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Serving ultra-high-net-worth families requires more than technical expertise. It demands deep attention to detail, a strong supporting team, and a planning approach capable of navigating complex tax, estate, and investment structures. This episode explores what it really takes for advisors to successfully move 'upmarket' and support clients whose financial lives involve high stakes, fast-moving parts, and opportunities measured in millions. Blair duQuesnay is a Lead Advisor at Ritholtz Wealth Management, an RIA based in New York City that oversees $6.5 billion in AUM for 3,900 households. Listen in as Blair shares how she transitioned from working with traditional wealth-management clients to serving ultra-high-net-worth families, and what she learned about applying advanced expertise in real-world scenarios where accuracy and timeliness are critical. You'll hear why flat-fee models often make more sense than AUM fees at the highest wealth levels, how she demonstrates multimillion-dollar planning value through sophisticated tax and estate strategies, and how UHNW clients' biggest fear isn't running out of money but making a catastrophic financial mistake. We also discuss how Blair manages impostor syndrome, the confidence that comes from having a strong team behind her, and why advisors can thrive with any client segment as long as they intentionally choose the work they enjoy most. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/474
In this episode of Building the Billion Dollar Business, Ray Sclafani breaks down why advisor movement data should be treated as an early warning system and not industry gossip. While the number of advisors changing firms has remained steady, a more concerning trend is emerging: more advisors are leaving the profession entirely than entering it.Ray explains that this shift isn't driven by compensation alone. Instead, advisors are making intentional decisions based on leadership clarity, career path visibility, enterprise value, and control over their future. He outlines four critical decision points for firm leaders in 2026: rethinking retention beyond pay, recruiting for long-term fit, aligning custodian and broker-dealer relationships with strategic purpose, and putting leadership development front and center.The episode challenges RIA and wealth management leaders to confront strategic ambiguity, leadership bottlenecks, and platform misalignment before retention issues show up in the P&L. The message is clear: firms that provide a credible future will keep top talent and those that don't won't.Key TakeawaysAdvisor movement data is an early warning system that reveals where confidence in leadership and long-term value is eroding.More financial advisors are leaving the profession entirely than entering it, signaling a deeper industry challenge beyond firm-to-firm movement.The cost of replacing experienced advisors far exceeds the cost of retaining and developing existing talent.Firms overly dependent on a single founder or leader create bottlenecks that limit growth and retention.Clear leadership pathways and role clarity are essential to sustaining advisor confidence and long-term firm value.Questions Financial Advisors Often AskQ: What does advisor movement data reveal about the wealth management industry? A: Advisor movement data shows where advisors believe long-term value exists and serves as an early warning system for leadership, retention, and strategic alignment issues.Q: Why are financial advisors leaving firms if compensation remains competitive? A: Advisors leave when they lack leadership clarity, role clarity, and a credible long-term career path, not simply because of pay.Q: Are more advisors leaving the profession entirely? A: Yes. In 2025, more advisors exited the profession than entered it, indicating a growing talent decline in the industry.Q: What is the real cost of losing experienced financial advisors? A: Replacing senior advisors typically costs one-and-a-half to two times their total compensation when factoring in lost productivity, recruiting time, and client disruption.Q: What role does leadership play in advisor retention? A: Advisors closely evaluate leadership development, decision-making structure, and whether firms rely too heavily on a single founder or leader.Q: Why do advisors say they are “voting with their feet”? A: Advisors move firms to gain more control over their future, their clients, and their long-term career trajectory, not because they want more change.Find Ray and the ClientWise Team on the ClientWise website or LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeTo join one of the largest digital communities of financial advisors, visit exchange.clientwise.com.
