Podcasts about advisorengine

In this episode, Jack talks with Deep Srivastav, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Investment Solutions for Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions. Joining them is Martin Cowley, Executive Vice President and Head of Product at LifeYield.  In his role, Deep is responsible for the development and deployment of Franklin Templeton's investment solutions through digital channels. It involves leveraging financial technologies, data science capabilities, and investment capabilities related to goals-based wealth management to bring Franklin Templeton's personalized investment solutions to market. On the other hand, Martin Cowley is an expert at building platforms across the wealth management ecosystem. At LifeYield, Martin and his team focus on finding the client's unique circumstances and determining the best way to serve them. Deep and Martin talk with Jack about the collaboration between Franklin Templeton's Goals Optimization Engine (GOE®), AdvisorEngine, and LifeYield's tax-efficient planning and income sourcing to build and expand a state-of-the-art comprehensive advice platform. Key Takeaways [01:19] - Deep's role at Franklin Templeton and his work with AdvisorEngine. [03:48] - How Martin works with Deep to expand the comprehensive advice platform. [07:44] - GOE® (Goals Optimization Engine) at its core. [11:00] - Martin's involvement with how wealthtech capabilities are integrated. [13:44] - A look at where portfolio optimization is headed. [17:04] - The dynamic nature of improving outcomes. [22:17] - The future of optimized portfolios. [24:35] - Martin's three key takeaways. [27:08] - What Deep and Martin are passionate about outside of work. Quotes [14:22] - "When you change the nature of the portfolio advice, it has implications on the whole value chain of advice. Traditional systems have always considered investments a static entity within this whole value chain and all its planning elements. For good investment outcomes to align with those goals, the portfolios and the portfolio risks are more dynamic." ~ Deep Srivastav [25:19] - "Tax strategies are easy to overlook, but they make a big difference, whether tax loss harvesting, asset location, or withdrawal sequencing. Some things that aren't always part of a plan can kick that plan into the next level of sophistication." ~ Martin Cowley [25:43] - "We see a lot of value in bridging the gap between planning and execution. That's where some underlying algorithms drive the execution side of things. Much of the work we've done at LifeYield in conjunction with GOE® and AdvisorEngine has been focused on bringing that consistency to the process." ~ Martin Cowley Links  Deep Srivastav on LinkedIn Martin Cowley on LinkedIn Martin Cowley on Twitter Franklin Templeton AdvisorEngine Goals Optimization Engine (GOE®) | Franklin Templeton LifeYield Retirement Income Sourcing Connect with our hosts LifeYield Jack Sharry on LinkedIn Jack Sharry on Twitter Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

In this episode, Harris asks Marc to share his thoughts on a few topics:  Role of sales: How does he see the overlap between sales and marketing, and in particular, are there certain companies where salespeople don't make sense? Short answer: Yes, listen to the episode or read the transcript for the reply, because it's a little complicated. Repeatability in sales: When has a company achieved repeatability in their sales process, where they feel they are getting closer to Product Market Fit (PMF)? How can you measure that? Beyond Product Market Fit: Even if you've got a sense of PMF, is that enough? Marc says you must look at the market part of the equation before proceeding.  Steps after getting traction: Now that you're scaling, what are the next steps to take in sales and marketing alignment? How do you drive conversion, where would you go next with site content and marketing strategies? Marc's low-volume keyword strategy is an interesting one. Listen or read to hear him explain it. One thing to improve all your marketing: To keep it simple, Marc concludes by sharing the one thing that will improve everything about your marketing: Focusing on pain points.  If you found this episode interesting, learn more by visiting introcrm.comLearn About Our GuestPowered By Search helps B2B SaaS companies with solid product-market fit who want to make building demand a priority scale MRR at record-breaking speeds.Visit Powered By Search to learn more about their work.As director of growth, Marc Thomas works with their clients between $5M ARR and $75M ARR, delivering strategic demand gen programs for companies like Basecamp, OpenPhone, AdvisorEngine, Rally, Reltio and MyCase, and he's building a predictable high-quality pipeline for Powered By Search through their own marketing efforts.Find Marc Thomas on LinkedIn and on Twitter. 

In this Swift Chat conversation, recorded live while at the T3 Conference in May 2022, Marie Swift of Impact Communications speaks with Rich Cancro, Founder and CEO of AdvisorEngine. The two discuss what makes the T3 Conference so unique as well as Cancro's T3 presentation on questions that an advisor should be thinking about for the future of their business and how to deliver a service to clients of which they're really proud. They also take a look at the first issue of AdvisorEngine's new publication called Action! magazine and Marie gets the inside scoop on what to expect at AdvisorEngine's annual >drive Conference, which ultimately happened the week after T3 in Austin.​ To learn more about Rich Cancro and AdvisorEngine please visit: www.AdvisorEngine.com To learn more about T3 Conferences please visit: www.T3Conferences.com 

