Baird CEO Steve Booth recognized for corporate, community leadership
Steve Booth’s first reaction when he walked into a meeting where he learned he’d been selected the Harvard Business School Club of Wisconsin’s business leader of the year was that there had to be someone else more deserving.
“As I thought about the talent in that conference room full of Harvard MBAs that they might have made a mistake, or maybe there was someone else that they might have missed,” Baird’s chairman said to the roughly 350 business leaders who gathered at the Pfister Hotel Monday night for the annual award dinner presented by the Harvard Business School Club of Wisconsin.
But as he thought about it, he said, he recognized the award was an opportunity to share how Baird’s growth and success are a product of strong leadership teams and committed employees who have helped Baird to annually achieve record results, even during the pandemic. In 2021, the investment firm had $415 billion in customer assets under its management.
“Our success begins and ends at Baird with our now nearly 5,000 colleagues who are delivering for our clients each and every day,” Booth said.
“We’re not in the business of selling widgets. We’re in the business of providing advice. We do that one client in one transaction and one investment solution at a time.”
Cory Nettles, founder and managing director of Generation Growth Capital Inc. and a member of Baird’s mutual funds board, said that success and accolades like Baird’s consistent selection as a top place to work in Wisconsin flow from Booth’s “relaxed and disarming” leadership style that “leaves room for everyone to express their divergent points of view before he makes his own decision.”
“Steve has had to shepherd Baird over the last few years through some pretty turbulent times and through crises that few leaders at Baird before him had experienced,” Nettles said. “And while steering Baird through these choppy business, economic and sociopolitical times, Steve has proven quite adept at calming the most anxious colleagues, while continuing to preside over Baird’s astounding success.”
Amy Lindner, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County, said that those traits carry over into Booth’s and Baird’s philanthropic efforts.
Booth is a member of the United Way board and last year the company donated more than $3.5 million to the United Way, a $500,000 increase over the previous year.
“Steve both individually leads and lifts other people up,” she said.
While their leadership styles differ dramatically, Booth’s commitment to supporting the community is a continuation of similar efforts by his predecessor, Paul Purcell, the recipient of the 2012 Business Leader of the Year award, who died in 2020.
The Paul Purcell “Kids Win!” Baird Education Grants fund, created following Purcell’s death to fund nonprofit education organizations with a focus on diverse and lower-income communities, has distributed $1.5 million in its first two years.
Nettles said Purcell and Booth shared a “passion for educating the most challenged children.”
“As strong as Steve is as a leader inside of Baird, he certainly shows up as a leader in the community,” Nettles said.