Robert Balentine is Chairman of Balentine. He has spent the last forty years advising business owners on matters relating to their wealth and legacy. Robert was the inaugural recipient of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. Barron’s and Forbes have each named Robert one of the country’s top wealth management advisors for many years, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle named him to its 2018 list of Most Admired CEOs.
Robert began his career with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith at age twenty-one. Seven years later, he was elected the youngest vice president in Merrill Lynch history. Back then Robert’s father, Bob Sr., an institutional equity salesman for Merrill Lynch, was his North Star for morals and integrity. He still is.
In 1987, Robert and his father left Merrill Lynch and cofounded Balentine & Company. Two months later, Robert’s father was diagnosed with cancer. He died a few years thereafter. Robert was left on his own to grieve the loss of the man who had been such a giant in his life and to steer, alone, the firm that had been their shared dream. He took that responsibility seriously and by the late 90s, Balentine had become the largest independent investment management firm in the Southeast, managing over $4 billion.
Balentine & Company was actively courted by large national firms, including JP Morgan and Northwestern Mutual, and in 2002 was acquired by Wilmington Trust Company for more than $100 million. In 2004, Robert became Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust Investment Management. Along with his Atlanta-based team, he managed more than $36 billion in assets for clients throughout the United States.
In 2009, Robert and coauthor Adrian Cronje, with sixteen colleagues, decided to step out on their own and risk their future on a new start. They left Wilmington Trust to revive the Balentine legacy in a new form as Balentine LLC. Their vision was to create a fiduciary firm that placed client interests above all, worked free of any conflicts of interest, and one that enabled them to be servant leaders.
Robert’s parents had a strong sense of community responsibility, something he carried forward and has also instilled in his own children. He finds great joy in “giving while living” and believes it is a key to a sense of fulfillment for wealth creators with any charitable inclination. Robert is Vice Chairman of The Garden Conservancy, former Chairman of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Metro Atlanta Salvation Army Boys & Girls Clubs, and former Vice Chairman of the Woodruff Arts Center. A graduate of Washington & Lee University, he served its board of trustees for nearly a decade. He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Atlanta for the past twenty-five years and served as President during the club’s centennial year, where he received the Sheffield Leadership award for his service.
A man of many interests, Robert is also an avid outdoorsman. In 2002, he founded the Southern Highlands Reserve, a non-profit, nationally recognized native plant arboretum and research center in the Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina, for which he received the 2017 Preservation Hero award from the Library of American Landscape History. The Reserve is the culmination of a lifelong dream and has directly contributed to the preservation of several native plant species through its many conservation, restoration, and research efforts.
Robert is a man of deep faith, something that informs all areas of his business and personal life, whether he is navigating adversity or working to act in the best interests of his clients and their families, or his employees. This foundation, one he credits his parents for instilling in him, even informs how he views the work of the Reserve, of which he hopes visitors experience the gardens as a place to reconnect with nature and reflect upon their own unique role in what he refers to as “the Grand Design.” Robert resides in Atlanta with his wife of over forty years, Betty, and enjoys time spent with his three adult children, sons-in-law, and six grandchildren.
Awards and Honors
In the decade since the rebirth of Balentine LLC, Robert has been honored by many esteemed organizations.
Barron’s Top Independent Advisors*
Barron’s Top 1,200 Advisors*
Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Admired CEOs
Forbes’ America’s Top Wealth Advisors
Atlanta’s Top 100 Leaders in Finance*
Georgia Trend’s Most Notable Georgians
Research Magazine’s Advisor Hall of Fame
Lifetime Achievement Award: Businessperson of the Year Award
*Multiple-year award recipient
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