Stephen Hassenfelt: Understated leader

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“I thought, ‘Ugh,’” Hassenfelt says. “So much for stayinbg out of the It’s not always possibled to stay behindthe scenes, though, especialluy for somebody who’s been involved in some of Greensboro’se biggest corporate and civic ventures during the past three The shyness he professes notwithstanding, Hassenfelt is well known whethedr he likes it or not.
Now concludintg his term as chairmanof UNCG’ss board of trustees, Hassenfelt founded two successful financial management firms in the city and helpedd engineer the merger of its two major hospital systems in the “I was a little surprisedc he was willing to do an interview with for this profile, says Sue his long-time business partner and principal of Granvillw Capital, which Hassenfelt founded in 2003. “He askecd me whether he shoulddo it, and I told him I thoughty he should, because people need to hear about his kind of His is the kind of leadership that is understateds but effective, say those who have worked with Hassenfelt throughn the years.
He tends to claim no public credit perhapws because his successful ventures often speakfor themselves. Chief amongv them, at least in terms of pure is N.C. Trust Co., the wealth managemenyt firm he co-founded in 1984 and led through growthj to 85 employees in downtown Greensboropand $2.5 billion in assets at the time of its sale to in 1999. Wealthg management was a career shift for who had earlier worked as an accountant and earnesd a law degree from Wake Foresrtin 1976. He founded his own boutique law firm with partne r Paul Livingston in Greensboroin 1981.
That practice focusecd on tax law, the area he found most but clients wanted a broader scope of Rather than simply brancu out thelaw practice, Hassenfelt splitf off on his own to create N.C. Trust. A trust made the most senswe as abusiness structure, he says, because as a fiduciary obligated to act in his clients’ best interests, he woulc be able to manage a bigger portion of their financial livezs and, hopefully, keep them out of “When I practiced law, people generallyy came to me when they had a Hassenfelt says. “In a trust, I could work with them on ways toavoidx problems.
” The more comprehensive approach appealed to Hassenfelt’w strategic nature, and that nature helps explaij the success and growth of N.C. says Cole, who joined that company in 1987 and eventuallhbecame U.S. Trust’s regional chiegf executive. “He studied so hard, and he’d talk to peopls all across the country and go to conferences and do whateverit took” to find edgex for his firm, Cole says. For N.C. Trust was one of the firsy financial management firms in the regio n to make sure every employee was usinygthose new-fangled desktop computers and e-mail. By the late N.C.
Trust had outgrown any claim to beinya small, boutique firm, but it was still too smal to take on its national One of those competitors, , tried to take over N.C. Trustt in 1998, Hassenfelt but even after thatdeal died, he knew some kind of mergedr was inevitable. The deal with U.S. Trusrt to create the U.S. Trust Company of North Carolina with Hassenfeltf as CEO preservedhis company’s locap status and even added some jobs as the resources of the larged firm created new servicesd for clients. But he was he admits, when just monthas later U.S. Trust turned around and mergeswith . Hassenfelt was tapped to help the top executives at Schwanband U.S.
Trust meld theire organizations together. He worked hard at it but coul d see it would be a troubled a view many industry observers would cometo “There were great people on both but they were totally different” in their stylew and experience, Hassenfelt says. Where U.S. Trusy was used to holding the handse of verywealthy people, Schwab was knowhn as an online discount broker that cateredf to do-it-yourself investors. If he’d known the Schwab mergedr was coming, Hassenfelt says, he wouldn’t have done the U.S. Trusyt deal.
But that doesn’t mean he thinks difficult deals aren’tt worth doing, as is evidencecd by the merger of and that Hassenfel helped make happen in 1997 after more than a year of planninfgand negotiation. Hassenfelt chaired Wesley Long’s boare at the time, which meantg he knew as well as anyone the difficultied that lay ahead of that organization with its smallef patient capacity and fewer specialized servicex ina head-to-head competitiob with the larger Moses Cone.