My uncle, Hank Fisher, liked to tell stories and liked to create names. This story is about how he named Syntrinsic.

Professionally, Hank Fisher helped companies develop their brand identities and names. Vectra Bank. Synovus. Concentra, and many other created names that have become familiar with time and usage.

When I was building a new company in 2008, I called on Hank for guidance. He forwarded me a dozen pages of questions about this “NewCo” that I was creating. Questions about values and impact, differentiators, aspirations, competitors, ethos and culture, practices, people. More probing and pressing.

Then, a fateful afternoon at the dining room table. 25 words printed out on cards, spread in rows across the table. Each a word that Hank had created from the human encyclopedia of prefixes, suffixes, roots, and onomatopoeia. Each sounded like a perfectly natural expression, each contained meaning, evoked feelings, represented a possible path forward.

“Syntrinsic” quickly rose to the top.

It represented the fusion of “Synergy” and “Intrinsic.” Synergy because of the way we intended to interact with our clients, with each other, with the community. Intrinsic because so much of investing eventually links back to the intrinsic value of a company, a property, a project, a country. And most importantly, Intrinsic because of our relentless commitment to honoring the intrinsic value of each human being.

Only later did Hank tell me that Syntrinsic had long been the favorite company name he had created. He was ecstatic that his creation had found a home in our creation.

Hank passed away on June 23, 2025. He left a legacy of poems, stories, novels, and names like Syntrinsic that embody his creative spirit and carry forward his affection for the well-crafted creation. Thank you, Hank.