Moelis

Ken Moelis left Bear Stearns in two thousand seven and opened from a single office with no capital, no institutional investors. Starting from nothing meant no legacy. He hired salespeople from Goldman who hated slow hierarchy. The founder's relationships became the seed, replicated into new industries by people he hired. By twenty twenty-four, Moelis had offices across four continents and forty-eight hundred employees generating four point five billion in revenue. Growth came from people recommending people. A partner in London knows someone in Houston who knows someone in Singapore. The rolodex compounded. Pure referral economics.