Meet 7 millennial private bankers winning over uber-rich clients at firms like JPMorgan, Citi, and Bank of America

A photo compilation of four members of the private bankers list
From left: Nicole Jackson Leslie of BBH, Louis Romeo of JPMorgan, Solenn Séguillon of JPMorgan, and Courtney Leffall of SVB Private. BBH; JPMorgan; SVB; Alex Ford/Insider
  • Earning the business of America's uber-rich takes creativity, persistence, and white-glove service.
  • For millennial private bankers, there's an added challenge of gaining boomer billionaires' trust.
  • Insider asked banks to select their top private bankers under 40. Here are seven up-and-comers.

Private banking is nice work if you can get it. The top 25 global private banks manage $29 trillion in assets, the advisory firm Aite-Novarica Group said.

But competition is fierce to earn the loyalty of the rich. Private banks typically target clients with at least $10 million in investable assets. There are 1.4 million such individuals in the United States, as estimated by Credit Suisse.

Landing these rarefied clients is challenging, especially if you're a millennial trying to earn the trust of a baby-boomer billionaire. Finding prospective clients takes creativity, such as rubbing elbows with yacht captains, making friends with top lawyers, and learning niche skills to stand out. To seal the deal, it takes comprehensive knowledge of sophisticated products, such as custom lending and estate planning, as well as white-glove service.

Insider asked top US private banks to nominate their top-performing private bankers under 40 who they believed went above and beyond for their clients while also attracting new ones. 

We spoke with client-facing private bankers from JPMorgan, Citi, Northern Trust, and more who have come up in recent years about why they got into the business and how they've built their client books. The banks involved would not disclose the book volume for the listees.

Meet our list of seven up-and-coming private bankers.

Michael Darby, 35

Headshot of Michael Darby wearing a suit and blue tie against a grey background
Michael Darby. Northern Trust

Senior vice president, managing director, Northern Trust

San Francisco

The UC Berkeley alum is tasked with serving high-net-worth clients in San Francisco and establishing Northern Trust's new Salt Lake City office 600 miles away. The capital of Utah, with its growing high-net-worth population thanks to a tech boom, is a priority for the $1.6 trillion firm.

Darby is known for solving unique problems for clients. For an environmentally conscious client in Salt Lake City, for instance, Darby's team provided customized financing so they could build the largest commercial rooftop solar array in Utah's history. 

"Solar financing isn't a core lending product for Northern Trust, but it was important to our client, and we found a way to get it done and help them," Darby said of the client's passion project. 

Before joining Northern Trust in 2018, Darby worked for Wells Fargo for almost nine years and in commercial banking, providing loans to companies that ranged from commercial real-estate developers to biotechnology firms. His experience working with middle-market and family-owned companies has helped him service his private-bank clients, he said. 

"A lot of our clients have businesses that they own," Darby said. "It was a nice fit because we support our clients on the personal side, but I already knew how to help them on the business side."

Sara Doutt, 34

Headshot of Sara Doutt, wearing a black jacket and white blouse, against a white backdrop
Sara Doutt. Citi

Senior vice president, central team leader, Citi

Dallas

Doutt has been a private banker at Citi for three years, and she's grown her book at lightning pace, the bank said. For the past two years, she's brought in the highest number of new clients to the private bank.

Doutt credits part of her success to being an avid prospector as an associate banker. Before she was promoted to the private bank, a lot of clients turned her down. Still, she would keep in touch for years by, for instance, sending research.

"It takes time to build trust and confidence," she told Insider. "Now it's three years later, and they're coming around because I hung around the hoop."

Personal touches, such as remembering a client's birthday or sending handwritten letters to congratulate them on having a child, are pivotal, she said. Even more so is being there to help with anything, such as finding talent for a business or even mentoring their kids. She helped a client's daughter who, like Doutt, was a college soccer player who had to give up the sport because of injuries.

"I mentored her and told her there is life after sports," she said. "I like to help others."

Doutt is also responsible for starting the private bank's next-gen advisory board for clients, and she cochairs the bank's LGBTQIA committee. 

"Growing up in east Texas as a female, a lesbian, and now in a male-dominated industry, you can imagine some of the challenges that I've been through," she said. "Giving back and bringing more awareness and making sure people are more accepting and understanding of each other is very important to me."

Courtney Leffall, 36

Headshot of Courtney Leffall, wearing a blue suit and white shirt, against a grey backdrop
Courtney Leffall. SVB

Director of private banking and wealth advisory, SVB Private

Dallas

The Dallas native first became interested in finance when attending an affluent high school. As a self-described "inner-city kid," he wanted to learn more about how to build wealth.

"I just got curious about what these people do with their money," he said. "It started with trying to understand a world I didn't understand at all."

Leffall, who has worked in financial advisory for 15 years, joined SVB Private a year ago, and he's already a top performer, with a $400 million-plus pipeline of in-flight opportunities across banking, lending, and wealth, SVB said. His clients are mostly executives or investors in the tech industry, who have special needs, such as private stock lending and loans for capital commitments. Once, Leffall had to help a private-equity partner get a $15 million loan in 30 days.

Many of his clients need help managing their new wealth after taking a business public or selling one. Founders, in particular, have spent little time focusing on their balance sheets while building their startups, Leffall said.

"They have a lot of concerns. 'Hey, should I buy a private jet? If I want to start a family office, how do I go about hiring people that are going to be able to help me?'" Leffall said. "One of the things that we've done well is tap into that niche of people who are ultra-high-net-worth on paper but are new to that world."

