The Advisor Lab

Carolyn Bare is the founder and CEO of Trust Matters Financial, a financial advisory focused on investment management and wealth transfer for special needs heirs. We sat down with Carolyn to discuss tax-efficient estate planning strategies, and how advisors can use them to better serve clients with special needs scenarios.

Chris Cherry is the Head of Partnerships at Future Proof. We sat down with Chris at Future Proof Citywide to talk about how industry partnerships are the key to creating opportunities for advisors at Future Proof events.

Devon Drew is the CEO of AssetLink, a distribution platform leveraging data intelligence to connect advisors with investment solutions that meet their needs. We talked to Devon at Future Proof Citywide about data as the driving force behind AI, and the capabilities of AI in the wealth management space.

Shannon Spotswood is the CEO of RFG Advisory, a visionary RIA platform empowering independent financial advisors to build and scale their own practices. We sat down with Shannon at Future Proof Citywide to discuss succession planning, women and investing, and strategies for serving multigenerational families through the wealth transfer.

Sean Allocca is the Executive Editor of The Daily Upside, a leader in business journalism delivering economic and financial insights to over 1 million investors. We talked to Sean at Future Proof Citywide about the opportunity for advisors and their clients to invest in alternatives, and how advisors can stay informed on private market assets.

Caleb Silver is the Editor-in-Chief of Investopedia, a pivotal education resource for advisors and their clients. We sat down with Caleb at Future Proof Citywide to discuss financial education as an integral component to investing, particularly in the alternatives space. Caleb shares his insights on recent market volatility, the concerns of individual investors, and the crucial role that education plays in the client-advisor relationship.

Larry McDonald was a Vice President at Lehman Brothers in 2008, and out of that experience he produced a framework of twenty one indicators of economic health that can also detect early signals of opportunity and danger. His most recent book, How to Listen When Markets Speak, released last year, was early in connecting the dots between past, present and the future that is now. Larry and his research platform, The Bear Traps Report, has a unique and well informed take on what we are seeing right now, with the shock of tariffs, the motivation of the current administration, the resistance of the Fed, and the reaction of markets and businesses. He presents his views on how to amend the 60/40 to ride out the storm, and where the opportunities are.  

XY Planning Network (XYPN) founders Michael Kitces and Alan Moore saw a need to do financial planning differently. They developed XYPN to make financial planning more accessible by creating a turnkey advice and planning platform that currently supports and empowers more than 2,000 independent financial advisors to serve whomever they want, however they want. Arlene Moss, lead executive business coach at XYPN, coaches financial planners through the challenges that come with establishing and growing their practices. On this episode, we get into how XYPN coaches bring the key component of human connection to helping advisors power their practices.

Callie Cox is the chief market strategist of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the author of OptimistiCallie, a newsletter of Wall Street quality research for everyday investors. Callie has spent the past decade providing investors with rational, evidence-based insights on the markets and economy. On this episode, we get into how advisors can balance empathy and understanding with a scientifically-grounded approach to guiding clients through market volatility.

George Kinder, founder of the Kinder Institute of Life Planning, is internationally recognized as the Father of the Life Planning Movement. Life planning focuses on the human side of financial planning. It puts people, not products, at the center of analysis and advice, helping clients meet unique goals and unlock the greatest meaning in their lives. George has a new book, The Three Domains of Freedom, and we get into it on this episode.

Martinelli Financial Services has been acting as a fiduciary for clients since 1981. Michael Martinelli joined his father Ernie 11 years ago, and together they've leaned into expanding the role of alternatives in HNW client portfolios. We get into how they approach it, what the pain points are, and where they see the industry going. 

We sat down with Gabe Rissman, co-founder and President of YourStake. Gabe has created a firm with a vision of simplifying advisors' work and enhancing the client journey to drive personalized investing. YourStake began with the “NoScore” data approach in 2020 to offer a transparent alternative to traditional ESG data. Today, it offers a suite of AI-driven solutions for every part of the advisor-client relationship.

We sat down with Dr. Shay Harris-Pierre, a certified Financial Therapist and consultant with a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, and a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. Dr. Shay's work focuses on supporting advisors in strengthening their relationships with their clients and integrating interior finance concepts into their practices. She helps advisors work through generational family dynamics to have productive conversations, and to help people find the motivation to get past their money mindset

Jonathan Foster, President and CEO at Angeles Wealth Management, has a created a stratgic vision for his firm that taps into his deep understanding of family wealth dynamics and the unique wealth management needs of ultra-high-net worth families and individuals. As co-founder of Angeles Wealth, Jonathan played a key role in developing the platform that offers comprehensive wealth advice and institutional-quality investment solutions to generationally wealthy clients. We get deep on how he helps clients create and preserve multi-generational wealth. 

