Sports taught Shannon Eusey to enjoy “a little bit of combat” from those with different viewpoints.
“Offering the freedom and the capacity to be able to step in and offer a little bit of combat … that’s the kind of challenge an athlete loves to have,” Eusey recently told a podcaster.
Eusey, a marathoner who was a scholarship volleyball player at University of California, Irvine, used her sports mentality to build Newport Beach’s Beacon Pointe Advisors into the largest female-led registered investment advisory in the nation.
Since she won the Business Journal’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship award last year, her firm has boosted assets under advisement by $5 billion to $30 billion, added nine new offices for a total of 55 nationwide and increased employment to 487, up from 429 a year ago.
In 2017, the Business Journal honored Eusey with a Women in Business award. Then she attracted a 50% stake in 2021 from one of Wall Street’s best-known firms, KKR & Co. (NYSE: KKR). She co-wrote a bestselling book, “Your Dollars, Our Sense: A Fun & Simple Guide to Money Matters,” which has ranked No. 1 in six different business and finance categories.
In the past year, Beacon Pointe has launched healthcare planning and 401(k) management. It’s expanded into helping college students navigate name, image and likeness issues by advising them on matters from endorsement agreements to strategic partnerships to tax strategy.
Eusey spoke last July on a podcast hosted by Don Yaeger, a longtime associate editor for Sports Illustrated.
“I think athletes know what it takes to win,” Eusey said in the podcast. “I think the reason they know what it takes to win is because they’ve experienced what it takes to lose.
“This builds a resiliency … a little bit of a thick skin. I mean, it’s pretty easy after you lose—or don’t get a deal or aren’t growing like you’re supposed to be growing—to walk away and quit. But the athlete just knows that she has to get back to work the next day.”
