When Nathalie Leclef joined J.P. Morgan Private Bank five years ago, Jackie Young Perrins, market manager at the firm, touted her "talent, experience and holistic approach." But one thing Leclef didn't come to the bank with was any clients or assets.
"I have built a practice entirely from scratch," Leclef, who manages the wealth of institutional and ultra-high net worth individual clients at the firm, said. "I have personally sourced, developed and closed all of my business, with the majority of the clients acquired through cold calling and proactive outbound business development."
She now manages more than $600 million at the private bank, and has average client relationships of more than $25 million.
Leclef notes that building a predominantly self-sourced practice has been one of the defining experiences of her career. "The reason is simple," she said. "There is no better way to learn that people, not products, drive lasting success. It requires resilience and consistency, but more importantly, it forces genuine curiosity about people."
One key focus for Leclef is nonprofits, and she helps lead the bank's endowments and foundations community across the DMV region. She recently originated and hosted a prospect dinner for nonprofit clients, which attracted over $1 billion in potential new assets for the firm and has been considered for national rollout.
She has also, over the past year, closed around $300 million in institutional business and maintains a pipeline of another $500 million. Her trajectory, she says, puts $1 billion in total AUM in sight in the near term.
A good deal of her recent growth has involved advising her clients through liquidity events such as business sales.
Leclef earned a CPWA designation through the Yale School of Management. This has helped her to provide more thoughtful and sophisticated advice to clients, she noted.
She said a large aspect of her success also relies on using emotional intelligence. She even moderated a panel on the topic last year.
"Clients may not remember every detail of a meeting, but they almost always remember how you made them feel," she said. "Listening, showing empathy and understanding what matters most form the foundation of the strongest relationships."
To that end, she said, while technology is reshaping the industry in meaningful ways, "the greatest opportunity lies in strengthening human connection, not replacing it."
One of the things she's most excited about, she said, is bringing leaders together across endowments and foundations.
"Some of the most valuable conversations happen not in formal meetings, but when people with shared challenges and different perspectives learn from each other," she said.
Creating these moments of human connection, she added, "will become one of the most important parts of our industry over the next decade."
