I’m sure by now you have heard of Equifax’s recent data breach. When faced with situations like this, we like to think about our good friend Carl Richards’ sketch that encourages us to focus on what we can control. With this in mind, we point you toward resources that help protect your data in the post-Equifax-hack world. Also, we’ll share a little backstage information on our own cybersecurity efforts.

What To Do

While there isn’t a magic bullet, below are a few resources we’ve shared with our clients. These resources provide both checklist actions, as well as general information and important questions to consider.

• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) page is a good start and will likely be kept current over time.
• New York Times “Your Money” columnist Ron Lieber has been covering the beat extensively. Search on “Equifax” and you’ll find his ongoing advice and comments. We like one of his most recent updates from September 21.
• In “Our Thoughts on Security,” Wealthfront provided a helpful overview, including a “What You Can Do For You” list of actions to consider.

As time marches on, the steps you could or should take are likely to evolve. We are staying informed, so keep an eye out for updates in subsequent newsletters.

Here at HIG

While no system is impregnable, we have long been taking strong measures to protect against hackers and identity thieves.

This year, we participated in a 12-week Schwab Cybersecurity Engagement to assess our current readiness, identify room for improvement, and formalize our action plan. Since then, we’ve been upgrading our infrastructure, engaging in ongoing education, and continually implementing checks and updates.

As this wise educator observed in reflecting on the Equifax breach, “Security isn’t a product. It’s a process.” As cybersecurity requirements continuously evolve, so will we. We would be happy to talk with you directly if you would like to learn more about our cybersecurity procedures.

While staring off into space is all well and good when waiting for a total eclipse of the sun (what a treat!), when it comes to our clients and our firm, we prefer to be a little more focused.

That’s why, shortly after co-founding Hill Investment Group in 2005, Matt Hall and Rick Hill turned to Collaborative Strategies, an independent strategic planning firm, to help them articulate the vision they had for us, and to hold us accountable for getting the job done. Lots of businesses have ideals, but not nearly as many solidify them into the measurables: What will it actually take to achieve them?

In a way, our strategic planning began before Rick and Matt even co-founded HIG, sandwiched into lunch breaks at their previous career. Today, all of us convene with Collaborative Strategies every few years to revisit our plans. We hold our meeting out of the office, where we can focus on the business at hand. Our most recent round took place in July at the Saint Louis Art Museum (so we could wax creative). There, we reviewed our ongoing focus as a firm and tightened up our succession planning in the context of our larger, multi-office team.

Now, if you’ve been reading all of our commentary, you may think you’ve caught us in a contradiction, based on a comment Matt posted last spring about our Houston office: “Opening another office was nowhere in our strategic plan.”

The thing is, having a strong strategic plan in place is not only paramount for existing initiatives. It also serves as an essential touchstone whenever new opportunities beckon. While our Houston office wasn’t specifically part of the original plan – and neither was hiring me as the firm’s first COO – the idea fit so well with everything else HIG had in mind that what might otherwise have felt like a random wager became a clear, confident choice. Similarly, our leadership team also has felt more comfortable declining several other tempting opportunities when they did not fit as well with our existing plans.

So here’s to many more years of well-structured strategic plans, with the occasional twist of serendipity to season our success.

Anyone who’s been with us for a while knows we’ve long felt that among our greatest roles is to help investors Take the Long View® with their wealth. But did you notice a subtle change? If you’re especially attentive, you may have caught that we’ve now established a Registered Trademark ® to more fully protect our defining tagline.

Until now, we’ve had the sentiment more lightly protected as a service mark. When our marketing team first suggested the mark back in 2005, we felt that “taking the long view” perfectly expressed our passion for changing people’s point of view about their wealth, offering them an improved vantage point – a symbolic Hill – from which they could see past the daily details toward their ultimate goals.

Our belief in the power of the expression hasn’t changed one bit. In fact, we realized we’d achieved an important milestone when people started repeating our tagline back to us, demonstrating how much they, too, valued the sentiment. We decided it was time to beef up our rights to ensure that Take the Long View® would continue to serve us, our clients and our community for a long, long time to come.

Would you like to Take the Long View® along with us? Let us know how we can help!

*PS We cleverly purchased www.takethelongview.com and, if you ever decide to try this address, you’ll notice it takes you straight to our site.