A podcast where global leaders from the Harvard Business School Owner/President Management (OPM) community join in a personal capacity and share the real decisions, failures, and mental models behind building enduring companies.
This podcast is independent and not affiliated with Harvard Business School.
A defining moment in Elie Nour’s journey came from attending the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting, where he met Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. That experience shaped two core beliefs: humility at the highest levels of wealth and the principle that “cash is king.” These lessons proved critical during the 2008 financial crisis, helping him avoid major losses while positioning him to invest in high-quality assets at discounted prices.
Elie shares his journey from immigrating from Lebanon to Canada, studying at McGill, and building a career in wealth management before launching his own firm in 2013 to gain flexibility and better serve clients. His philosophy centers on capital preservation, disciplined investing, and building the right tax and estate structures before pursuing returns.
He challenges the misconception that wealthy individuals take more risks, explaining instead that they are highly selective, focused on calculated decisions, and committed to long-term wealth preservation across generations
He highlights how technology and AI have transformed investing, allowing analysis of tens of thousands of companies and thousands of data points while stressing that human judgment remains essential. A strong advocate of continuous learning, he credits reading, surrounding himself with capable people, and programs like Harvard Business School’s OPM for helping him scale further.
The conversation closes with a key reflection: mistakes are the most powerful teachers, and embracing them early accelerates both personal and professional growth.
Here are the Top 10 Takeaways from the conversation:
“Cash is king” is more than a phrase, it’s a strategy. Liquidity creates the ability to survive downturns and capitalize on rare opportunities.
The wealthy focus on not losing, not just winning. Capital preservation is always the first priority, with growth coming second.
Risk is deliberate and deeply understood. Investments are only made after thorough analysis or with the help of trusted experts.
Wealth requires structure, not just returns. Tax planning, estate design, and legal frameworks are essential to long-term outcomes.
Scale increases the cost of mistakes. At high levels of wealth, even small errors can have outsized consequences.
Data-driven investing is the new standard. Screening ~70,000 companies and thousands of data points enables sharper decisions.
AI boosts efficiency, but humans make the call. Technology accelerates analysis, but judgment, experience, and discipline remain irreplaceable.
Entrepreneurship demands adaptability. Building independently allows flexibility and innovation beyond traditional institutions.
Great teams outperform individuals. Success comes from surrounding yourself with capable people and trusting their expertise.
Mistakes are the ultimate learning advantage. Early failures teach more than success and are critical for long-term growth.
Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of Beyond the Case. Uh, very, very special friend is a guest on the show today. His name is Eli Noor. Eli, it's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you very much for making the time. You're joining us from Canada today, right?
SPEAKER_01
Yes, that is correct. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Eli, could you talk about yourself and introduce your business as well so the listeners know who the guest is today? Of course.
SPEAKER_01
Well, I was born in Lebanon and I came as an international student back in 2000. Prior to that, my grandparents had immigrated to Canada in the late 80s due to the Civil War. I came to visit them in 1994, then in 1997, I fell in love with the city, Montreal, which is Montreal. Naturally, a lot of Lebanese people moved to Montreal because it's Francophone, it's a French city in the province of Quebec, which is Francophone province. And by 20, by 2000, I I went to McGill, straight from McGill, after graduating, joined the industry in wealth management, working for a company called Berkshire Securities. And I grew my practice, did well, and then I created my own firm. I launched the trade name back in 2013, and a few years afterwards, we launched a securities dealership across Canada. Then things kept on evolving from one thing to another over the years. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00
Your core value proposition, though, is you're you're an investment advisor for the ultra-high net worth individuals. Did I get that right?
SPEAKER_01
Look, that is correct. It evolved to be in that position. When I joined the industry, if you had $5, I would have started with that. So as time went by, uh just because we're we're limited in time, I we all have the same 24 hours. You just start you know protecting your time in a different way. We'd rather say not say no to people, but uh it couldn't, it cannot be me that I can offer these services just because time is limited. Uh today, yes, we I what I do is I uh guide wealthier uh people with a substantial amount of assets that they've built over the years to give them the proper infrastructure in place before anything. We need to put the horse ahead of the cart, so tax and state and planning, and then manage the assets, where the best way to allocate assets with the focus on capital preservation before anything, then performance is definitely a must. And three taxation would would follow.