Joel Bruckenstein is widely recognized as one of the most influential financial technology journalists and consultants in fintech. Known as @FinTechie on Twitter, and regularly featured in Barron's, Financial Planning, RIABiz, InvestmentNews, and WealthMangement.com, for his expertise, Joel is an industry powerhouse and a leading authority on breaking news on emerging technology.Joel is also the producer of the annual T3 Advisor Conference, the premier technology conference for independent financial advisors, and the T3 Enterprise Conference, an annual gathering of top executives from independent broker/dealers and large RIAs. In May of this year, In The Suite was given a front row seat and VIP access to the highly anticipated 2022 T3 Advisor Conference and Enterprise Day in Denton, Texas, May 3 – 5, where we joined Advisorpedia, InvestmentNews, ThreeCrowns Copywriting and Marketing, and Impact Communications covering all the action for the largest T3 ever in history – Thank you Joel Bruckenstein! In this amazing episode, recorded live at T3, you get to ride shotgun with me In The Suite, as we sit down with fintech leaders and mega giants like Eric Clarke and Daniel Crosby at Orion Advisor Services, making major news at T3 about Orion's use of Amazon Redshift and Behavioral Finance innovation known as Protect, Live, Dream. We also talk with Evan Rapoport at SMArtX Advisory Solutions about their groundbreaking $30 MILLION DOLLAR strategic investment by Morningstar.  And we sit down Kate Healy, now Managing Director of the CFP Board's Center for Financial Planning, to learn all about probono financial planning AND the Foundation for Financial Planning.  But wait, there's more. Mac Bartine, CEO of Smartria joins us to talk about enterprise compliance management.   Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine to talk about customization, personalization, and the growth of CRM.  And you'll also get to hear from these forward-thinking leaders disrupting the status quo: John Mackowiak from AdvyzonPatrick Reed, YourStakeAkshay Singh, Indyfin Nitin Seth, Incedo And Henry Zelikovsky, Softlab360 We hope you enjoy this special T3 Compilation episode all about fintech In The Suite! 

Craig Ramsey is the Chief Operating Officer at AdvisorEngine, a pioneer in digital wealth management technology that supercharges advisor growth with its powerful and intuitive digital platform. Doug and Craig sat down at the T3 Advisor Conference and talked about how financial technology can get closer to the level of technology utilized in other industries. … Continue reading Episode 99 – Moving Technology from the Why to the How – With Craig Ramsey →

Technology has always been a driver for change, and the financial sector is no exception. Driven by clients who are looking for more holistic advice, financial advisors are now leveraging technology solutions to provide a higher level of service. With the development of comprehensive advisory platforms, advisors can offer better advice and outcomes to their clients. In today's episode, Jack talks with Rich Cancro, Founder and CEO at AdvisorEngine. Rich brings more than 25 years of experience building wealth management technology. Prior to founding AdvisorEngine, he served as a Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and created industry-leading solutions for J.P. Morgan, Bear Stearns and DLJDirect.  Rich talks with Jack about how he helps advisors provide better advice and outcomes for their clients, how he built AdvisorEngine to be a comprehensive advice platform, and what the future looks like for the financial advisory industry. Key Takeaways [01:08] - What AdvisorEngine has to offer clients. [01:51] - An overview of Rich's career in the financial advisory. [05:56] - Why Rich started his own business despite working for one of the largest firms. [10:42] - How Rich built AdvisorEngine to be a comprehensive advice platform. [15:14] - Rich's perspective on the future of the industry. [21:50] - What prompted AdvisorEngine to acquire Junxure. [25:41] - Interesting things Rich does outside of work. Quotes [02:30] - "I am absolutely passionate about fiduciary advisors. I love the fact that fiduciary advisors are fully aligned with the client's interests. They're small businesses. How they get service and how they service their clients, every moment matters." - Rich Cancro [18:03] - "I think advisors really have to evolve from relationship building. They're great at it, that's where they build their trust. But they have to pivot from that perspective into becoming great marketers. A vast majority of independents are not great at marketing" - Rich Cancro Links  Rich Cancro on LinkedIn AdvisorEngine Tom Bradley Charles Schwab TD Ameritrade Fidelity Investments Pershing James Crowley Merrill Lynch Joel Bruckenstein New York Yankees Boston Red Sox Connect with our hosts LifeYield Jack Sharry on LinkedIn Jack Sharry on Twitter Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Today's guest is Rich Cancro, the founder and CEO of AdvisorEngine, a wealth management platform for financial advisors. TacoTech co-hosts Torie Happe and Johnny Sandquist chat with Rich about the update of Junxure CRM to AdvisorEngine CRM and how user feedback helped build the next generation of the software. We also look ahead to AdvisorEngine's annual Drive conference, happening May 2022 in Austin, and get the 411 on his favorite tacos.