Michael Kitces needs no introduction. One of the foremost voices in the industry, he's a financial planner in his role at Buckingham Wealth, and also a commentator, speaker, blogger, podcaster and educator. From Kitces.com, to his Nerds' Eye View blog and Advisor Success podcast, Michael leads the conversations that change the industry. XYPN, the integrated support system for independent financial advisors, is Michael's response to the problem of bringing younger advisors into the industry, and it's now celebrating ten years of helping advisors build the practice they want. We get into the bifurcation Michael sees in the industry, the role of AI, and more in this episode recorded at Future Proof. 

Matt Middleton is CEO of Future Proof, the most innovative and disruptive event in the wealth management industry. Only in its third year, Future Proof's events, starting with the Festival in Huntington Beach, are already the foundational and definitional events for where wealth management is going. Matt gets into his vision, and how keeping it tech-enabled and human-centered has meant both massive growth and an incredibly high level of attendee satisfaction.

Dr. David Kelly is the Chief Global Strategist and Head of the Global Market Insights Strategy Team for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. David provides valuable insight and perspective on the economy and markets to the institutional investor and financial advisor global communities. David's research focuses on investment implications of an evolving economic environment. He has developed a unique ability to explain complex economic and market issues in a language that financial professionals can use to communicate to their clients. 

Robert Russo has built a powerhouse firm around the concept of helping independent advisors identify where they need support to grow, and providing that support. From the complexities of business ownership, to gap analysis to grow a practice, his firm, Independent Advisor Alliance, has a process in place. The best part? They also provide a community focused on creating peer learning, growing and resources. 

Julia Healey, the CEO of United Charitable (unitedcharitable.org) has spent a career working with non-profits. She helms a nonprofit organization that works closely with wealth advisors and their clients to increase a donor's ability to do more with their contributions while minimizing their tax liability through Donor Advised Funds. We get into how giving has become central to how people think about money at all stages of their finanical journey, and how advisors have a central role to play. 

Derrick Kinnney is a successful advisor who has become one of the top advisor coaches with his Advisor Accelerator program. He focuses on bringing meaning to money, for both clients and advisors. Along the way, he teaches advisors how to take back time, own problems to drive to solutions, create a strategic brand and rethink events and sponsorships so they are memorable and bring results. We get into the tactics, the specifics - and a lot of great stories. 

Michael Clarke, author of A Firm Worth Building, has not only figured out the balance between doing the work of an advisor and the work of running a business. Advisors can be prisoners of their own success, and Michael has created a framework and mindset for coaching advisors that covers everything from branding to firm culture to growth strategies. Along the way, he developed National Referral Network, a COI community that focuses on helping every member create more value for clients. 

Masha Hodi, Partner and Client Experience Officer at Cerity Partners, has worn a lot of hats in her career, and she brings that knowledge to a conception of client experience that is built on and continually references growth. She breaks down how Cerity stays in front of an ever-changing industry, and the importance of creating and maintaining a strong culture. 

Stephanie Bogan, Chief Possibility Office for Limitless Advisor, makes redefining success upwards - for herself and the advisors, leaders and founders she partners with - look easy. But there's a career's worth of insight, intelligence, method and practice in her coaching. Stephanie gets serious about the inspiration and the hard questions in this episode. 

Adrian Johnstone, CEO of Practifi, has spent a career harnessing technology to optimize growth. Gathering data isn't enough; it's about unlocking knowledge to create a customer experience that helps firms grow at every stage. Moving from insight to action is the challenge for advisors. Doing it consistently and at scale can seem impossible. Adrian breaks down how Practifi thinks about a rapidly evolving industry. 

Doug Bonaparth is the financial voice of a generation, and over the course of his career, he's seen how the challenges his generation faced have redefined financial planning. Older millennials may make different decisions from past generations on everything from education debt for their kids to retirement to estate planning. The portfolios they need to reach their goals are very different and need to be based on a whole new set of assumptions.