SPEAKER_00
So from for the people who are not from your world, what is usually misunderstood about, you know, how the ultra H ⁇ Is invest?
SPEAKER_01
The wealthiest people the focus on capital preservation. A lot of people assume, well, because they have more money than they can afford to lose, it's the exact opposite. Because they're well off, they don't need to take certain risks uh to achieve, because there's nothing for them to achieve other than uh being comfortable and maintaining the position that they're in and passing the assets from one generation to the other. So the misconception would be is that they take they because they can afford to take more risks, then they would take more risk. But it's it's not the case. Risk is is a must, but it's it's more of a calculated risk in every decision that's being made rather than just take the risk for sake for the sake of taking the risk. So they wouldn't invest in anything they don't understand. And if there's something they don't understand, they would bring the best people to the table to provide them with the best explanation, and then they they can make an educated decision at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I would have thought, you know, the ultra-welde would have been a little more aggressive. Um, do you think there's a distinguishing trait you see between first generation um high net worth versus, you know, someone who's inherited wealth and how aggressive they are with growth?
SPEAKER_01
So the first generation is usually more prudent with money, yes. So they've they've built every penny, they've worked quite hard. And I mean they've thought they've ideally good businesses, they would have got their family involved at a younger age and taught them what to do. When the second generation is born into money, then where they tend to spend a bit more would be on lifestyle and less on the business. But I can't, I don't like to generalize because they're like all kinds of cases. If they have something to prove, then they would be focused on growth. But sometimes the best person for the company might not be a family member, might be somebody that has grown with the company. Um, you know, within the company, they've taken roles and they've built it up.
SPEAKER_00
Going back to when you were working with Bokesha Secure Securities, did you always aspire to start something by yourself? Or one fine day you you realize, hey, there's a change in the way uh, you know, the economy is shaping up. Maybe there's there's a missed opportunity, something that you feel you could have tapped into.
SPEAKER_01
When I joined the company, I came, imagine like a an artist with uh with a blank canvas. So there I I knew I I came with a basic knowledge of the world. I had a good education coming from McGill. So I'm great, great grateful for that. And I watched way too many movies related to wealth management and the stock market as a kid. So when I when I right after graduating, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I mean, this was my deal. It I felt like this is like a proper suit that fits or proper gloves that fits the hand. No, I I can't say that I had the intention of branching out, creating my own firm. But as time goes went by, there are a lot of things that I've learned by being exposed, and I I've always been quite curious. One thing, a big milestone that I had early on in my professional life would be uh in 2007, I got a chance to fly to Omaha, Nebraska to Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders meeting. And I met Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Charlie Munger, one of the Tata family members, and some of the wealthiest people out there. And I was quite excited. I was like a kid on Christmas Day, meeting all these people. And one, I I've learned, you know, I've learned many lessons. One of them, because of my presence there, one is humility. That was great, because I come from a background that's, you know, people tend to show their wealth rather than their, you know, they they they preserve it and they they take the wealthier they are, the less they show. So that was important. But the most thing that was important would be that cash is king. And one of the lessons, one of the things that allowed me to stand out was in 2008 when the market crashed. I did exceptionally well. Half of it was due to making good investment decisions, but the other half was due to luck, the fact that I was present in in Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders' meeting. And that allowed me to avoid half of the win in anything is avoiding mistakes. The other half was being in a position that where I can capitalize and take advantage of high-quality companies at a discount. Because, you know, like when we're, I mean, I have the statistics and it's all fun, I get all excited about it. But we don't, we we do get opportunities in life to take advantage of certain assets that are mispriced. That was one of them. Oh eight is marked as a great financial crisis, which created a lot of great opportunities. So one, the first one is protect, the second is be in a position to be able to buy in. And I can give you the statistics every single year, over five years and market cycles and so on. So it's really, it's it's quite interesting. So that takes me back to 2008. Then as I grew my practice, I started seeing things that I want to improve. So the best way to make decisions is this what I want? If I'm the client here, is this a service that I'm expecting? Is this, you