Crypto for Dummies! We are taking a very deep dive into the world of technology this week as we discuss NFTs, virtual currencies, #DeFi and loads of other exciting features of 'crypto life' with Lex Sokolin, the Head Economist at ConsenSys, the biggest blockchain company in the world. Your head will be spinning after this episode. We surely learned a lot and hope you will as well.  Guest Introduction:  For this episode of The TeachPitch Podcast we are going to take you to an almost alternate universe. No - we are not going to space travel like we did a few episodes ago when talking to a Space Lawyer - but we are going to travel deep, deep into our laptops, computers and smartphones. The world ‘blockchain' has become a bit of a buzzword. When I hear it, I associate it with a new type of online safety and this mystic word  ‘decentralised' that everyone keeps bringing up. When other people hear it they might think crypto currency, bitcoin. Every day you hear about new initiatives where blockchain has become part of the mix. But was it really?  With us today is Lex Sokolin who is the Head Economist of Consensys - the biggest blockchain in the world. Lex' company uses Ethereum a system based on blockchain to build new enterprise infrastructure solutions for companies all over the world. And Ethereum is also tied to a currency that is growing up very quickly into the crypto world. Something that I suspect Lex knows a lot about.  At Consensys Lex is working on the next generation of financial services. He earned a JD and an MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in Economics and Law from Amherst College.   Previously, Lex was the Global Director of Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research, COO at AdvisorEngine and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, Lex also held roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. Lex is a contributor of thought leadership to the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Bloomberg, FT, Reuters, American Banker, ThinkAdvisor, and Investment News.  You can find out more about ConsenSys here: https://consensys.net

Vladimir Baranov is the founding CTO of AdvisorEngine, a fintech company that was recently acquired by Franklin Templeton. Vladimir has been building successful technology solutions primarily in the fintech industry for 15 years, and he shares his experience on managing the business/tech divide. Highlights: Q: What are some of the common challenges that come up … Continue reading Vladimir Baranov: The CEO-CTO Relationship →

On today’s episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Lex Sokolin, CMO, Chief Economist, and Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, the world’s leading Ethereum software company. Lex also runs the Fintech Blueprint, an amazing fintech subscription newsletter. Before ConsenSys, Lex worked in strategy at Lehman Brothers before getting a JD MBA from Columbia. At Columbia he founded NestEgg, a private label robo, later selling it to AdvisorEngine, then worked in research at Autonomous Research. Lex is a fintech and technology futurist in every sense of the word, always writing at the intersection of finance, tech, law, philosophy, economics, and sociology. We are a huge fan of his work here at Wharton Fintech! Fintech Blueprint: https://lex.substack.com/ In today’s episode, Ryan & Lex discuss: - The deep meanings behind his career decision making, breaking from gold-star chasing to startups and now frontier technology - How Duchamp's "Fountain" can help people understand NFTs - How a conversation with a Deloitte exec turned him into a budding futurist - What ConsenSys is and how it works with the crypto ecosystem - His predictions for Defi and the road to mass adoption - His boredom with fintech super apps, robo advisors, and neobanks - Why Google Pay is going to kill many fintechs For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

The post #WinnersOfWealthTech Ep 24: Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine appeared first on Wealth Management Today and was written by Craig Iskowitz. "Everybody fails at some point, but if you have built a level of trust with your clients, there's no reason for fear." — Rich Cancro This month’s Winners of Wealthtech interview is with Rich Cancro, who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AdvisorEngine. He sets the company’s vision and strategy and brings over 25 […] The post #WinnersOfWealthTech Ep 24: Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine appeared first on Wealth Management Today and was written by Craig Iskowitz.

The post #WinnersOfWealthTech Ep 24: Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz. “Everybody fails at some point, but if you have built a level of trust with your clients, there's no reason for fear.” — Rich Cancro This month's Winners of Wealthtech interview is with Rich Cancro, who is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AdvisorEngine. He sets the company's vision and strategy and brings over 25 […] The post #WinnersOfWealthTech Ep 24: Rich Cancro, CEO of AdvisorEngine appeared first on and was written by Craig Iskowitz.

[Frame - 00:50] Lex Sokolin – Introduction[Frame - 05:35] Advisorengine This communication is available for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer or sale or any form of general solicitation or general advertising of interests in any fund or investment vehicle.  Any such offer will only be made in compliance with applicable state and federal securities laws pursuant to an offering memorandum and related offering documents which will be provided to qualified prospective investors upon request.  Prospective investors should review a Fund’s offering memorandum carefully, which includes important disclosures and risk factors associated with an investment in a Fund. The views and strategies described may not be suitable for all investors. They also do not include all fees or expenses that may be incurred by investing in specific products. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investments will fluctuate and when redeemed may be worth more or less than when originally invested. You cannot invest directly in an index. The opinions expressed are subject to change as subsequent conditions vary. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the reader. Advisory services offered through ACG Wealth Inc.  ACG Wealth Inc. is an affiliate of ACG Investment.