In this episode of the TPR podcast, Matthew Jarvis and Shelby Nicholl discuss the complexities and considerations involved in transitioning to a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) model. They explore the realistic timeframes for making the move, the importance of due diligence, and the various options available, including RIA platforms. Shelby emphasizes the significance of proper messaging and client retention during the transition, as well as the necessity of compliance and the benefits of hiring a compliance consultant. The conversation also highlights the RIA Launch Accelerator program, designed to assist advisors in navigating the transition process effectively. Client Retention Strategies With Shelby Nicholl [Episode 345] Resources in today's episode: - Matt Jarvis: Website | LinkedIn - Shelby Nichol: Website | LinkedIn - Learn More about our Coaching Programs
In this episode of The Distribution, Brandon Sedloff sits down with Phil Huber to unpack the evolution of private markets and their growing role in private wealth portfolios. Phil shares his path from a family RIA to leading portfolio solutions at Cliffwater, and explains why alternatives are shifting from a niche allocation to a core portfolio decision. The conversation explores how interval funds, multi-manager strategies, and improved liquidity frameworks are reshaping access to private equity and private credit for advisors. Along the way, Phil offers a clear, practical lens on education, structure, and risk management in an increasingly complex alternatives landscape. They discuss: Phil's career journey from wealth management to asset management and his focus on alternatives Why private markets are becoming an active allocation decision rather than an institutional afterthought How interval funds work, including liquidity mechanics, eligibility, and portfolio fit The role of multi manager and co investment strategies in diversification and fee efficiency What advisors and CIOs look for when evaluating private market products for client portfolios Links: Phil on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-huber/ Cliffwater - https://cliffwater.com/ Brandon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsedloff/ Juniper Square - https://www.junipersquare.com/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:32) - Phil Huber's early career and family influence (00:10:52) - Transition to Cliffwater and focus on alternatives (00:12:06) - Understanding private markets and co-investments (00:25:57) - Cliffwater's funds and direct lending strategy (00:28:01) - Cliffwater's view on direct lending (00:30:28) - Challenges of traditional private market investments (00:33:14) - Advantages of interval funds (00:34:32) - Liquidity management in interval funds (00:41:39) - Multi-manager vs. single manager strategies (00:45:09) - Real assets and interval funds (00:48:18) - Daily beta adjustments for private assets (00:50:01) - Educating advisors and clients (00:53:56) - Future trends in private markets (00:56:07) - Conclusion and final thoughts
Note: This episode is a rebroadcast of Shane Mason's appearance on the Only Fee-Only podcast. This week on The Liquidity Event, we're sharing a rebroadcast of a recent conversation featuring Shane Mason on the Only Fee-Only podcast. In this episode, Shane shares his unconventional founder story, from Big Four tax to touring life, before teaming up with AJ to build Brooklyn FI into a 20-person advisory firm rooted in transparency, productized service, and genuine hospitality. He walks through the early days of the firm, including running a tax practice out of a bar booth, pricing low to gain experience, and taking weekend prospect meetings to refine the offer. The conversation quickly turns practical, covering why most equity compensation issues are really tax issues, how offering refunds can protect long-term trust, and why turning estate planning into a social, notarized event helps clients finally take action. Shane also discusses building an enterprise rather than a lifestyle practice, documenting workflows for consistency, evolving the firm's niche from creatives to tech employees, and what changes when founders step back from day-to-day client work. The episode wraps with a look at Gemifi, the fintech platform Brooklyn FI built to help advisors visualize vesting schedules and future balance sheets. If you're building or scaling an RIA, this rebroadcast is full of hard-won insights on processes, client experience, and leading through growth. Key Timestamps: (00:00) Meet Shane Mason and Brooklyn Fi (01:38) Career Origins and Early Accounting (05:00) Quarter-Life Crisis and Adventures Abroad (08:20) Sailing The Atlantic and Roadie Tales (11:30) Building A Tax Practice In A Bar Booth (14:55) Meeting AJ and Forming The Partnership (19:10) Finding XYPN and Learning The RIA Game (22:50) First Hires and Evolving The Niche (27:00) Estate Planning Parties and Execution (34:50) Advice For New Firms And Equity Comp (38:50) Taking L's, Refunds, and Reputation
Every year many financial advisors transition their practice from one wirehouse to another.Provided they've done their research and concluded that such a path was best for them, their practice, and their clients, there is nothing wrong with that.All too often though, that research does not include understanding all potential options.Thus, they end up making a less than informed decision about something that will impact the balance of their career.In this episode of the Transition To RIA question & answer series (#140) I work to expand such knowledge by explaining how transitioning to another wirehouse compares to transitioning to the RIA model.Come take a listen!P.S. Prefer video? You can find this entire series in video format on Youtube. Search for the TRANSITION TO RIA channel.Show notes: https://TransitionToRIA.com/how-does-transitioning-to-another-wirehouse-compare-to-transitioning-to-the-ria-model/About Host: Brad Wales is the founder of Transition To RIA, where he helps financial advisors between $50M and $1B understand everything there is to know about WHY and HOW to transition their practice to the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) model. Brad has 20+ years of industry experience, including direct RIA related roles in Compliance, Finance and Business Development. He has an MBA and has held the 4, 7, 24, 63 & 65 licenses. The Transition To RIA website (TransitionToRIA.com) has a large catalog of free videos, articles, whitepapers, as well as other resources to help advisors understand the RIA model and how it would apply to their unique circumstances.
