As more companies stay private longer without selling shares on public markets, their founders and chief executives have developed a distinct set of financial needs. Morgan Stanley has a new designation for advisors it deems specially qualified to work with this group of current and potential clients. About 200 of the firm’s roughly 15,000 advisors will take on a “founders specialist designation,” signaling their expertise in helping clients do everything from starting a company or taking a long-standing private company public to setting up systems to pay employees with company shares and provide other benefits. The designation comes as part of Morgan Stanley’s campaign to build its wealth business through its Morgan Stanley at Work division, which provides services like setting up equity-compensation plans for employers. Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick has previously estimated that as much as $5 trillion in client assets could be brought in through the workplace unit. At a recent annual conference, he said that $300 billion in assets has come down the firm’s “funnel” to financial advisors from Morgan Stanley at Work in the past five years. Similarly, Vince Lumia — the head of client segments at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management — wrote in a memo that the firm’s advisors are often company founders’ gateway to the broader financial services the firm offers, including investment banking. The founders specialist designation is for advisors who can help with not only planning for a business but also for the personal financial needs of company owners and their employees. “This designation formally recognizes advisors who have a successful track record in working to address the unique wealth management needs of founders and private market executives,” Lumia wrote. “This is a client segment that illustrates the power of the Integrated Firm like no other. Whether they seek professional financial guidance, workplace benefits, investment banking, [foreign currency exchange] or corporate cash, we have a distinct strategic advantage in our ability to serve them.” Morgan Stanley’s new designation comes amid a long-running decline in the number of U.S. companies whose shares can be bought and sold on public markets. Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business reported in September that the number of U.S. publicly traded companies fell from more than 7,000 to fewer than 4,000 from 1996 to 2020, even as the number of public companies has risen in other parts of the world. (Tuck said the culprit was not only a decline in firms’ selling stock for the first time through initial public offerings but also a steady stream of mergers among publicly traded companies.)