Lex Sokolin iLex Sokolin is a futurist and an entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He is the global fintech co-head at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company building the infrastructure, applications, and practices that enable a decentralized world. Lex focuses on emerging digital assets, public and private enterprise blockchain solutions, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Previously, Lex was the global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research (acquired by AllianceBernstein), an equity research firm serving institutional investors, where he covered artificial intelligence, blockchain, neobanks, digital lenders, roboadvisors, payments, insurtech, and mixed reality. Before Autonomous, Lex was COO at AdvisorEngine, a digital wealth management technology platform, and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor that partnered with financial advisors. Prior to NestEgg, Lex held roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. Lex is a contributor of thought leadership to The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Reuters, American Banker, ThinkAdvisor, and InvestmentNews, among others. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences such as Money2020, LendIt, Schwab Impact, In|Vest, T3 Enterprise Edition, and Consensus. He earned a JD/MBA from Columbia University and a BA in economics and law from Amherst College.   “The good news is that I didn’t have any money, or whatever money I did have I put into some discounted Lehman stock thinking these guys knew what they’re talking about. And if there’s so much confidence, and they have such fancy suits, and they get paid so much, this thing’s got to … go up. And of course ... it didn’t go up, not at all, not in any way whatsoever, it just went down.” Lex Sokolin, on his time at Lehman Brothers in 2007     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Fresh graduate joins Lehman Brothers analyst program The year was 2006. Lex had just graduated from his undergraduate degree in economics. It was still cool to work in finance. He joined the Lehman Brothers’ analyst program alongside 40-50 people when the brand was very strong. His intake were young kids out of school, and associates. They were starting at the investment management division. One of the orientation activities was a stock-picking contest in which new staff had three months to generate the highest returns in a no-risk setting. Wins stock-picking contest just as big banks start to fail He won, which did amazing and damaging things for his ego. He was on top of the world as he had bested Stanford and Harvard people, and was on the road to success. It was now 2007. Bear Stearns appeared to be failing and collapsed shortly afterward. Rumors were circulating that the big banks had a lot of bad debt on their balance sheets and that they couldn’t meet their obligations. A liquidity crisis was looming and Lehman was in the crosshairs. Staff 401K packages are matched in Lehman stock At the time, Lex was in this investment management business and the Lehman price was around US$120 per share. Then it started to fall. It halved its value to 60. Then it plunged to 20 and Lex remembers that day. There was a strong corporate culture at Lehman Brothers. The corporate color was green so people would say everybody leaves green because everyone’s on the same team. So managing directors got paid in Lehman stock as a percentage of their accomplishments. Analysts such as Lex were matched in their 401K plans in stock. If you saved $10,000 you would get $10,000 in Lehman stock and nothing else. Also, staff could buy more stock at a 20% discount. Gordon-Gekko type invokes team spirit, tells staff to invest in Lehman stock So Lehman stock was $20, and it had been falling for months. Lex watched as the New York branch manager, an 80s throwback with Gordon Gekko suspenders and haircut, was saying that the stock price was ridiculous and that it had never been so cheap, so he was directing staff to buy more Lehman stock. Mr. Greed is Good was among people managing $80 billion in that business and another $200 billion in an adjacent business. Lex was 22 so seeing such experienced people made him think it was a good idea. The good news was that he didn’t have much money, because the stock never recovered and due to politics and personal animosity, and the devious dealings of Goldman Sachs, the whole company was the only one not saved by the bailout or takeover deals. Lehmans went to zero. Lehmans alone was left out in the cold Merrill Lynch also collapsed, but it was taken over by the Bank of America. So it didn’t go to zero. Bear Stearns had collapsed earlier but it was bought by JP Morgan. Lehman was the example for the whole world of learning how to be punished, and seeing the destruction of wrong balance sheet construction. Lehman was not a worse business than Merrill, it was a better business than Merrill, and it was not a worse business than Bear Stearns. What however happened was that when it was time to talk about a bailout, all the people in the room, from the treasury secretary to all the other banks, every single person had been a Goldman Sachs (GS) employee. 401K matching also went to zero also So Lex’s retirement package also matched Lehman’s and went to zero. So as a young analyst who was really good at virtual stock games none of the outcome was part of his decision process and was not something he knew. So understanding that this was not an exception, that the world is defined by these edge cases, that the whole thing is just these edge cases, was an extremely valuable takeaway. While he lost everything he had at the time, in the long horizon, “things turned out quite all right”.   “I was a super interesting moment, I am so incredibly grateful for having that early in my career, you know, two years into my career, because I saw everything from the behavioural biases that people have about the places where they work, the problems of over indexing and to one particular security, and then more than anything, you know, like idiosyncratic risk that you really can’t predict.” Lex Sokolin     Some lessons Overconcentration in any position exposes you to great idiosyncratic risk This is the kind of risk that you cannot create a model for, nor can you have any good sense for it, because it is unknowable. Diversification in portfolio construction is the answer Build a portfolio without overexposing yourself to any particular holding – diversify. If you’re doing a barbell strategy, make sure the other side of the barbell is really conservative, so if you one of your positions fails, it doesn’t harm your portfolio in a big way. People are not reliable sources of information Most of the time the information you’re receiving from other people is based on emotion. They might dress it up in technical language, but it’s not useful information. It’s just how they feel.   “So understanding that this (Lehman’s collapse) was not an exception, that the world is defined by these edge cases, that the whole thing is just these edge cases … was a majorly valuable takeaway.” Lex Sokolin     Andrew’s takeaways Benefits of diversification Risk disappears or reduces very quickly, in the beginning as you start to blend stocks together. “Diversification is the seat belt and blending in some sort of other instruments, such as bonds for example, is the airbag.” Common mistakes Collated from the My Worst Investment Ever series, the six main categories of mistakes made by interviewees, starting from the most common, are: Failed to do their own research Failed to properly assess and manage risk Were driven by emotion or flawed thinking Misplaced trust Failed to monitor their investment Invested in a start-up company Misplaced trust Particularly for young people, you see senior financial experts managing billions of dollars, and you think: “This guy’s got to know.” Andrew always says, everyone’s ultimately making it up, this man or that woman just has a lot more experience making it up than others, and maybe has some great experience in risk management or another area. It’s hard to rely on humans to give you great information It’s also hard to rely on machines, or charts or data, to give you correct information     Actionable advice Figure out what know that you know and what you know that you don’t know Everything flows from that: the selection of your investment philosophy, the selection of your risk tolerance and your ability to put money to work. Figure out your goals for the financial planning you’re doing. Ask yourself the following: Why are you investing? What are you trying to get out of it? How are you going to behave when different scenarios play out in your investment’s performance? What kind of investor are you? Do you need help? Do you want to delegate that to somebody who will make you feel more secure and give you a smarter overlay? Or do you want to do it yourself?     No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Lex at ConsenSys, one of the largest blockchain technology companies in the world, is focused on the tokenization of securities and the “connective tissue” between the traditional financial world and the world of digital assets, crypto assets, and how the two connect through platforms and software. So he’s trying to build some cool tools for people to get access to financial instruments that historically they either didn’t have enough money to do or was just too difficult to get involved with. It’s a very interesting opportunity because there has been a lot of pushback recently against cryptocurrencies at every level.     Parting words If listeners would like to keep up with some fintech news and developments, Lex invites you to check out his Twitter or follow him on LinkedIn for his newsletter.     