Allen and Joel are joined by Mathieu Cōté from CanREA to preview the upcoming Operators Summit in Toronto. With many Canadian wind projects reaching 17-20 years old, the industry faces critical decisions about extending, repowering, or decommissioning assets. Register now! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Matt, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Well, the theme of this Year’s Operator Summit is coming of age and. There’s a lot of things happening in the renewable side up in Canada. What does that mean for Canadian renewable energy operators right now? Mathieu Cōté: Well, we came up with coming of age because, um, the fleet in Canada is in a bit of a different space than it is in the States where, uh, right now we’ve got a lot of projects that are on the cusp of coming to their end of initial lifetime. Right. They’re in that. 17 to 20 year range. There’s some that are a little bit past, and so you, as an operator, you gotta be asking yourself, is this the time to extend this project? What do I have to do [00:01:00] if I need to extend? Um, or am I repowering, am I taking things down, putting them up? And I mean, there’s a lot of different variables there. Sometimes it’s just a re topping, sometimes it’s everything down to ground level and go again. Or it’s, maybe it’s a decommissioning and those decisions are on the cusp of being made in the operation space in Canada. So that’s, that’s a super important part of it. But the other side of it, and the reason we liked, uh, coming of age is from the industry perspective itself. We are no longer the new kid on the block, right? We are now a reliable, uh, professional industry that can deliver power when you need it. Uh, so that’s what we’re trying to, to convey with this coming of age. And, and we’ve got some really good speakers who are gonna talk about that, uh, from. The grid operator’s perspective saying, why is it that renewables are one of the first things they reach for now when they realize they need more power? Joel Saxum: I think it’s an interesting space and I think to, to [00:02:00]comment more deeply on that, right? That you guys are in that, you Mathieu Cōté: know, Joel Saxum: 2005, six you started installing a Mathieu Cōté: lot of the, a lot of wind assets. There was a curve of, as it as every year you get more and more. Trickle and then becomes a flood quite quickly. Joel Saxum: Yeah. And, and, and you know, from, from the operation standpoint, we deal with some of the wind farms in Canada. We love working with, uh, the operators up there because they do exude that professionalism. They’re on top of their game. They know they’ve gotta maintain these things. Whereas in the states, we’ve been a little bit nascent sometimes and, oh, we got PTC coming so we don’t have to do these certain things. Little bit more cowboy. Yeah. Yeah. And up in Canada, they’re, they’re, they’ve been doing the right things for a long time. Um, and I think it’s a good, good model to follow, but you’re a hundred percent correct. We’re coming to that time when it’s like decision time to be made here. And I think we, in our, in our uh, kind of off air chat, you had mentioned that, you know, repower in Canada is. Pretty early stages. I Mathieu Cōté: only know about Joel Saxum: one, Mathieu Cōté: to [00:03:00] be honest, and I try and keep track of these things, Joel Saxum: but that’s coming down the pipeline, Mathieu Cōté: right? So there’s gonna be more and more of these happening. And I mean, there are a lot of operators that have one foot on either side of the border, so some people have some operational experience on what steps you need to take, but it’s also from the regulatory side, like what is your grid operator gonna insist on? So on and so on. But, uh, so we’ve got some panels to talk about things like, one of my favorites is, uh, how much life is left in your machine? And that’s sort of a deeper dive from an engineering standpoint. Like what math do the engineers do to assess, is this foundation good to go for another 10 years? Is this tower gonna stand up to whatever? Should we replace the blades and all those components? We, we’ve got a foundation expert, uh, someone who does. Digital twin sort of things as well as, um, a panelist from, uh, Nordex, so the OEM sort of perspective as well, and how they assess how much [00:04:00] life is left in a machine. So like that’s the sort of panels that we’re trying to put together that we’re pretty excited about. Joel Saxum: Well, I think that’s a good one too, because I know Alan and I we’re talking around the