Michael Stolper

Partner

I am a 1977 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where I studied Natural Sciences and courted Jane. By the time I graduated I knew that I would not be able to support myself watching birds, so I borrowed some money from my brother and traveled around the world for nine months on the $5 per day plan. When I returned to Philadelphia in early 1978, I finagled a job as a broker at Kidder Peabody. With the exception of a six-week detour in 1981 as an institutional bond salesman with First Boston, I stayed at Kidder for nine years mostly writing investment plans and selling stocks and bonds to a small group of affluent clients. When one of those clients challenged me to start a firm that would objectively advise families about their investments, I was a reluctant but impressionable audience, and I took the plunge. With the birth of the first of our four daughters imminent, I took a 50% pay cut and set up a tiny, registered investment advisor [RIA] in the suburbs of Philadelphia. From those humble beginnings has grown one of the largest independent RIAs in the country. Along the way, Jane and I raised our four girls, I learned to row, and I went back to my roots as a member of the National Audubon Society Board between 2004 and 2012 and have served as a member of the Audubon Pennsylvania Board since 2009. In 2021, I stepped down as chair of The Foundation Board of Overseers of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and as member of the CHOP Board of Trustees, but I continue to participate as an enthusiastic member of the Foundation Board of Overseers.