You can also check out Andrew’s books   How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market   My Worst Investment Ever   9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them   Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Lex Sokolin LinkedIn Twitter Website Email Connect with Andrew Stotz Astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast Further reading mentioned Harry Markowitz (1971) Portfolio Selection: Efficient Diversification of Investments   s a futurist and an entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He is the global fintech co-head at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company building the infrastructure, applications, and practices that enable a decentralized world. Lex focuses on emerging digital assets, public and private enterprise blockchain solutions, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Previously, Lex was the global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research (acquired by AllianceBernstein), an equity research firm serving institutional investors, where he covered artificial intelligence, blockchain, neobanks, digital lenders, roboadvisors, payments, insurtech, and mixed reality. Before Autonomous, Lex was COO at AdvisorEngine, a digital wealth management technology platform, and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor that partnered with financial advisors. Prior to NestEgg, Lex held roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. Lex is a contributor of thought leadership to The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Reuters, American Banker, ThinkAdvisor, and InvestmentNews, among others. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences such as Money2020, LendIt, Schwab Impact, In|Vest, T3 Enterprise Edition, and Consensus. He earned a JD/MBA from Columbia University and a BA in economics and law from Amherst College.   “The good news is that I didn’t have any money, or whatever money I did have I put into some discounted Lehman stock thinking these guys knew what they’re talking about. And if there’s so much confidence, and they have such fancy suits, and they get paid so much, this thing’s got to … go up. And of course ... it didn’t go up, not at all, not in any way whatsoever, it just went down.” Lex Sokolin, on his time at Lehman Brothers in 2007     Support our sponsor   Today’s episode is sponsored by the Women Building Wealth membership group, the complete proven step-by-step course to guide women from novice to competent investor. To learn more, visit: WomenBuildingWealth.net.     Worst investment ever Fresh graduate joins Lehman Brothers analyst program The year was 2006. Lex had just graduated from his undergraduate degree in economics. It was still cool to work in finance. He joined the Lehman Brothers’ analyst program alongside 40-50 people when the brand was very strong. His intake were young kids out of school, and associates. They were starting at the investment management division. One of the orientation activities was a stock-picking contest in which new staff had three months to generate the highest returns in a no-risk setting. Wins stock-picking contest just as big banks start to fail He won, which did amazing and damaging things for his ego. He was on top of the world as he had bested Stanford and Harvard people, and was on the road to success. It was now 2007. Bear Stearns appeared to be failing and collapsed shortly afterward. Rumors were circulating that the big banks had a lot of bad debt on their balance sheets and that they couldn’t meet their obligations. A liquidity crisis was looming and Lehman was in the crosshairs. Staff 401K packages are matched in Lehman stock At the time, Lex was in this investment management business and the Lehman price was around US$120 per share. Then it started to fall. It halved its value to 60. Then it plunged to 20 and Lex remembers that day. There was a strong corporate culture at Lehman Brothers. The corporate color was green so people would say everybody leaves green because everyone’s on the same team. So managing directors got paid in Lehman stock as a percentage of their accomplishments. Analysts such as Lex were matched in their 401K plans in stock. If you saved $10,000 you would get $10,000 in Lehman stock and nothing else. Also, staff could buy more stock at a 20% discount. Gordon-Gekko type invokes team spirit, tells staff to invest in Lehman stock So Lehman stock was $20, and it had been falling for months. Lex watched as the New York branch manager, an 80s throwback with Gordon Gekko suspenders and haircut, was saying that the stock price was ridiculous and that it had never been so cheap, so he was directing staff to buy more Lehman stock. Mr. Greed is Good was among people managing $80 billion in that business and another $200 billion in an adjacent business. Lex was 22 so seeing such experienced people made him think it was a good idea. The good news was that he didn’t have much money, because the stock never recovered and due to politics and personal animosity, and the devious dealings of Goldman Sachs, the whole company was the only one not saved by the bailout or takeover deals. Lehmans went to zero. Lehmans alone was left out in the cold Merrill Lynch also collapsed, but it was taken over by the Bank of America. So it didn’t go to zero. Bear Stearns had collapsed earlier but it was bought by JP Morgan. Lehman was the example for the whole world of learning how to be punished, and seeing the destruction of wrong balance sheet construction. Lehman was not a worse business than Merrill, it was a better business than Merrill, and it was not a worse business than Bear Stearns. What however happened was that when it was time to talk about a bailout, all the people in the room, from the treasury secretary to all the other banks, every single person had been a Goldman Sachs (GS) employee. 401K matching also went to zero also So Lex’s retirement package also matched Lehman’s and went to zero. So as a young analyst who was really good at virtual stock games none of the outcome was part of his decision process and was not something he knew. So understanding that this was not an exception, that the world is defined by these edge cases, that the whole thing is just these edge cases, was an extremely valuable takeaway. While he lost everything he had at the time, in the long horizon, “things turned out quite all right”.   “I was a super interesting moment, I am so incredibly grateful for having that early in my career, you know, two years into my career, because I saw everything from the behavioural biases that people have about the places where they work, the problems of over indexing and to one particular security, and then more than anything, you know, like idiosyncratic risk that you really can’t predict.” Lex Sokolin     Some lessons Overconcentration in any position exposes you to great idiosyncratic risk This is the kind of risk that you cannot create a model for, nor can you have any good sense for it, because it is unknowable. Diversification in portfolio construction is the answer Build a portfolio without overexposing yourself to any particular holding – diversify. If you’re doing a barbell strategy, make sure the other side of the barbell is really conservative, so if you one of your positions fails, it doesn’t harm your portfolio in a big way. People are not reliable sources of information Most of the time the information you’re receiving from other people is based on emotion. They might dress it up in technical language, but it’s not useful information. It’s just how they feel.   “So understanding that this (Lehman’s collapse) was not an exception, that the world is defined by these edge cases, that the whole thing is just these edge cases … was a majorly valuable takeaway.” Lex Sokolin     Andrew’s takeaways Benefits of diversification Risk disappears or reduces very quickly, in the beginning as you start to blend stocks together. “Diversification is the seat belt and blending in some sort of other instruments, such as bonds for example, is the airbag.” Common mistakes Collated from the My Worst Investment Ever series, the six main categories of mistakes made by interviewees, starting from the most common, are: Failed to do their own research Failed to properly assess and manage risk Were driven by emotion or flawed thinking Misplaced trust Failed to monitor their investment Invested in a start-up company Misplaced trust Particularly for young people, you see senior financial experts managing billions of dollars, and you think: “This guy’s got to know.” Andrew always says, everyone’s ultimately making it up, this man or that woman just has a lot more experience making it up than others, and maybe has some great experience in risk management or another area. It’s hard to rely on humans to give you great information It’s also hard to rely on machines, or charts or data, to give you correct information     Actionable advice Figure out what know that you know and what you know that you don’t know Everything flows from that: the selection of your investment philosophy, the selection of your risk tolerance and your ability to put money to work. Figure out your goals for the financial planning you’re doing. Ask yourself the following: Why are you investing? What are you trying to get out of it? How are you going to behave when different scenarios play out in your investment’s performance? What kind of investor are you? Do you need help? Do you want to delegate that to somebody who will make you feel more secure and give you a smarter overlay? Or do you want to do it yourself?     No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Lex at ConsenSys, one of the largest blockchain technology companies in the world, is focused on the tokenization of securities and the “connective tissue” between the traditional financial world and the world of digital assets, crypto assets, and how the two connect through platforms and software. So he’s trying to build some cool tools for people to get access to financial instruments that historically they either didn’t have enough money to do or was just too difficult to get involved with. It’s a very interesting opportunity because there has been a lot of pushback recently against cryptocurrencies at every level.     Parting words If listeners would like to keep up with some fintech news and developments, Lex invites you to check out his Twitter or follow him on LinkedIn for his newsletter.     You can also check out Andrew’s books   How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market   My Worst Investment Ever   9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them   Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points  Connect with Lex Sokolin LinkedIn Twitter Website Email Connect with Andrew Stotz Astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast Further reading mentioned Harry Markowitz (1971) Portfolio Selection: Efficient Diversification of Investments    