industry globally. A lot of it is around CMS. And when we say CMS, we’re not just talking drive train anymore, we’re talking everything you can in the turbine, right? So the, the concept of remaining useful life, r ul, that always comes up, where are we at with this, right? Because from a global perspective in Europe, they have, you know, in Spanish wind farms are all, a lot of ’em are at that 25 year mark. What are we doing here? So you guys are bringing that conversation to the Canadian market at this operator summit in Toronto here in February. It’s, it’s timely, right? Because it’s February and everybody’s getting ready for spring, so you got a little bit of time to come to the conference. Mathieu Cōté: Well, and that’s one of the things that we actually used to do is show in April and we’ve moved it back after hearing feedback from our, from our audience that April’s almost too late, right? Like, if you’re doing your assessments for your [00:05:00] blades, it where? Where’s your manpower coming up? Coming from in the summertime? Those contracts are already signed. By the time you hit April, February, you’ve still got time. Your RFP might be out so you can meet all the proponents on site at once. It, it just makes a lot more sense for us to do it in February. Allen Hall: Well, there’s a wide range of technology in Canada in regards to wind to energy. That adds to the complexity where a lot of turbines, unlike the United States, are maybe even sub one megawatt, and with new turbines coming online, they’re gonna be in the five, six, maybe even seven megawatt range. That’s a huge dispersed. Industry to try to maintain massive range. Yeah. Right. And I, and, and I think one of the dilemmas about that is trying to find people who understand that tho all those different kinds of machines and the intricacies of each one of them and how to operate them more efficiently, which is where Canada is. Quite honestly. The, the thing [00:06:00] about that and the challenge for Canada Head, and this is why the conference is so important, is. If there’s someone in Canada that has the answer, as Joel and I have talked to a number of Canadian operators, you may not know them. I know it’s a smaller marketplace in general, but unless you’re talking to one another, you probably, uh, don’t realize there’s, there’s help within Canada. And these conferences really highlight that quite a bit. Wanna talk about some of the, sort of the interactions you guys create at the conference? Mathieu Cōté: Yeah. Oh, well, it’s one of the things that can RIA tries to do is play that connector role, right? Like, we don’t know everything, but like you say, we know someone who knows something and we can put you in touch with all. I know a guy who knows a guy. Um, but we’re, we’re always able to, to, to connect those dots. And I mean, we, we do a lot of, uh. Things like working groups and uh, regional meetings. And, uh, we’ve even got, uh, different summits for different things. Getting a little bit outside of operations, but like we [00:07:00] have an Atlantic operators group that gathers together and has a chat just sometimes, usually there’s a focus topic, but then we have, oh, how do you guys deal with the storm that came through? Or that sort of thing, or what, what do you do for if you need a new blade or has anyone got a good vendor for this thing or that thing? Those sorts of things always happen in the margins. And I mean, the ops summit is the, the best one of those because it’s the entire Canadian industry that gets together. We’ve got folks from bc, we’ve got folks from Atlantic Canada, there’s gonna be people from Quebec, and there’s vendors from all those places as well. Right? So. It’s covering all your bases and it’s the one place that you can talk to everybody and meet everybody in like a 48 hour period. Joel Saxum: Well, I think that if, you know, just doing a little bit of deep dive into the agenda and the program here, that’s one of the things that you guys are focusing on. Targeted networking. So morning breakfasts, evening receptions, there, you know, structured and informal, uh, opportunities to actually connect with the o and m [00:08:00] community. Um, one of them that you had mentioned was kind of, um. Hands-on demonstrations and, and for me, when, when I see these things, ’cause I’ve seen them kind of slightly not, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do it perfectly well. I’m excited to see what you guys do. But you get, you get a group of people standing around, like you get people kind of standing around. Rubbing elbows