Mier Wang\u2019s first job in high school was at a wealth manager\u2019s office in Kalamazoo, Mich..<\/p>\n
If the rest of his path to launching a modern, acquisitive registered investment advisor seems like it would be obvious\u2014join a firm, work a decade as an RIA, launch your own\u2014think again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wang graduated, went on to study finance at The Wharton School, then took on a series of jobs in investment banking and hedge funds, with stints at Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and the direct middle-market lender Silver Point Finance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2018, he followed a long-held interest in the restaurant and hospitality business and started AYS Hospitality Group<\/a> in New York. He opened \u201cniche Japanese\u201d restaurants in New York. Today, they include The Office of Mr. Moto in the East Village and The Resident of Mr. Moto in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n So why, in 2023, did he return to his wealth management roots by launching an RIA aggregator with ambitious plans to compete amid private-equity-backed aggregators?<\/p>\n \u201cIn an industry that now manages over $20 trillion in assets, with RIAs rapidly accelerating their share to roughly a third of the market, I believed we could make a meaningful dent,\u201d Wang said of his firm, Maridea Wealth, headquartered in Brooklyn<\/a>. \u201cWith around 20,000 advisors in the independent RIA space, my conviction was that we could find both advisors and clients to join us in building something different\u2014a platform defined by its culture and by its obsession with the client experience.\u201d<\/p>\n