Joanie interviews Vladimir Baronov, who is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of AdvisorEngine.  They build powerful and intuitive technology for financial advisors. Vladimir oversees the company's software development and technological operations. He has nearly 15 years of experience designing and building successful technology solutions.  Vladimir shares keen insights on the stressors that … Continue reading Vladimir Baranov: Startup Stressors for CTOs →

Lex Sokolin started a roboadvisor way back in 2009, which was eventually sold to AdvisorEngine. As a result of that experience, and the strategy and advisory work he's done since, Lex has unique insight into the evolution of the digital investments space, one of the fastest moving areas of fintech today. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Part 2 of our series at the Inside ETFs Conference includes: [0:48] Ed Rosenberg and Rene Casis, responsible for ETF Offerings at American Century, discuss their outlook for Federal Reserve rate hikes in 2019 and why investors should emphasize ‘quality’ when positioning their portfolios. [6:27] Lukas Smart, Portfolio Manager at Dimensional Funds and Manager of the John Hancock Multifactor ETFs, discusses some of the differences on how Dimensional’s strategies are implemented between the Dimensional mutual funds and John Hancock ETFs.  [11:07] Gene Podkaminer, Head of Research Strategies at Franklin Templeton, provides his macro outlook for a global GDP convergence between the U.S. and the rest of the world as well as his views on multi-factor construction. [23:47] Luke Oliver, Head of Capital Markets at DWS, sees slowing global growth but opportunities within emerging markets, particularly China, and high yield fixed income as well as trends in ETF product development.  [31:28] Matt Bartolini, Head of SPDR Americas Research at State Street Global Advisors, shares with our audience some new research into sector-based investing using business cycle analysis. [35:30] Alisa Maute, Head of Distribution, and Jeremy Schwartz, Global Head of Research at WisdomTree Investments, update our audience with their innovation of “modern alpha” and their development of advisor tools. Disclosures: -WisdomTree Investments, Inc. (“WisdomTree Investments”) is the sole owner of WisdomTree Asset Management, Inc., a registered investment adviser, and is a substantial minority owner of AdvisorEngine Inc. (“AdvisorEngine”), a digital wealth management platform.   WisdomTree and/or its affiliates has a financial interest in AdvisorEngine and its business. -The opinions expressed are those of American Century Investments (or the fund manager) and are no guarantee of the future performance of any American Century Investments fund. This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. The third parties listed are independent companies and are not affiliated with American Century Investments. Listing them does not suggest a recommendation or endorsement by American Century Investments.  