going, like, what do you think about that? What is, does this, is this gonna work? And, and those to me are great, great conversations for networking and kind of figuring things out together. The collaboration part. Mathieu Cōté: Absolutely. Uh, well on those two points, the, the networking has always been a huge part of this show, and we’ve always built into the program. Okay. There’s some stuff on stage, but then there’s a break. And I mean, you can wander around the showroom floor and you can, but you can talk to the other people. And, uh, that’s a big part of this. That’s an important part of this. And then on the, the demonstrations and so on, we used to have what we called, uh, elevator pitches, uh, where, and we’ve done it various different ways where people get five minutes, one slide, you’re on [00:09:00] stage, you say your piece, you give us your elevator pitch, and then you get off and someone else gets up and talks. And we found that, that, and the feedback we got was that that was good because that condensed all of the salesy parts and kept it away from the panels. ’cause the panels, we want them to be informative, not. Selling you something. We want you to learn something. But the sales pitch is, there is some sense of like someone’s trying to sell you a thing. But we’re evolving that a little bit this year where we’re going towards demonstrations. So on the showroom floor, there will be someone who will have a tangible thing, whether it’s here’s the new fireproof coat that we’ve come up with, or here’s how this, uh, sling works, or here’s this piece of kit that fits on your machine that catches bolts when they break, or whatever it is. Here’s how it actually works, and they’ve got it in their hands and they can play with the go until it, uh, really, like you say, gets that light bulb moment that gets you to see how it works. And you can see that ROI [00:10:00] right away going, oh, okay. That if it catches the bolts when they break, then it doesn’t rattle around. And then I’ve gotta spend X amount less time fixing, missed out. Or the other thing, like it’s, it, it’s a, it’s a better way of doing it is, uh, what we feel. And like you say, then you get. Being on the showroom floor, it’s in amongst the booths. So people who are on the showroom floor can just sort of look over their shoulder, see that, okay, I really gotta go check out that guy. Joel Saxum: I like the idea of the format and there’s a couple other things like lessons learned track we talked about a little bit too. But one of the things for me for trade shows is when Alan and I went to ETC in Calgary a few years ago, two years ago I think. Yep. You actually had the. The conversations, the panel conversations, the discussions, the knowledge sharing happening on the showroom floor. I don’t like going to a conference where I have to go in, like I’m talking with some people, but, oh, I gotta run across this thing across over here, a mile away into some back room to listen to someone talk about something. I like, I like being where the information is [00:11:00] happening and sharing, and I can stand off to the side and listen a bit and, and still engage. Um, and you guys are doing some more of that too through the lessons learned track. Um, can you explain that a little bit to us? Mathieu Cōté: Well, we’ve always had, uh, like a, some split in concurrent sessions and so on. But to your point of not running off to the other end, we’re in a pretty intimate space where we’ve got like a room for lunch and the plenaries, we’ve got a room for the exhibit hall, and then right next to it is any of the, uh, off to the side stuff. It’s all within a one minute walk of, of itself, which is much better. So we’ve got the concurrent, uh, sessions and. This year we split them instead of into two. We split ’em into three though that then we’ve got one for specific to wind. We’ve got one specific to solar and storage. ’cause we are renewable energy, not just wind. And then we’ve got one, uh, that’s a bit of a grab bag and it’s a bit of a different format. So instead of your traditional three [00:12:00] panelists plus a moderator, everyone’s got a slide, everyone’s gotta talk, blah, blah, blah. This thing, it, it’s much more focused. You’ve got one person who’s got a real important thing to say, whether it’s, here’s, uh, lessons learned on how our hub fell off and here’s what we learned from it. Here’s our root cause analysis, or here’s, uh, a much better way of doing, uh, our health and safety program has worked much better for us. Here’s what we gain from it, or whatever