Former NFL offensive tackle and AllianceBernstein Vice President Winston Justice recently moved up to the C-suite, taking over as CEO of Franklin-based wealth management firm SageSpring. The company announced its new top executive on Tuesday.
Justice plans to lead SageSpring in its next stage of growth amid a dynamic financial advising industry. He said his approach will center around launching a multi-family office, empowering advisors to expand their business organically and a selective increase in acquisitions.
“I never wanted football to be the best time of my life, even though I really was grateful of the time,” Justice said. “My goal is to be more successful after football than during, so I saw football as just a beginning part of the process. It was like a stepping stone, and I think that goes back to even when I was growing up. I’ve always wanted to find a way to better myself, find a way to better my family.”
Growing up in Long Beach, Calif., Justice said he would have never guessed he would end up in finance. His athletic talent landed him at the University of Southern California, and from there, the Philadelphia Eagles drafted him. He went on to play eight seasons with the Eagles, the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos.
While playing in the NFL, Justice’s ventures into finance began.
He earned his Masters in Business Administration from George Washington University, which the NFL Players Association paid for, and then he started two of his own businesses before finding his way to financial advising and wealth management in Nashville. His first business was a chain of coffee shops called Elixr, which has a location in downtown Nashville at Fifth + Broadway, and the second was a venture capital firm.
After working as an analyst with Wells Fargo and managing a hedge fund from California, Justice moved with his wife and three kids to Nashville.
“We wanted to be in a place that we could build a business, at Bernstein and also with the shops, but also a place where our family could flourish,” Justice said. “We thought Nashville was the perfect place, that we were getting in on the ground floor of something special, and I think, so far, we’ve been right about that.”
Currently, SageSpring manages about $5.5 billion in assets across 44 advisor teams in five different states. SageSpring founder and president Jeff Dobyns said in a statement that Justice’s “deep understanding of client needs” will be key to his leadership approach.
“Winston’s diverse background in professional sports, entrepreneurship and wealth management makes him the ideal leader to drive SageSpring’s next phase of growth,” Dobyns said.