Seth Streeter, Founder and Chief Impact Officer of Mission Wealth, has some very clear principles. He wants to help clients redefine wealth, and has created a service model that places inspiration, balance, and purpose at the center of a holistic process. For advisors, this means creating a collaborative culture backed up by custom tech. The goal is to ensure that clients feel a sense of shared mission that goes beyond planning, especially for clients facing transitions.  Seth and Derek touch on a lot of areas on this episode, but you'll want more from this very thoughtful industry leader. Here's where you can find it:  Seth Streeter TEDx Talk www.sethstreeter.com

Paul Saganey, Founder & CEO of Integrated Partners, has cracked the code of supercharging growth. He helps advisors succeed with much larger clients than their existing books, and pairs that up with a deep understanding of how to build a COI network with the "grail" of referrral sources: CPAs.

Advisors are often asked to help solve financial problems, and some of the most difficult pertain to taxes. Our guest, Hubert Johnson, has built a business around understanding how to successfully negotiate with the IRS, and he also has some great insights on how to avoid getting to that point. 

Tim Mitrovich, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ten Capital, has built a winning event strategy by focusing on client experience. It's a unique approach that combines thematic consistency with creating events that run the gamut from great speakers to fun activities - and everything in between. Tim has seen huge growth by keeping the focus on the client - not the advisor. 

We welcome H. Adam Holt, CEO and Founder of Asset-Map. Adam needed a better way to help clients visualize their money, and his original hand-drawn prototype has become a tool that facilitates client engagement and can help advisors see where the opportunity is. Our conversation is a fascinating look at how deliberate design can create a feedback loop that helps advisors and their clients meet their goals. 

We welcome John Prendergast, co-founder and CEO of BlueLeaf. John created BlueLeaf with the vision of making an environment that allows the advisor to be fully appreciated by their clients. The best ideas are simple in articulation and complex in execution, and John gets into how they solved for that. We dive into what this means now - and in an AI-driven future. 

We welcome Mary Ann Bartels, Chief Investment Strategist of Sanctuary Wealth, to give us an outlook on what 2024 has in store. Mary Ann brings all the data, and wraps it into a narrative that resonates. Across markets, economics, asset classes and the historical comparisons, Mary Ann makes some great points.  

We welcome Nick Rose and Emily Biehler, founders of NovaTrak, a SaaS financial planning tool they created that also helps motivate clients and demonstrates the value of the flexible financial planning fee model. It's unique, and we get into the details. 

Becky Swansburg, CEO of Stonewood Financial, has trained advisors across the country on incorporating tax-efficient retirement strategies into their practices. Becky focuses on the new reality that taxes in retirement likely won't be lower, and the tax risk to a plan is as significant as investment risk. She has some surprising insights, and a point of view on ways to introduce a conversation that has prospects and clients "all ears."

We welcome Tim Gerend, Chief Distribution Officer of Northwestern Mutual. There's a growing recognition among investors that their financial planning needs work, and that financial advisors are the most trusted resource for financial advice. Northwestern Mutual's recent study has the data, and Tim has an interesting and detailed perspective on how Advisors can harness the trends to build their practice. 

We welcome John DeVincent, Chief Growth Officer of Intention.ly, a financial services-focused marketing consultancy. John has been at the forefront of financial services marketing, leading teams at SaaS platforms that have revolutionized the industry, including eMoney Advisor. Advisors have more tech and tools than ever before to market their practices, but sorting through them and selecting the right ones is a challenge. John breaks down the fundamentals of a digital strategy, and along the way offers a lot of insight into the future of the industry. 

We welcome Greg Margolies, Partner, Ares Management for a deep dive on private credit. This alternative asset class has seen tremendous demand from retail and HNW investors, and we take a close look. Ares is a leader in the space, and Greg has spent a 35-year career in credit. He gets into the mechanics of the deals, what to look for, and how private credit can help diversify a portfolio through all stages of the economic cycle.

Jennifer Palmer, CEO and Founder of JPalmer Collective, joins us to explain asset-based lending and how it can be a solution for businesses that want to raise capital, but also want to keep equity intact. The range of eligible assets is broad, and our discussion about the true cost of capital is eye-opening. Jenn has spent a career as a leader in the space, and founding her own firm has allowed her to focus on the segment of the market that she is passionate about. This ep gets deep on financing detail, but also takes a look at the trends and growth in woman-owned businesses.