happens to be. And then one moderator to ask them some questions, pick apart. So this part, how to, uh, and get a bit of a, a flow there. So, and it’s much shorter. Instead of an hour long, it’s only a half hour. So then you don’t have to sit through two people. You don’t care about to listen to the one person that you do is the intent of these, uh, lessons learned? I, Joel Saxum: I do really like the concept simply because when I go to an event or like, um, putting something together, I want people to be able to go. Learn something, take it back to their respective [00:13:00] organization, be able to implement it tomorrow. And it sounds like you guys are really moving towards that with the lessons learned, the collaboration and the knowledge sharing. Mathieu Cōté: That’s, that’s the intent. And that, and that’s really what it is, is I, I’m, I think I’m a smart guy, but I don’t have all the answers. So we’re really trying to shine a light on the people who do, and like, here’s a thing that the industry as a whole should learn about. And give them some time to talk about it. And like you say, then you’ll get some of those conversations in the margins and in in between going, yeah, this guy had this thing to say. We get that sort of dialogue going. That’s, that’s the intent. It’s all about, uh, discussions and learning from each other. Joel Saxum: To me, it sounds like even, um, for lack of a, maybe a trip to get some poutine and maybe an American, American should go out there and listen to some of the stuff you guys have to say as well. Mathieu Cōté: Honestly, it’s, it’s worth it for, uh, Americans to come by and we do have a significant number, proportion of the, the audience comes from the states as well. Because like you say, it’s, it’s worth it and it’s good information and it’s a good [00:14:00] portion of the thing. And it’s really not that far. And I mean, um, not to put it lightly, we do tend to lean a little heavier on some of the more, uh, Canadian elements like weather. Like we do have a panel this year, um, on the solar side, solar operations and adverse conditions. And that one, um. Because that one came from, uh, I know a guy at, uh, natural Resources Canada, who was part of a working group at the International Energy Agency in their photovoltaic power systems group, where they came up with, uh, a report on operations in all kinds of adverse conditions around the world. So he’s gonna present that report and we’ll have a panel discussion. The other panelists there, we’ve got, um. Ben Power, the CEO of ves, who is the number one installer of solar in the Yukon, right next to Alaska. So they know a lot about adverse conditions and then, uh, polar racking, they’ve got a lot of experience, uh, with that sort of thing too. And they’ve got some data that they’re gonna bring to the [00:15:00] panel as well. So it should be a really good discussion about how do we deal with bad things happening in solar specifically. Allen Hall: Well, sure. Uh, Canada’s been running assets a lot longer than we have been in the States. In fact, to Joel’s earlier point, we’re repairing. Disassembling putting new stuff up all the time. Canada has been more focused on keeping existing equipment running in some crazy, harsh conditions. The US is moving that way. You wanna know about ice? We could tell you about ice. Exactly. Like how many times has the US run into trouble with icing on wind turbines and we should have been talking to, or her neighbors through the north, but in a lot of cases, yeah. The I, I find that the time I went. I learned a whole bunch about Canadian operations, how to think about some of these problems differently. That was the beauty of a attending a Kria event, and I know there’s gonna be a lot of people attending this event. Who is it for in general? Obviously [00:16:00] it’s for operators, but is there some value here for like asset managers? Some of the engineers, some of the service providers, Mathieu Cōté: yeah. That our, our core market, if you want, is your site managers and your technical people, but engineers, 100%, they will learn something. Your asset managers will definitely have some value in it, whether it’s learning about the technology or learning about, uh, the, the latest things coming out or even just. Best practices from other folks, right? We’ve also got, uh, more and more we’re getting people from the insurance industry getting involved because some of these, uh, lessons learned and so on, is really valuable to them. And we’re even running, um, if, if people are in insurance, we have a special