Leffall has also worked at Ameriprise, Apex Clearing, and USAA, the bank for US service members and their families. Leffall helped launch USAA's wealth-management office in Dallas and built a $100 million book of business in two years, SVB said.

Nicole Jackson Leslie, 35

Nicole Jackson Leslie wearing a beige jacket and black blouse against a white backdrop
Nicole Jackson Leslie. Browns Brothers Harriman

Wealth planner, vice president, Brown Brothers Harriman

Boston

Jackson Leslie knew she wanted to work with families and people from the time she was a student at the University of Virginia School of Law. 

"Corporate law and litigation never really spoke to me," she said. "I really wanted that interaction with families and helping them solve their problems."

A former private-practice lawyer, Jackson Leslie has been a wealth planner at Brown Brothers Harriman — one of the oldest private banks in the US — since 2018. She uses her expertise in trust and estate law to help clients with estate-planning matters, such as generational-wealth transfers, business succession, and tax efficiency.

Among her peers, Jackson Leslie is known as the "organizer" of her private-banking team, and she leads family meetings with clients. Family wealth can get quite personal, she told Insider, and it requires deep personal knowledge of the family.

"I have expertise on the planning side, but the interpersonal piece is just as important," she said. "They have to really be able to trust you and open up to you because in order for an estate plan to hold up over time, you have to know everything about the client and their family and their goals and values and motivations."

She is most proud of managing difficult conversations between different generations of high-net-worth families, she said. For example, her team helped bring together a client and her adult children after a dispute over legacy planning.

"The team at BBH really came together and helped her through what was a very overwhelming time for her, and we were able to facilitate some family meetings and break things down into more manageable chunks for her," Jackson Leslie said.

Before joining BBH, Jackson Leslie was a trust and estate lawyer at Choate, Hall & Stewart. She was also a volunteer for the nonprofit Boston CASA, serving as a court-appointed special advocate for foster-care children.

Louis Romeo, 33

Headshot of Louis Romeo wearing a navy suit and white shirt in front of a blurred background with a window
Louis Romeo. JPMorgan

Executive director, JPMorgan

Los Angeles

While most private bankers at JPMorgan start in that division and work their way up, Romeo started his career at the bank as a specialist in lending and investments after graduating from Cornell in 2010. Because of his grounding in products, he was asked to join the private bank five years ago to take over a book for a departing advisor.

To build on this business, Romeo learned the nitty-gritty of corporate executive compensation, such as strategies for exercising different types of stock options in order to minimize taxes. He's built a strong network of executives in Los Angeles by reaching out to corporations and individuals.

"It's a very niche segment in our business, and it's a very technical segment," Romeo said of executive compensation. "It's allowed me to stand out from a lot of my peers just because there is a lot of value I'm able to add."

He's also found clients through outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. The native Staten Islander didn't come out until he was 26. He's been able to build greater trust with clients by sharing his story.

"A lot of folks like me in that community experience a lot of pain and suffering growing up. There's a lot of hiding, nonacceptance, etc.," he said. "Having that to bond over has been a really big part of growing that part of my business."

Solenn Séguillon, 34

Headshot of Solenn Seguillon, wearing a navy suit and white shirt, in an office space
Solenn Séguillon. JPMorgan

Private banker, JPMorgan

Northern California

Born and raised in Paris, Séguillon was a professional violinist from the age of nine. She came to the United States 13 years ago and got her master's degree in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After turning 27, and having spent more than 20 years of her life dedicated to music, she decided she wanted to try a new challenge. 

Séguillon had enjoyed starting an ensemble, and she thought she would enjoy building a business from the ground up. She got her MBA from UC Berkeley in 2018 and joined JPMorgan's private bank after graduation.

"It just seemed like a fantastic way to have a connection to markets and be very entrepreneurial," she said. "You really get to build your own business and shape it the way you want but the added cushion of working with a very large global firm with endless resources."

Since inheriting a colleague's book two years ago, she has quadrupled it, Séguillon said, but she declined to disclose its size. Séguillon specializes in working with tech entrepreneurs and founders in the Bay Area and supporting them before their liquidity events. She said her team helped one client save hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes by gifting stock well before he sold his business.

"What was interesting was working with this client for such a long time before the acquisition," she said. "I think it's about building trust before and advising them without trying to sell a product."

Paul Yates, 37

Headshot of Paul Yates, wearing a black suit and white shirt in front of a grey backdrop
Paul Yates. @chrisheadshots

Senior vice president, private client advisor, Bank of America

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Yates graduated with a finance degree at the worst possible time: December 2008. A few months later, on Valentine's Day, he walked into a Bank of America to cash a check from his grandmother, and he asked for any job available.

He got a job as a part-time teller, and 13 years later, he's a top performer at the private bank, growing his book by 65% in 2021, Bank of America said. Located in the yachting capital of the world, Yates' team has extended more than 20% of the entire private bank's yacht-loan volume, the most of any team at Bank of America.

Yates has been a "sales shark" since he was a kid, selling massages to family members and Creepy Crawler toys to his elementary-school classmates. 

Even as a bank teller he embraced this mentality. In his first month, he converted 40 clients from cashing checks to opening an account. After six months, he was promoted to personal banker, and he joined the private bank in 2015.  

Yates grew much of his book by rubbing elbows with the yachting community, from captains to brokers to owners of superyachts. He's gotten many referrals from customers satisfied with yacht loans, he said. 

"The yachting community is a very small community," he said. "Your name and reputation is the only thing that holds value in the community."

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