know, what am I expecting and am I am I offering this to the clients? By 2013, I made the decision to branch out to move from Quebec to Ontario, so provinces across, it's just an hour and a bit away, two great provinces, and I created no private 12. Initially started as a slightly different name, but uh that was August 8, 2013. And because of the need for me to branch out, when you work with bigger companies, the best thing about these companies is that they offer you structure, uh, but they they tend to be less flexible. And there tends to be naturally more bureaucracy, ethics, but you're limited. I I didn't want circle, I don't even want to color within a specific circle. I wanted to offer more. And to offer more, then you need you need to branch out. Um, with branching out comes more risks, the safety net disappears, but then you learn a lot faster. So what I've learned since I launched the firm allowed me to even up until today. I mean, we're we're a year ago, we had one AI agent. Today we have 11 people that are specialized. And our nimble, or what I call a smaller position as a financial institution with a global reach, it's still we have an ability to adapt quite fast, which we've showed. I mean, we've implemented our adoption to technology back in during COVID, where we're doing the same thing right now by focusing on operational efficiency, some of the things that we've studied together uh at Harvard Business School. So, and and here we are. So it was because of the need that pushed me, and it wasn't easy to push me to separate or branch out, create my own firm. It wasn't easy. It was quite difficult. I thought it would be difficult, but I didn't think it would be as difficult as it was in reality. Would I change anything? Definitely not.
SPEAKER_00
Today you've built NPW into one of the leading firms for private wealth management. Are there any leadership principles that you have along the way made non-negotiable for you and your company as you all have scaled?
SPEAKER_01
So I lead by example and respect is non-negotiable within the firm between use titles as a responsibility that you have to earn rather than just a title that comes with, you know, a dollar amount that supports it. So it is a responsibility that you need to earn that responsibility. One of the things that are very important for us would be people's attitude and they want to build. Because if somebody's not on the same mission, then they're gonna be more of anchors or slowing the rest of the team up. So we do have certain expectations of the people that are looking to join. I've made many mistakes in the past as I'm building the firm in the sense that I used to take, I used to rush to hire, and then I we used to take too much time to let people go. Today we do the exact opposite. We take our time to find the right fit. And if it's not working, it's not working. But what we do also is that when it's not working, we we explain to them, and in most cases, we find them jobs somewhere else. So we make it easier for them because reputation is key, and that's that's basically it. The turnover is exceptionally low today. So people that come in, they come and build, and they have plenty of flexibility and and drone for them to get creative and and help build the company.
SPEAKER_00
And how big is your team? You mentioned you have 11 agents, one AI agent.
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no, no, that's just AI. No, the company is around uh I would say probably around 140 people today. 140 people.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. You also spoke about how you've evolved and kept up with technology, especially during the COVID route. Now in the US, we've seen some robo advisors, et cetera, come through maybe a decade ago. How has your company adapted? Uh, or has that not made much of a difference to the kind of practice area that you focus on?
SPEAKER_01
Technology has made a huge difference, continues to do so. I mean, I when I joined the business, I used to sit and work on Excel spreadsheets to like 3-4 a.m. Today, in a fraction of a second, our systems they analyze more than 70,000 companies across the world. Uh, we go through 6,000 data points, now we're down to 200, and we make our decisions uh based on technologies that you know that we're using. AI is becoming a bigger factor, but it's not here to replace, it's just to complement. So we embrace it from day one in every department of the company, whether from operations to compliance to investments, you name it. So AI definitely helps. The same like quant analysis of securities. There's a human research, there are the quant, there's the AI. I can't say one is better than the other. Definitely anything that's related to technology is a lot more efficient, but I can't say it's here to replace. Certain jobs would be replaced because technology allows us to replace. So I'll give you one simple example. In our industry, there's something called investments relative to clients' risk uh appetite or portfolio or profile. And so it used to take around six hours per compliance officer to analyze companies and flag them six hours per day. Today, a system that's running around the clock that's filtering if there's any issue, and it takes really one human to assess the software once a week, only like maximum 15 minutes, rather than having several people work taking on that job. So this is just one software. So efficiency continues to work at its finest with the technology that we're adopting across the board.
