A top advisor at J.P. Morgan Private Bank has left to join Cresset, a registered investment advisor with more than $250 billion in assets under management based in Chicago.
Ali Bathgate Hild had been an executive director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank for 14 years, working in New York, Greenwich, Conn., and, most recently, Denver. Hild had built a book of business to about $1 billion in assets under advisement and had been named one of the bank’s top 52 advisors before making the jump.
Hild said she is grateful for her time at J.P. Morgan, where she started her career, and that the firm helped her build a strong client base. But she also wanted to work with “fewer families but be more holistic with them.” After assessing Cresset’s model, she felt she would have more flexibility to do that with the RIA.
“We can do so much for clients,” Hild said. “Whether that be preparing their taxes or just being really proactive with their accountant, helping them plan vacations or setting up family meetings with our family governance and education team.”
Hild will join a team of five other advisors in Cresset’s regional office in Denver, some of whom joined the RIA after being at J.P. Morgan, she said.
“They’ve already built a really great presence here,” she said. “It’s not just Ali, alone, but a team with an incredible bench.”
Cresset has been making moves to poach advisors focused on ultra-high-net-worth families, leveraging its multi-family office services and alternative investment capabilities. In February, it announced that it had brought over Heather Pelant as a managing director in San Francisco. Pelant had been managing a $2 billion book of business at Baker Street Advisors. In 2024, Cresset brought over another San Francisco-based team, this time from J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, that had built up a $5 billion book of business.
Hild said she had been doing family meetings with clients at J.P. Morgan, but that she has seen an increase in HNW and UHNW clients requesting she work with the next generation.
Some of that work, she said, is estate planning and inheritance planning, but a lot is also general financial education and discussion with the next generation.
“One of the most common questions among high-net-worth and upper-high-net-worth families is, ‘How do I raise kids that aren’t overprivileged or demotivated?‘” she said. “They still want their kids to work hard and be successful and have fulfilling lives.”
Hild said she has a particular interest in working with young women about their financial futures and paths, and believed Cresset’s organization was set up well for her to further that area.
Cresset was founded in 2017 as a family office to serve entrepreneurs and private equity players Eric Becker and Avy Stein.
The firm also touts its employee-owned structure as a source of longevity. It sold a minority stake of less than 10% in Constellation Wealth Capital in 2024 and has since made a few major acquisitions, including last year’s deal for Monticello Associates, an employee-owned institutional consulting firm with $124 billion in assets under advisement.
J.P. Morgan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hild’s move.