meeting for insurance. The, the day before where we’ll be having a, a dialogue between the insurance industry and the operators and like, here’s how we deal with this. This is why the prices are that. And, uh, talk about that risk transfer type stuff. There are the odd developer who comes out. Um, but it’s more for the, [00:17:00] like, once it’s in the ground, the technical people, uh, the tooling manufacturers, the service providers, the, all, all of those folks. Joel Saxum: What about ISPs? Oh, a hundred percent. We know quite a few ISPs up in Canada. Every one of them that I’ve talked to is coming. So ev I’ve had the conversations and like I, you know, we’re, we’re doing some other things in February as well around here, and I was, Hey, what are you guys? Oh, we’re all going to the Candry Ops summit. We’re going to the Candry Ops summit, so to Toronto and February. Um, bring your warm jacket. I suppose it could be cold. Yeah, the, the ISPs will be there in, in full force. And so I think that. To me, it’s like the, the, the cousin to the A-C-P-O-M-S. We like OMS in the states because that’s where the real discussions happen around operations and maintenance. Mathieu Cōté: The technical stuff happens. Yeah. And it, I like to say it’s the, the, the younger cousin, if you will, and the maple syrup cousin. Allen Hall: Well, I do think though, that when we’re at, uh, o, M and S Joel, that [00:18:00] those discussions are a little bit different than what I see up at Kria. Like Kria is a. Community OMS is, yeah, we, we all know one another and maybe it’s just there’s this, a bigger event or more people, but it, I don’t feel the sort of connection I do when I’m at Kria. Like I know the people, I understand what’s going on at Kria. That’s what makes it fun that I get to see people that I, I know once in a while, but at the same time there is a huge, massive amount of. Sharing Mathieu Cōté: that community that you speak to, that that’s really what we’re trying to, to gather in. And there’s a difference of scale too. I mean, uh, the OMS is like 3000 people and we’re three to 400. So there, there’s a difference there. But that sort of intimacy leads to a fair bit more of that sharing that you’re talking about and like that Oh yeah, there’s that guy. Oh, there’s Derek from Capstone, or there’s Dan from EDF or there, you know, and then you. You run into them and then you, you catch [00:19:00] up on all the latest and, um, what’s going on, how are things going? And so on and so on. And there’s time for all of that in the, in the two day show that we have. Joel Saxum: Well, I think collaboration in a smaller, like the right size group is, is much easier and flows better. Right? Once you get to that thousand two, three, 4,000, it’s like, yeah, you’re there, you’re seeing the people, but like it’s just not the same. Mathieu Cōté: Et c is somewhere around 3000 people and it, it, it’s got that heft. It’s a different audience as well. Right? The o and m crowd isn’t there as much. It’s not quite as technical, so it it, it’s a speaking to a different group of people. Allen Hall: Well, Canada is on a growth spurt for renewables. There’s a lot of wind energy Mathieu Cōté: headed up towards Quebec. There are procurement’s open right now in Quebec, Nova Scotia, new Brunswick. Uh, Ontario, BC and Manitoba Joel Saxum: Plus, what was it? Fi what was it? Five offshore lease areas off of Nova Scotia. Mathieu Cōté: Yeah, they’re looking at up to five gigawatts offshore in Nova Scotia. We don’t have [00:20:00] any yet in Nova in, uh, offshore. And there’s some, they need to figure out what the offtake is and where the transmission goes. Uh, but there’s a lot of people working in the background on MA putting that together. So it’s growing. Oh, a hundred percent. It’s growing and across the board, right. And the. Wind or solar or storage or all three. And that, that a lot of the, the procurements these days are starting to move in a direction of, uh, sort of a technology agnostic where they say, we need megawatts. We don’t care how you make them. We just want electricity. Well, electricity, uh, but also electricity capacity. So in the one case we figure wind and solar will do quite well, and in the other we’ll figure the battery storage will do quite well. So no matter what and in the timelines that they’re asking for, we’re looking at if you want it in the next five years, it’s probably gonna be wind and solar because anything else is gonna be a seven plus year timeline to get into the ground. So [00:21:00] there, there’s a lot. There’s a lot coming. Allen