

Merchant brought capital and capability: strategic debt or equity, access to services, and peer collaboration within a growing ecosystem. The vision was clear—support independent firms as real businesses, not just books of business.

Building an Ecosystem, Not Just a Portfolio

Merchant today partners with about 120 firms across the globe, with over $300 billion in ecosystem AUM. But that number only scratches the surface. The real story is the concentric-circle strategy they’ve deployed.

At the core are equity partner firms.

Surrounding them are services—regulatory compliance via AdvisorAssist, M&A advisory through Republic Capital, dealmaking through Finlink, and lending through Merchant Credit Partners.

The idea is that supporting growth holistically—whether through capital, operations, or strategic partnerships—unlocks far more value than equity alone.

Merchant has even started building out an asset management arm, adding product capabilities by sourcing strategies from top-tier managers for their partner firms and clients.

Capitalism, Inclusivity, and Second Acts

Throughout the conversation, Staff and host Bilal Little dig into a bigger idea: that capitalism, at its best, is naturally inclusive.

Merchant’s model allows advisors to believe in their own future, keep their independence, and still access the resources that used to only be available to large institutions.

That inclusivity extends generationally.

Staff is laser-focused on Gen 2: the heirs to clients’ wealth.

Without financial planning, insurance, and estate strategies, firms risk losing assets to whichever provider shows up at the right time.

Advisors who ignore succession and generational planning are, in Staff’s view, letting value leak out of their own ecosystem.

Beyond the Numbers: What Really Drives Staff

The conversation closes on a personal note. In 2024, Bryan was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. That changed everything.

Facing mortality brought clarity. Staff’s priority became legacy: his family, his partners, and the businesses he’s helped build. The experience reinforced his belief that happiness, purpose, and community—not just success—are what matter most.

His renewed mission is simple: build something lasting, give others the chance to thrive, and show up every day with gratitude.

Please note this article is for information purposes only and does not in any way constitute investment advice. It is essential that you seek advice from a registered financial professional prior to making any investment decision.