When mark newsome decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in 2005, he approached it the same way he approaches every endeavour: methodically.

He broke in his hiking boots, walking as much as possible to get accustomed to what would be six-hour hiking days. And he looked into what he and his son Kyle would probably encounter during their Tanzanian climb.

“If you don’t do some research, you’re going to get into trouble,” says Newsome, an investment advisor and first vice president with CIBC Wood Gundy, from his mid-town Toronto office.

Newsome, 51, and his son were among 27 Wood Gundy employees and their family members who raised $295,000 for breast cancer research in the 2005 Climb for the Cure by reaching the higher summit (19,340 feet) of Kilimanjaro’s twin peaks.

This July, Newsome, who has his Canadian investment manager designation and is a fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute, will celebrate 25 years in the advisory business. The co-author of two books, Taking Control and The Canadian Mutual Fund Bible, he comprehensively researches everything that might affect his clients.

For example, Newsome applied his research skills when deciding whether to apply Monte Carlo risk simulations to compute the probability clients’ nest eggs will be enough to allow them to retire. Although this is considered a sophisticated tool, Newsome wasn’t willing try it without delving further.

“For me to adopt something like that or think it’s going to work well enough to pursue, I need to understand it really well,” he says.

To reach beyond what he had read about retirement-income simulations, he arranged a lunch with a number cruncher who had written an article about the simulations. Newsome grilled him on the programs and concluded there is too much ambiguity.

“I am happy to find something that’s better,” he says. “But I won’t just take something at face value and assume it’s better. I want to go back to first principles.”

His own first principles are to focus on teamwork, commit to client education, create a client-centred process and maintain a clear and unwavering investment policy.

Newsome, who has slightly more than $350 million in assets under management, is in the process of growing his book and his team. His immediate team includes associate brokers Pat Casola and Rick Cooper and administrative assistant Darlene Potter. He is folding the books of retiring brokers Frank Fiorini and Andy Russell into his, a move that will add $280 million in AUM. Fiorini’s associate and son, James, is also joining the team.

Newsome attributes much of his success to his team. “One of the important lessons I took from Royal Military College was the limits of what anyone can achieve on his or her own,” he says. He knew from the beginning how important it would be to invest in strong people and to compensate them fairly.

Newsome also recognizes the importance of investing in education. Besides encouraging team members to get involved in continuing education, he also conducts team-building exercises, such as a recent trip to New York to attend a forum.

Several years ago, inspired by the idea of packaging the investment planning experience more comprehensively for clients, Newsome and his team spent hundreds of hours developing a process that would show the importance of disciplined investing.

“The process is really a conversation,” says Newsome. It begins with an in-depth discussion of each client’s priorities and values, moves through risk tolerance and the need for liquidity, and ends with an investment policy statement, a detailed letter of engagement and several projections based on each client’s profile. All of this information is put into binders; the client takes one copy home and Newsome keeps one at the office. The binders are a lot of work, but well worth the effort, he says: “Clients as a whole would be better investors if they put some focus into their investments and stuck to the discipline. That’s what the binder helps them with.”

He decided early on that he would have no active trading accounts, and he knew that compromising that philosophy in any way would negate it entirely. If clients want to take that route, they are shown the door. Sticking to that long-term investment policy hasn’t always been easy — or popular. “I did not get involved whatsoever in the high-tech boom,” Newsome says. “That was the worst time in my entire career for losing clients.”

@page_break@His AUM dropped by a few million dollars when clients left for what they thought were greener pastures. After the tech bubble burst, some of Newsome’s former clients called to apologize. Unfortunately, several were unable to return to his practice because their accounts had been decimated, he says.

One of his biggest challenges, Newsome admits, is communicating to clients that staying the course is not passive: “It takes discipline to remain unshaken.”

Newsome spends most of his leisure time at home. Married for 26 years to Heather, a music teacher, they’re both experiencing empty-nest syndrome now that the youngest of their two sons, Tyler, has left for university.

Although most of Newsome’s clients are proponents of early retirement, he has no interest in retiring before he’s 70. He loves to garden and cook and enjoys adventure travel.

Last year, for example, Newsome and his wife spent a two-week vacation in Tanzania, working in an orphanage. They painted buildings and cared for the children. “I found it very gratifying,” he says.

And because Tyler couldn’t join the Kilimanjaro climb, he and his father are planning to hike through Mongolia in 2008 to view the highly anticipated total solar eclipse. IE