Welcome to another episode of CTO Studio! On this show our guests come from many different industries, and today’s guest is from the wealth management world. Vladimir Baranov is the CTO and cofounder of AdvisorEngine, a company which assists financial advisors in several different aspects of the financial consultancy industry. Vladimir will tell us how he came to be a CTO and cofounder of this company, his advice on communicating with a team, what he has learned in his time as a CTO of a startup, and more on today’s episode of CTO Studio. In this episode you’ll hear: What sets AdvisorEngine apart from others in their industry? Why did Vladimir want to work with a start up? What makes his CTO position so unique? Are managerial roles ever not what they seem? When does a CTO stop working? And so much more! Vladimir knew he wanted to work with a start-up company and be a cofounder for quite awhile before the right opportunity came along. He specifically wanted to work in wealth management so when the role of CTO was available at AdvisorEngine he jumped at the chance. And he’s glad he waited because he’s learned so much: everything from public relations to people management. And all of it has been useful, especially managing people. I asked him to dive into that a bit further: what advice does he have for people in managerial positions and what differences might they expect in those positions? Vladimir says being in a managerial position really reduces the amount of “hands-on work” you are doing, but it is fulfilling just in a different way. As a manager your focus is on helping your team realize and reach their potential. There are plenty of challenges that come along with being a manager, too! In his role, he works with an outsourced team so there’s a language barrier. Generally communication goes smoothly, but sometimes the languaging used can cause some delays and can slow down productivity.  He says they had to facilitate knowledge exchange between all the developers. Terminology can be hard to translate if it doesn’t exist in another language. For example in Eastern Europe there is no such thing as a wealth advisor so they had to find a way to communicate what that role does so their Eastern European team could understand. I was curious about what AdvisorEngine does, how they work with their clients so Vladimir expanded on that topic. Basically AdvisorEngine is a company that builds technology for financial advisors, and the technology helps these advisors grow their clients’ net worth and facilitate a better, more complete financial picture for all of their clients. Vladimir continues by saying they basically aggregate data sources (while following specific financial rules and regulations). In essence, he says wealth management isn’t complex, except for all the regulations you must follow while advising your clients! The advisors themselves want to build and secure ongoing relationships with their clients. Trust is critical for their livelihood as they are typically paid a percentage of AOM assets. Because of that they are also judged differently and are always looking to add more assets through building and expanding their client base and their network.  From there we moved on to talking about the nature of the CIO CTO relationship. Vladimir explains each position runs different teams and has different responsibilities. There are a lot of compliance regulations to follow and a lot of infrastructure and operations must be set up to maintain those regulations, so the overall structure of the different teams are designed in a specific way to do so. Continuing on that train of thought, Vladimir says it is important to stop doing things that are not working for you, and to accept that you may not get to do as much hands-on work as you used to. The solution is to hire someone who will work for you while you do the other aspects so all your bases are covered. I asked how he and the CEO navigate growth points. He says they really try to figure it out as they go along.  In real life, you have to operate through your own or someone else’s experiences. He believes vulnerability is key and that’s how he starts his relationships. He knows anyone and everyone could make a mistake. He says the team is there together to fail and to succeed as a unified group.  And finally we wrap up with a discussion about his cofounders, what technology tools they use to communicate effectively within their global team, and what (if anything) he says to his CEO when he is struggling. Hear Vladimir’s thoughts on those topics and more when you tune in to this episode of CTO Studio!

