As the child of parents who worked at the U.S. embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Syed Nishat says he always dreamed of coming to America.
A scholarship to the University of Nevada in Reno was his ticket, but since he didn’t have money for a full four years, he graduated in two-and-a-half, later working at a gas station and a 7-Eleven in California hoping to land a job that would sponsor him so he could stay.
A brokerage firm in New York offered to do that — if Nishat could make it as a cold caller. He did, much to the chagrin of his father, who thought being a broker was no better than being a gambler. But Nishat stuck to it, specializing in serving immigrants and first-generation Americans, who were — and continue to be, he says — largely ignored and underserved by financial advisers.
Coming to see that his clientele wanted financial advice that extended beyond investments, Nashat and his Pakistani-born partner formed a hybrid firm in 2010 to serve their expanding roster of physicians and entrepreneurs who had moved to the New York metropolitan area from all over the world.
Today, the Wall Street Alliance Group provides legal, real estate, pension planning and tax services in addition to investments.
“Our seven-person firm, which manages $400 million and is growing about 20% a year, is itself very diverse,” said Nishat, who sees its short-term goal as expanding to serve immigrant and first-generation engineers. “Long term, we want to be a household name.”