Access Louisville

Jim Allen, vice chairman of Robert W. Baird & Co., is on this week's Access Louisville podcast.Baird is the sponsor of the podcast, but Allen was on the show with LBF Editor-in-Chief Shea Van Hoy to talk about local business as well as other topics. At the top of the program, Allen tells us about progress since the merger between Hilliard Lyons and Baird. The merger of the two legacy financial firms (Hilliard Lyons dates back to 1854 in Louisville and Baird 1919 in Milwaukee) was announced in fall 2018 and completed in April 2019. The companies celebrated the five year anniversary of that merger last year and it's been going well since, he said."What has really made it go is the cultural compatibility between the organizations," Allen said.The business has really changed over the 44 years that he's been in it, he explained. Back at the time he began, Hilliard Lyons was much more of a brokerage and transaction business. Today it's more about wealth planning, which he says is a