Lex Sokolin is a futurist and entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He directs Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research, a leading research firm for the financial sector, helping clients understand and leverage innovation.   Prior to joining Autonomous Research, Lex founded and ran NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor that pioneered online wealth management and was acquired by AdvisorEngine, a digital wealth management platform backed by WisdomTree.   Lex is a contributor of thought leadership to the WSJ, CNBC, Reuters, Investopedia, American Banker, ThinkAdvisor, and Investment News, among others.   As always, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or on our website at bankingthefuture.com.   If you like today's show, please subscribe on iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice, and leave us a review.   Thank you very much for joining us today, please welcome Lex Sokolin.

Which slices of the financial stack will new technologies irreversibly transform, and which will be the enablers – artificial intelligence, NLP, virtual assistants or blockchain – most significant in this transformation? On that topic Lex Sokolin, Partner at Autonomous Research, a leading research firm for the financial sector, joins Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal. Lex is a futurist and entrepreneur focused on the next generation of financial services. He was founder and CEO of NestEgg Wealth, a roboadvisor acquired by AdvisorEngine. Prior to NestEgg, Lex held a variety of roles in investment management and banking at Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. Alluding to his own entrepreneurial experience, Lex suggests 'most people who build fintech companies think they're going to get the attention economy but instead what they get is a financial services business'. He explains that unless start-ups have the ability to chase customer acquisition with millions of dollars, the smart bet historically has been to sell directly to banks. Most consumer facing roboadvisors and fintech companies today, he says, are just ‘a new distribution mechanism, a new UI, sitting on top of existing wealth management solutions'. But, he argues, AI’s most visible effect will occur at this layer, through voice or chatbot enabled interaction with financial services. Lex also addresses the recent proliferation of Initial Coin Offerings, a financing mechanism for cryptocurrencies and decentralised applications. 'The things that are built [in the crypto economy] look wildly different and look like they really can't be replicated on the traditional stack, on an 80s core processing system’, he says. It’s a world, he argues, that closely resembles science fiction, promising the ‘full collapse of all asset classes into software' and autonomous machines transacting with each other entirely through digital assets and tokens. Show notes: Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3 Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com Autonomous NEXT: https://next.autonomous.com Related bio links: Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee Lex: linkedin.com/in/alexeysokolin / twitter.com/lexsokolin

Panelists include: Mike Sha, SigFig; Rich Cancro, AdvisorEngine; Aaron Klein, Riskalayze; Moderator: Ryan Neal, Wealth Management. There are many fintech firms who are partnering with wealth managers in different ways; SigFig has built a digital wealth platform to bring a modern approach to the wealth management business and has partnered with some large firms; Riskalayze believes investors tend to sabotage their investments by investing at inopportune times; company has built a Risk Number to quantify and help advisors determine how much their clients can handle while reaching goals; also has built a robo component to the product; AdvisorEngine’s goals are to help advisors transform their growth and connect advisors to their clients, transforming the experience by digitization; panelists share why they chose to pursue the path as a technology provider, their history in wealth management and why it makes sense to partner with wealth management firms.

On today’s broadcast, Vanare becomes AdvisorEngine after a $20 million dollar investment, RightCaptial gets a favorable review, and Addepar opens up about the capabilities of its technology. So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now! (WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube) Today’s episode is brought to you by eMoney Advisor, the leading provider of […]