We welcome Zach Conway, Founder and CEO of Seeds Investor. One of the biggest issues for financial advisors is engaging and retaining the “next gen” investor - Gen X and Millennials. These generations realize investing is key to achieving the flexible life they want, but they want to invest on their terms. Values-based investing is a huge part of this. Zach has created an efficient and scalable way to help advisors align clients' values with their goals. We get into detail about how advisors can tell a story beyond performance every time they talk to their clients, which is critical to mapping goals to money.

Our guest this episode is Mark Gatto, co-Founder and co-CEO of CION Investments, Advisor Lab's parent and sponsor. Mark explains why CION created a podcast focused on the advisor community, and along the way we talk about the growing demand for alternatives from retail investors and CION's very differentiated view of how to support the advisor community by leading with education. We also get into one of the alts asset classes that is making headlines this year: private credit.

In this episode, we welcome the team that makes up Quorum Private Wealth. Mike Barry, Kelly Milligan, Sue English Mazzetti and Melissa Yue made the decision to become independent a couple years ago, and they are finding that while the process was seamless for their clients, independence has led to some surprising results and growth avenues. The new model of financial advice is shifting towards “life advisor,” not just money advisor, and the Quorum team has found new ways to make this core to their practice.

In this episode, we welcome Jonathan DeYoe. Jonathan combines Buddhism, academia, and advisory in a unique practice that focuses on holistic planning and becoming a better investor. The goal is to live a better life, transform relationships with money, and identify a circle of competence that improves outcomes. Sounds like a lot - but Jonathan brings it together in surprisingly tactical ways.

We welcome Jeremy Straub, Founder and CEO of Coastal Wealth, for an episode focused on the business side of building a successful financial advisory practice. Jeremy has created companies that are great places to work at by motivating and managing people to do their best. Jeremy's story is amazing, and his point of view on steps and strategies to create a financial advisory business that the advisor enjoys is a must-listen.

Real Assets are evolving as we look to a low-carbon, ai-driven future in which geopolitics will play a bigger role. Where are the opportunities? What are choices from an investor standpoint? How does ESG fit in? We sat down with Will Thomson of Massif Capital for an enlightening and in-depth discussion. Some of the answers are surprising.

In this episode, we welcome Carl Richards, the NYTimes Sketch Guy and Chief Brand Officer for Elements. Carl and Derek get into the unique and powerful role that financial advisors play in aligning people's time, dreams, and money. It's not easy to hold people accountable to their own goals, and supportive conversations are key. Carl also explains why Elements was a great fit - and it comes down to turning prospecting into a simple, actionable visual.

In this episode, we welcome Brendan Frazier, Founder of Wired Planning. Behavioral finance isn't new - but Brendan has got implementing it down to a science. Our discussion with him breaks it down in ways that will resonate with advisors that are building a practice, and we also get into an interesting chat about the future of financial advice in our new AI Chat world that provides insight for advisors at all levels.

Todd Mercer, founder and Managing Partner of Mercer Wealth Management, discusses how utilizing “a la carte” technology has allowed him to increase his level of service across the board. He goes deep on how and why Mercer incorporated alternatives into client portfolios, and his outlook on the evolution of the industry. 

In this episode, we welcome Michael Lecours, CFP and Co-Founder of fpPathfinder. Can checklists and guides really create deeper understanding and streamline the advisor/client financial planning process? When they are detailed, technical and constantly updated - the answer is clear. We get deep into the details - and the theory behind it - that explain the demand.    

Katie Braden, founder and Chief Video Officer of Advisor Video Marketing makes an encore on the pod to get us up to speed on how video is evolving. We asked Katie to come back because we think video is one of most important marketing tools for today's advisor. Katie gets into why video is so effective, how you can get started, and the best uses to grow your practice and create stickier relationships.

In this episode, we welcome Beth Hendler-Grunt, founder of Next Great Step. Finding a first job as a new college grad can be difficult. Beth's process teaches kids the skills they need to stand out, and teaches parents how to help their kids launch. The first job is a key piece of the financial journey for both kids and parents, as parents exit the college burden and ramp up retirement planning.

Amit Dogra is President and COO of tru Independence, a platform that helps financial advisors optimize their independence with guidance, expertise and support. In this episode, we go deep into the continually evolving financial advisory landscape, the trends Amit sees now, and some very good advice for what advisors should be thinking about, from asset growth to succession planning.