Our Sponsorship Program Launches; The Latest M&A, People Moves, Recruiting And Strategic Partnerships; Bizarre Stories; An In-Depth T3 Conference Lookback And More
To My Fellow WSR Community Members:
During our rapid growth over the past two years, people have asked me with increasing frequency if WSR offers sponsorship opportunities. We prioritized growing in our connection with and service to you across our website, social media and e-blasts. Meanwhile we’ve also been developing a robust set of sponsorship and advertising capabilities.
The wait is over and I’m happy to announce the results of several months of effort designing the optimal array of solutions, opening new paths for firms and organizations pursuing excellence in wealth management to enhance connections with you – our WSR community. You can learn more about our sponsorship and advertising opportunities here.
This week we bring you the latest monthly roundups in our Transitions, Transactions & Promotions and Bizarre Industry Bazaar columns, as well as coverage of last week’s T3 Conference. I attended T3 along with our Managing Editor, Julius Buchanan, who conducted many in-depth interviews with industry leaders across the full spectrum of the wealth and wealthtech spaces.
Keep a lookout next week as we announce our next installment in the WSR Pathfinder Awards series – the Top Women Industry Leaders of 2023 – in honor of Women’s History Month!
This Week’s Issue
We have the following on tap for you this week:
- Which advisors joined a firm mere days before it almost collapsed? This edition of Transitions, Transactions & Promotions captures several surprising twists in recent recruitments, acquisitions, strategic partnerships and executive appointments. In Newsmakers & Roundups, we cover First Republic Bank’s recruitment wins and financial woes, NewEdge Capital Group’s asset and advisor influx, LaSalle St. Securities’ new equity-based advisor-ownership model and developments at many other leading firms.
- Do we need the AI gods? Our James Miller prays for the AI deities to rescue us as he walks us through this month’s bizarre industry stories, including the SEC fining the Mormon church, an administrative oversight fabricating a master’s degree for a firm CEO, the arrival of ETFs that short or long Jim Cramer’s picks, the war on offensive language and a truly bizarre international suitcase murder.
In case you missed it, last week we brought you live coverage from the T3 Conference in Digital Domain, including:
- Hear from executives attending T3 directly through video interviews featuring Ryan George, CMO of Docupace; John Mackowiak, Chief Revenue Officer of Advyzon; and Erin Goss, COO of Blue Chip Partners.
- Is Silicon Valley Bank contagious? We explored whether the implosion of the tech industry-enmeshed bank will cause a wider contagion, how it happened and a possible silver lining. Joe Mallen, CIO of Helios Quantitative, and Tim Holland, CIO of Orion Advisor Solutions, shared their insights.
- Joel Bruckenstein, Producer of the T3 Conference, opened with a humorous “swag” baseball cap and keynote speaker Stacy Havener, Founder and CEO of Havener Capital Partners, delivered advice on “flipping” social media with engaging and sometimes counterintuitive suggestions.
- How do you build a maverick broker-dealer? A panel of experts, including Craig Iskowitz, Founder and CEO of Ezra Group; John Rajes, SVP, Fintech Partnerships of LPL Financial; and myself, discussed how to build – and not build – a broker-dealer platform. This including integrating the BD with fee-based services, back office, operations, data analytics and more.
- How do you break the glass ceiling for women in the industry? A panel chaired by Tricia Rothschild, Board Member of Financial Fitness Group; and featuring Suzanne Siracuse, CEO and Founder of Suzanne Siracuse Consulting Services; Patrick D. Quirk, Executive Chairman of Financial Fitness Group; and Maura Cunningham, Founder and CEO of Rock The Street, Wall Street, discussed financial education, financial advice for women in crisis, encouraging female students to take an interest in STEM early in grade school, and other ways to break the glass ceiling.
- On the first day of T3, we brought you news and insights including an interview with Brian McLaughlin, President of Orion Advisor Technology, about the present and future of ChatGPT and other AI for wealthtech; a discussion with Lara Galloway, SVP Channel Management of White Glove, explaining why digital tools and webinars for lead generation are here to stay; and Hubly’s announcement of branded workflows provided by partners for specialized use.
- On the second day of the conference, we brought you Charles Schwab executives Jalina Kerr, Head of Advisor Experience, and Tom Bradley, Managing Director, addressing the firm’s financial soundness, integration issues and onboarding TD Ameritrade user advisors; a chat with Tim Highland, Head of Product Strategy at Practifi, on the ideal tech platform and AI; a discussion with Rose Palazzo, Group President, Financial Planning of Envestnet, on the integration and coordination of tech stacks and its MoneyGuide platform upgrades; and FP Alpha’s launch of an AI insurance analyzer and unbundling the pricing of its estate solutions.
- On the third day of T3, we discussed a range of issues with leaders across wealthtech, including Silicon Valley Bank and the potential of the wealthtech ecosystem with Lincoln Ross, President and CEO of CircleBlack; how to please advisors and generate good client experiences with Patrick Daniel, VP, Advisor Technology Solutions of Commonwealth Financial Network; how to help advisors with technology fatigue and bridge the alternative investments data gap with Joe Larizza, CEO and President of Mirador; and how Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions plans to compete in the wealth management custodian space with Craig Cintron, Head of Consulting & Platform Integrations.
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Have a great week!
Cheers!
Larry Roth, CEO
Wealth Solutions Report
