This $872 Million Morgan Stanley Advisor Gave Up The MLB For Wealth Management

Name: Bryan Longpre
Firm: Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
Location: Pasadena, California
Team Custodied Assets: $872 million

Background: Longpre, 39, grew up in a working-class family in La Crescenta, California, the son of a mail courier and a nurse. His interest in finance began at age 11, after his parents lost their savings due to bad financial advice from an advisor Longpre believed put his interests over the family’s. Before college, a childhood friend introduced him to Morgan Stanley advisor Chip Stone, who became a mentor and showed him a more empathetic version of the profession. Longpre went on to study finance and pitch Division I baseball at San Diego State and Cal State Northridge before signing with the Toronto Blue Jays as an undrafted free agent in 2010. Stone recruited him to work at Morgan Stanley during the offseason, where Longpre put in more than 30 hours a week each winter and spring and, during the season, doled out financial advice to teammates in the bullpen. In his third year with the Blue Jays, he blew out his elbow and was staring down Tommy John surgery and a year on the bench. Longpre decided to hang up his cleats in late 2012 and entered Morgan Stanley’s financial advisor training program. When a hiring manager warned him that only about 5% of new advisors succeed, Longpre remembers thinking, “5%? That's huge. In baseball, it's like 0.005%."

Investment Philosophy/Strategy: Giving clients access to companies before they go public has become one of Longpre's main selling points. "Being able to say, 'We're going to help you get exposure to SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI and these really valuable growth companies before they ever hit the public markets,' is a key differentiator for us," says Longpre. Longpre says his team will tailor individual private deals for clients with a specific focus, such as aerospace or impact investing, but his general preference is broad exposure through diversified funds that invest in hundreds of private companies.

Market Outlook: Longpre sees opportunities in infrastructure, healthcare, energy and real estate debt. An aging global population, he says, is driving demand for medical services and the facilities that support them. The AI boom will create similar opportunities beyond the companies developing the models, as data centers require more electricity, new power generation and major upgrades to the aging U.S. grid. “Whenever there’s a mismatch of supply and demand, it makes for a great investment opportunity,” he says.

Competitive Edge: “When you show up for spring training, you don’t know whether you’re going to have a job the next day,” says Longpre. “When you can thrive in that instability, it makes you much more resilient.” He says professional baseball taught him to perform despite the constant risk of being cut, traded or injured. Longpre also sees his age as an advantage as clients watch longtime doctors, dentists and CPAs retire. “We offer longevity, and we’re going to be here for our clients through their biggest life milestones,” he says.

Building Relationships: Longpre works with many multigenerational families and says ahead of the coming generational wealth transfer, advisors often make the mistake of focusing entirely on the parents or grandparents who currently control most of the assets. His team tries to give children and grandchildren the same attention, education and planning resources, even if they have less money today and emphasizes the importance of meeting them where they are. He also says younger clients expect stronger digital tools and faster communication tailored to how they manage their lives.

What Keeps Him Up At Night: Artificial intelligence is already changing how some clients interact with Longpre’s team. Some now use AI tools to evaluate investment proposals before returning with questions and critiques. But he believes the rise of algorithms makes human judgment more important because decisions involving life savings, family security and people’s deepest fears cannot be reduced entirely to a chatbot. “An algorithm and AI can help enhance that advice,” he says. “But I think the most valuable tool that we have as investors is empathy and human intuition.”

Best Advice: Longpre still follows advice from one of his pitching coaches: “There are two types of players in this world: those who are humble and those who are fixing to be humbled.” He applies the lesson to investing, warning that a long bull market has left some investors overconfident and taking unnecessary risks. “No matter how successful you are and no matter how well the market is doing, you could be humbled very quickly,” he says.

Favorite College Class: Longpre took a negotiations class taught by professor Chris Voss, a former lead FBI hostage negotiator. Voss taught what he called tactical empathy, or understanding the fears and pressures driving another person before trying to influence an outcome. Longpre says the lesson stayed with him because financial advice often depends as much on understanding a client’s emotions and family dynamics as it does on analyzing their money.