About Us
OUR BUILDING BLOCKS
Cornerstone is our life’s work — an ongoing process of developing great talent to best serve you. Like the needs of our diverse clientele, our capabilities are ever-increasing. The constant is our culture of providing leadership in a complex financial marketplace. In 2016, as a commitment to our employees and our clients, the firm became 100% employee owned through the implementation of an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). This means each employee/owner benefits from the long-term success of the firm. That success is rooted in our commitment to client satisfaction, aligning our interests with yours.
WHY CORNERSTONE? Quite simply, for our Insight. Influence. Integrity.
INSIGHT
INSIGHT
Cornerstone provide you specific guidance, not generic recommendations. Once we understand your situation, we design a portfolio that fits your needs. We are always following, but are not necessarily followers of, new market trends. Cornerstone is responsible for evaluating and implementing those that make sense for you. We are also accountable to steer you away from those that do not.
INFLUENCE
INFLUENCE
We construct tailored solutions for you. No one firm is optimal for all aspects of a full investment solution; we leverage our extensive industry experience to retain skilled third-party providers for you. We then manage these firms to help ensure not only that they meet your needs but also that you receive their “A-game.” We use our abilities to work with interested parties to help them make the decisions we want them to make in the best interest of our clients. We are constantly negotiating with hundreds of service providers on a plethora of issues including problem solving, service disputes, contract language, error correction, pricing concessions, underwriting and product access. The ability to enhance our clients’ experience is at the essence of influence.
INTEGRITY
INTEGRITY
We do the hard work, especially when no one is watching. Our teams are regularly working on your account and interfacing with your other service providers to provide proactive and thoughtful service. We tell the truth no matter how hard it is — Your best relationships are likely based on honesty. So are ours. When the hard decisions need to be made, our team will be ready to serve your best interests. Sometimes hearing the truth may be hard, but our advice is always based on thoughtful considerations regarding what is best for you.
OUR HISTORY
Cornerstone, with roots going back over 30 years, was founded on the same “client-first” philosophy that guides us today. Our initial clients were successful entrepreneurs who understood their businesses but did not fully comprehend the risks and rewards of financial markets. By partnering with an independent firm that managed a prudent process instead of selling investment product, their assets could be managed more effectively. From the firm’s inception, Tom Scalici and Skip Cowen realized there was a void in the investment business in providing fiduciary insulation and open architecture solutions. We were an early adopter of taking discretion (day-to-day management) and assuming fiduciary responsibility (legal authority) for our clients.