SPEAKER_00
Talk to me about your typical day. What does that look like? Or do you not have a typical day?
SPEAKER_01
It starts. No, I I don't know if it's it's a typical day because I fly between different cities. So I do start early and I go to bed early. I'm usually at the gym no later than 6 a.m. And by 7 I'm done. Then the investment teams already started working. So I get ready and depends on the day. Anywhere between 7 to 8 a.m. I'll be at the office. Then it's everything that I have planned, it's usually gets, unless it's it's an actual meeting schedule, things become a bit messy. But I have a great team that keeps me quite organized. And by the time we're done, it's honestly I we're never really done because it depends on the department, things that are needed that are quite urgent. We're dealing with many things. Like I started early this morning dealing with a private investment, speaking with a team member from Dubai, trying to get us a piece of an investment that's from Singapore, another one from France. Like they're really, it's it's quite a demanding job, but that's why you need to have the best team to be able to delegate responsibilities and work together. So it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing responsibility, but you have to, to be good at it, you really need to love it. As a matter of fact, you need to be closely obsessed to be good at it.
SPEAKER_00
You spoke about the 2007 Bokesha annual conference, annual meeting that you went for. How does someone in a position like yourself, spearheading one of the fastest growing private wealth companies in the country, keep up to date with the best practices, the core fundamentals of investing? Are there, you know, annual letters that you make sure you read through? What do you do to make sure that your mind is racing ahead, but not losing out on the core fundamentals that have gone behind building the industry that you operate in?
SPEAKER_01
So today I'm still quite involved because I enjoy it a lot. I read everything I can get my hands on. And it starts first thing in the morning, it ends at night. I'm on the treadmill, I'm reading. Before I sleep, I read a lot. During the day, I read. But I also have a lot of smart people that are working with me. Everybody's reading and responsible for part of the business. And they give me just the bottom line. And I only ask for the bottom line. Uh so more like bullets, give me the bottom line. And I take that advice 99% of the time because they're they've proven it and they're hired to give me the right information. So there's no lack of information today. Our job is more to filter rather than to find information, as you can understand. So yeah, I'm I'm quite involved, but I'm quite curious at the same time. So I'm constantly reading, but it's not a one-man show.
SPEAKER_00
And Ely, what inspired you to consider the OPM program in the midst of all this that's going on in your life?
SPEAKER_01
Uh I got to a certain point that I felt it's um I needed more education to be able to take the company to another level. And the biggest question that I had, now I have a lot more clarity, was we we we've we've studied it actually in one of the classes when you're building, you build a company for legacy or for sale and use different metrics, whether from finance or or from like what are you trying to achieve? My kids are quite young, and I wouldn't, I it's still too early for me to determine whether they're the they would be the right or the best fit for the company. But OPM, when I start reading on on HBS's website, what it offers, and I felt this is this is exactly the the piece in the puzzle that would help me take the company to another level. And and I've already adopted a lot of things that I've learned even while I was on campus, you know, operation efficiency. We talked about it with the cases that we've taken from Toyota and Zara and so so many other things. HR, operations, HR, how to compensate employees. So performance reviews now, for example, there on a quarterly basis rather than annual. So there are a lot of things that I've adopted. And honestly, I can't wait for uh for this year, for uh round two, to be able to see what what are we gonna learn or expand on what we've learned a bit more. I mean, I was in Miami for the OPM get together a few weeks back, and um just a few conversations with OPMers that have completed this, the program before us just got me all excited. It's like I'm it's like a new movie that's coming out or the sequel, and that's the excitement that I have right now. I would recommend to anybody, really. Anyone who has built a business or in a position that they feel like things maybe not so much plateaued, but you know, you're ready to take it to the next level. This is a great program that I would highly recommend.
