Magnolia Trust Company didn’t start with a pitch deck or a market gap analysis. It started with a phone call—or rather, many of them—from clients of a 45-year-old Atlanta CPA firm who needed a corporate trustee and kept asking the firm’s partners to fill the role.
Moore Colson CPAs and Advisors had built deep, multigenerational relationships with some of the Southeast’s most prominent families. Most were business owners—the kind who see wealth concentrate quickly after a sale. When estate plans introduced trusts, those families didn’t want a stranger stepping in. They wanted continuity. They wanted to move forward with the same people who had already guided them through complex financial decisions.
But, as Magnolia Trust President and CEO Todd McMullen explains, there was a clear line Moore Colson didn’t want to cross. Asking individual partners to serve as trustees meant taking on personal liability, which the firm wasn’t willing to do.
So, Bert Mills, then a managing partner at Moore Colson and now chair of Magnolia, went looking for a better solution. Instead of outsourcing the problem, he decided to build one.
Magnolia Trust officially launched in October 2019, chartered in Tennessee, with the initial goal of serving Moore Colson’s existing client base. What followed was something else entirely.
McMullen highlights how quickly things have evolved: “Fast forward to where we are today, we have $2 billion under administration. We serve 54 families, so you can get a sense of the size. But right now, about two-thirds of our families are referrals from advisors other than Moore Colson.”
In other words, Magnolia didn’t need to chase demand. Demand found Magnolia.
A CPA Firm as a Foundation—Not Just an Affiliation
To understand what makes Magnolia different, it helps to look at how the company is built.
Magnolia and Moore Colson operate under shared ownership, but they aren’t layered on top of each other. “The consistency in that firm is the culture of adding value, and we brought that culture into Magnolia,” McMullen says.
There’s no parent-subsidiary dynamic. Instead, the two businesses remain distinct while working closely together in practice. That distinction matters—but so does proximity.
Moore Colson generates a significant portion of its revenue from consultative work, particularly around tax and estate planning for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth families. On any given day, that expertise isn’t sitting in another office or behind a referral network; it’s right there. CPAs, attorneys, and analysts are part of the same environment Magnolia operates in, and that access is productive in real time.
“Being able to handle complexities of estate and trust structures that are tax-driven—we have advisors sitting on the same floor as us that we can bring into those conversations,” McMullen notes. “So, that ready access makes us a very attractive trust company to the clients and the prospects that we’re talking to.”
That kind of setup can change the service dynamic for advisors. Instead of waiting on outside opinions or coordinating across firms, conversations can happen immediately, with the right people in the room. For advisors working with complex family situations, that speed—and depth—can make a meaningful difference in how decisions are made.
Just as important, Magnolia has no interest in drifting into adjacent businesses. Moore Colson exited wealth management years ago, and that decision still shapes how Magnolia positions itself today.
“The advisor can be certain we’ll never get in that lane again,” McMullen says. “So, being an administrative trust company, providing those services, that’s our expertise. That’s what we’re going to do all day long, and they can count on that from Magnolia.”
For advisors who have seen trust companies slowly expand into asset management—or compete for client relationships—that clarity carries weight. Magnolia’s approach isn’t theoretical. It’s shaped by experience.
What “Advisor Friendly” Looks Like
McMullen defines “advisor friendly” through specifics. Magnolia currently maintains 48 advisor relationships across 54 client families—a ratio that reflects a deliberate posture of custodial agnosticism. The firm works with whomever the advisor works with, adapts to whatever role the advisor wants the firm to play, and measures its success by how little friction it creates for the people around the table.
His internal standard is straightforward. “I always tell the folks, ‘I want to be known as the high-touch, responsive, collaborative trust company.’” The communication hierarchy he’s built internally backs that up: face-to-face meetings first, then phone calls, then email—and always promptly.
“If you’re communicating with the advisor or the family, make sure that communication is timely and responsive—it’s those little things that add up to a culture of being advisor friendly,” adds McMullen.
Some advisors want a seat at the table, and Magnolia pulls the chair out for them. Others want the trust company to be at arm’s length, and Magnolia stays there. “We are big team players, whether we’re quarterback or we’re the lineman, we’re going to be part of that team,” McMullen says. “We just want to be asked to play.”
The firm is also strategic about the reality of trust business development. New relationships often start small—a $2 million account, a modest trust, an advisor who wants to see how Magnolia operates before bringing in a flagship family. McMullen doesn’t flinch at that. “We’re willing to take those smaller clients or smaller risks, if you will, for the opportunity to build those long-term relationships with the advisors,” he says. “And then the next client could be a $50 million family. You just never know.”
That patience reflects more than good sales instincts. Trust accounts don’t churn on a predictable schedule. The timing of new business is governed by estate plans, liquidity events, and generational transitions—not market cycles. Building trust with an advisor over a smaller account today is how Magnolia earns the seat when a significant life event comes along.
A Seven-Year Build—and a Long Runway Ahead
Launching in October 2019, weeks before a global pandemic, is the kind of origin story that either breaks a company or clarifies its priorities. Magnolia came out the other side with systems built from scratch, no legacy technology debt, and a culture shaped around the question of what a best-in-class trust company can look like when designed intentionally rather than inherited.
McMullen thinks in terms of process—deliberately so.
“If I, as the leader of Magnolia, focus on that, our future’s going to be bright because we’re going to have the right systems and the right people in place to respond to all this opportunity in the market,” he emphasizes.
The firm is adding staff beneath its senior team, exploring additional state reciprocity, and leaning into technology—including AI—as a tool for generating efficiency and insight, not just cutting costs.
At the same time, broader industry trends are creating tailwinds. A generational transfer of wealth is already underway, and more advisors are moving away from large institutions toward independent models. Many of those advisors need a trust partner that will not compete with them. Magnolia fits that need by design.
“The fact that we align perfectly with the movement in the wealth advisor community, I think will make us a trust company that brings value to advisors and clients and the people within Magnolia, so we’re very excited about it,” McMullen says.
What sets Magnolia apart isn’t an unusual service menu—it’s the combination of deep CPA infrastructure, a clean no-asset-management commitment, and a culture that treats advisor relationships as long-term partnerships rather than distribution channels. Magnolia isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. The firm is focused on doing one job well—and being the kind of partner advisors can rely on when it matters most.
