Fortunate Synergy of an Incredible Team

The fortunate synergy of an incredible team is that intangible sweet spot that top managers like Maribeth Rahe strive to reach, and are driven to maintain. It’s an environment of collaboration which Rahe believes sets Fort Washington Investment Advisors’ team above the investment industry pack. 

Since taking the reins of the Western & Southern subsidiary in 2003, Fort Washington Investment Advisors President and Chief Executive Officer Maribeth Rahe has doubled her company’s assets and the size of its team. "We really work well together," she says. "It’s very collaborative. We do keep our eye on the ball. We do watch risk. We watch concentrations and pay attention to all the things that prudent investors should do."

Rahe built her Fort Washington team from 60 to about 120 members during the past decade, now with approximately $48 billion in assets under management. Her group is the largest manager of institutional assets in the Cincinnati region, assisting corporations, insurance companies, mutual funds, foundations and high-net-worth individuals. 

This well-oiled machine gives clients peace of mind in every financial environment. The success comes back to her team’s cooperation, "and we have the right culture," she says. "No surprises. Things happen. We talk about it right when it happens and you go into solution mode. You know, whatever it is you look back and say, ‘OK, what were the lessons learned?’ and hopefully, you improve."

Learning and adjusting comes with the territory. Rahe joined Fort Washington during an interesting time. "We were just coming out of the dot com bust and we had a few good years, and then of course we hit the great recession," she says. "Everybody in the industry slowed down and couldn’t help being impacted by what was going on in the marketplace, but we were very fortunate. We’ve always had our eye on risk and we’re conservative. We owned a lot of good securities to begin with and we were not forced to sell. We had a lot of liquidity so we were able to ride through, which is what we did and we tried to convince our clients to do the same thing."

Coaching clients has turned out to be a natural fit for one of Rahe’s newest team members in particular, whose first career was on a team of a different sort. 

"There was a huge change from catching footballs to being an investor," says former Bengals wide receiver, Steven K. Kreider, Ph.D., CFA. As of May 30, 2014, Kreider stepped into the role of senior vice president and chief investment officer for Fort Washington Investment Advisors and its parent company, Western & Southern Financial Group. 

"There’s no 30-second clock in investing," says Kreider. "In football you have to get the next play off. In investing, if you’re not sure, you can just sit there with your teeth in your mouth until you figure it out."

Kreider says his professional football days, which began with the Bengals in 1979, gave him the foundation to succeed in his permanent career on the trading field.

"The Bengals were always very supportive," he says. "And they really helped their players get ready for life beyond football. You got the message. In early meetings, I heard Paul Brown talk about a guy named Frank Ryan who was a star quarterback in Cleveland and completed a Ph.D. in math. Paul gave a lot of encouragement to us to think ahead. And you heard that story and said ‘Gee, that’s pretty cool. Why not me?’" Not one to shy away from extra or hard work, it was then that Kreider put his life plan into action. 

Barely more than 20-years-old, he added to his electrical engineering degree from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University with a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati. Kreider also pursued a Ph.D. in finance while playing for the Bengals. 

"As I went through my graduate education, they would write recommendations and they would make accommodations," he says. "We played in Pittsburgh on a Saturday when I had to take the GMAT, and they made arrangements for me to get up there on Friday night and take the exam on Saturday morning and then join the team on Saturday afternoon. They’ve always taken what I thought was a really healthy view of the player over the player’s entire lifetime."

Looking back, Kreider can see what felt like a setback after his eighth season on the professional football field was actually a perfectly-timed life change. "I think the Ph.D. was awarded while I was in training camp in ’87. I wasn’t sure, but I was on my way to separation then. I didn’t make the team in ‘87." 

Fresh out of football and excited to begin a promising new life, Kreider returned to Philadelphia and became a portfolio manager at the age of 28. 

"My father-in-law was diagnosed with throat cancer and they said he wouldn’t live a year," says Kreider. "So we just picked up our three little girls and went back, and he lived 17 more years." 

Blessings continued for Kreider’s family. A fourth child completed their brood and Kreider’s firm, in which he had become a partner, sold to Morgan Stanley.  

"At age 38, that made it financially possible for me to retire," Kreider says, dismissing the tempting thought quickly. "If you believe that your business makes the world a better place, then the work’s never done. I really love the business and if you can pursue the business in a firm that has a culture that puts the client first, you’re really in a good spot." 

Kreider considers himself in a great spot, recently moving back to Cincinnati to join Fort Washington Investment Advisors. "I tried to think about it like a client. I think if you do that, you can identify good growth opportunities like the one that’s here at Fort Washington. In particular, if you can get only one thing right in the investment management business, you want the incentive between advisor and client to be aligned."

This unique alignment is what sets his firm apart from the crowd, Kreider says. "It’s a business where some firms have a lot of conflicts to manage, let’s put it that way." At Fort Washington, the investments in their clients’ portfolios are the same as you’ll find in their parent company’s portfolio.

"We eat our own cooking," says Kreider. "I believe it’s the foundation for long-term investment success. If a security is too risky for our parent company, it’s too risky for our clients. If a security isn’t cheap enough for our parent, it’s not cheap enough for our clients. And so we invest alongside our clients. And that’s a really important incentive alignment. And what’s interesting is that as you look across the industry and you see these trillion-dollar behemoths, none of them can say that they have that."

Nick Sargen, the firm’s previous CIO, is staying with Fort Washington and has transitioned to the new role of chief economist and senior investment advisor. Kreider says that Sargen’s new role has been terrific for the firm and helps provide a seamless transition for him. Rahe says all is going according to plan. "I like being with a firm where there’s great growth potential," she says. "It’s very satisfying for all of us to see where we have come from and I think it’s deeply exciting to know where we are going."