SPEAKER_00
If you could name one one professor, one case which has left a lasting impression on you who would that be.
SPEAKER_01
I can't I've learned so much from each of them. I can I can specifically I have there's one professor that I liked his humor or how he addressed things, but it's not fair for the rest. Because we've had we have we've had exceptional professors, really. But I like sarcasm, and Professor Das provided this sarcastic view or replies to our colleagues, but they're all exceptional, really.
SPEAKER_00
Well said. Eli I typically ask people a book that has influenced them, and of course, you know, please feel free to address that. But I'd also like to learn from you, are there any annual letters that someone like myself could read that you would say are, you know, your top three picks? Make sure you read these annual letters every year to further sharpen your mindset on how to look at investments or even just you know profitability for a company.
SPEAKER_01
Look, what one book that I highly recommend that I've I've read it in the past when I joined the industry before, and every time I read it, you look at things that you missed out before. And that's the intel the intelligent investor. Really, it's just one book to understand what what is actual value. So that's a book that I it's by Benjamin Graham. Uh and that that's that's that's a book that I highly recommend.
SPEAKER_00
Do you think people still do that kind of research on fundamentals, you know, the the kind that Benjamin Graham, I think, of Peter War Peter Lynch and a few others recommended, you know, on the fundamentals. Do you think we have the ability or even the attention today to get through that level of diligence on a company? There's just so much data coming at us.
SPEAKER_01
It's if it's one individual that's doing it, it's gonna be very difficult. But it our job in our position, we do everything 100%. I mean, we we do a lot more than we used to do before because we have access to tools to look for certain things. I can give you a lot of examples right now. It'd be outside of the scope of you see how things are moving. The number of pizza orders, for example, outside of the Pentagon a few months ago, right before the war. Parking lots, Walmart parking lots makes a difference. But what we do is quite specific. And we track certain things that we never thought that we'd be tracking before. Uh, you know, Congress people trading. That's as you know, what's been happening, or the day trading that's been happening right before announcements from the White House. You can you can simply it's it's it's moved from management or risk management to really a day trading market, which we're still not playing this game. But I'm just saying our job is number one to protect the client's capital. Number two is to maximize performance, but never at the risk of losing the capital or forgetting goal number one. And that's something that's one of the probably the only thing that I can say is guaranteed is minimizing taxes. Every penny we save a client in taxes depends no matter where they are on the planet. I mean, not no matter where they are, but you know, any anywhere in the developed countries, I have clients in France, Germany, Belgium, UAE, Australia, Mexico, depends on the country, things change, but there are a lot of things that are similar. So proper structures in place are quite quite important to minimize the medicine.
SPEAKER_00
In closing, my last question to you is what is something that you believed earlier in your career, it could be either about money or success that you later felt you need to rethink.
SPEAKER_01
Look, I used to, at a younger age, I used to be maybe not so much embarrassed, but I'll say, if I were to look back and give myself a good advice is accept mistakes, embrace them, and make actually as many mistakes as possible and as early on as possible. And everything's gonna be okay. Because the best lessons that I've had in my life are through mistakes that I've made. When you do good things or your wins do not teach you anything, really, nothing, zero. It just maybe it's misleading because it gives you a bit of an overconfidence in certain things. But it's the mistakes that you make that actually costly, the costlier they are, the best lessons are coming from them. So no, embrace them, you know, and make as many as possible and as early as possible. And stay focused. At the end of the day, it's you who's impacted more than anybody else. Nobody cares. Just focus on getting better.
SPEAKER_00
Very well, Sad Eli. Thank you very much. I know you've taken time out of a very busy working day, so I appreciate this a lot. Thank you for those words of wisdom as well. My pleasure. Thank you for your time. Be well. Bye. You as well.
