Willis Investment Counsel

Robert Willis serves as Chief Investment Officer and has led the firm's investment strategy since the early 1990s. He is the sole named principal associated with portfolio management decisions. The firm operates without a large analyst team or investment committee structure, concentrating research and decision-making authority in a single lead manager.

The firm runs a concentrated, growth-oriented equity strategy focused on publicly traded US companies. It employs fundamental, bottom-up research to identify businesses with durable competitive advantages, above-average earnings growth, and strong management teams. Portfolio construction is benchmark-agnostic, resulting in high active share relative to the S&P 500.

No. The firm exclusively manages separate accounts for individual clients. It does not offer pooled investment vehicles and has not launched any mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or private partnerships. Client portfolios are individually managed, though they reflect the same concentrated, long-duration strategy.

The firm operates from a single office in Gainesville, Georgia, a city northeast of Atlanta with no major financial services cluster. It maintains no satellite offices in New York, Boston, or other financial centers. This geographic isolation has reinforced a patient, low-turnover investment culture that disregards Wall Street consensus and quarterly performance pressure.

Willis Investment Counsel has no known participation in private equity, venture capital, real estate, or direct co-investment structures. The strategy is confined to publicly listed equities. The firm has not created adjacent vehicles, club deal networks, or alternative investment platforms separate from its core separate-account equity mandate.