John Taft: money manager and regulatory-reform leader draws on early newspaper experience.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn
• Position: EXECUTIVE EDGE

IN THE MID-70S, JOHN TAFT DROVE HIS $2,100 Chevy Vega to Taos, N.M., walked into The Taos news offices and was offered a job as a reporter on a probationary basis.

"I slept in my ear for the first month I had the job because I was afraid of spending money on rent for a job I didn't have," said Taft, who six years ago became chief executive officer of RBG Wealth Management. At 5b, he oversees a staffof3.000. including 140 in Colorado.

"There isn't a day that goes by when some experience that I had as a reporter doesn't help me. It's the best graduate school in the world."

Taft would move to Lowell. Mass., and cover the city's redevelopment and designation as a national historic park a story that would inspire him to go to grad school at Yale University and land a job in the public finance department of Piper Jaffrey.

"It was a remarkable story of urban development, and I wanted to do that for a living." said Tail, explaining how he went from journalism to finance in 1981. "I worked with local governments to fund innovative and interesting projects and ended up doing exactly what I wanted to do."

Taft eventually headed the asset-management business of Dougherty Financial Group. Through two mergers, he retained his job. Rather than writing stories, he would live them during Wall Street's 2008-09 meltdown.

"It was the most intense professional experience I ever had trying lo manage the firm. help clients, help employees." Taft said. "It was beyond description how every day you would walk into the office and he confronted with some issue that not only had you never seen before but you couldn't imagine seeing it."

Through the crisis, RBC earned more than SI billion, which Taft attributes to the stability of its parent. Royal Bank of Canada.

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