Hall: Well, up to 20% of the energy, electricity in Canada nationally is gonna be generated by renewables in less than 10 years. Mathieu Cōté: Canada’s split up a lot, remember like, and Quebec is already at 90 plus with their hydro and bc same thing. Joel Saxum: And I, and I think that that’s something to be, to be shared as well here is from an o and m standpoint. The, the varied geographies of Canada and how spread apart it is, there’s specialized knowledge up there to, to, to, you know, till the cow come home. So it’s a great place to go and learn. I would encourage people, hey, if you’re, if you’re in anywhere around Michigan, the Great Lakes Toronto’s a three hour drive. Go there, do the conference and learn something, Mathieu Cōté: and hey, we’re right next to the airport. It’s quick flight. Almost anywhere from North America, right? So Toronto’s easy to get in and Allen Hall: out of, and this is gonna be a great event. The Can Operators Summit. It’s February 11th and 12th at the Delta Hotel by [00:22:00] Marriott, Toronto, right at the airport. So you, you can’t miss it. It’s easy to get in, easy to get out. You’re gonna have a great time. Matt, how do they connect and register for this event? Mathieu Cōté: We have a registration link that I’m sure we’ll put somewhere. Um, or come to our website, kenia.ca? Allen Hall: Yeah, just Google Can Operator Summit. That’s what I did. And that takes you right to the registration. Get signed up there. It’s inexpensive in Toronto is a really cool city. February 11th and 12th. At the Delta Hotels by Marriott, right at the airport. The Canary Operator Summer is going to be a lot of fun. Matt, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Really enjoyed having you. Well, thanks for having [00:23:00] me.
Why do some advisors thrive without managing assets? We talk with Kelly Nilsson, founder of Brava Financial, about building a planning-first, advice-only practice that focuses on real-life risk—not just market returns. With a background in insurance, Kelly believes households are more often disrupted by death, disability, or long-term care than by volatility, and her plans are built to handle those moments.Kelly shares how she launched a virtual RIA, why project-based planning fuels her growth, and how clear scope, flat fees, and objective advice create better client outcomes. “Rent my brain” means no product pressure, no discounts, and clients who are ready to implement.This episode covers practical ways to identify the right clients, use paid consults as discovery, and design services people actually understand. A must-listen for advisors questioning the AUM default and looking to build a sustainable, planning-led practice.Kelly's Social:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellynilssoncfp/Music in this episode was obtained from Bensound.
We continue our conversation with Ria Story as shares her journey of overcoming personal adversity and her mission to raise awareness about sex trafficking. She discusses the myths surrounding trafficking, the signs to look for, and the importance of community involvement in prevention efforts. Ria emphasizes the need for open conversations about these uncomfortable topics and encourages listeners to take action in their communities to support victims and prevent trafficking.Want to connect with Ria or other organization we have mentioned during this episode? Click Below! Georgia Sex Trafficking Hotline: 1-844-842-3678Riastory.com Simply Report App
Mindy Diamond on Independence: A Podcast for Financial Advisors Considering Change
With Jason Ozur, Founding Partner, Chief Executive Officer, Lido Advisors Overview As firms pursue scale, advisors face a critical question: how do you grow without compromising the client experience? Jason Ozur joins the show to explore what intentional growth really looks like and what scale can enable when culture and clarity come first. Watch… Listen in… > Download a transcript of this episode… NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. About this episode… Over the last decade, scale has become one of the defining themes in wealth management. Larger firms promise broader resources, deeper infrastructure, and expanded opportunity. But they also raise a fair question: at what point does growth begin to work against the client experience it's meant to enhance? That's the center of today's conversation. Jason Ozur and his partners at Lido Advisors have built one of the largest RIAs in the country, managing more than $40B in assets, while maintaining a family-office mindset and a distinctly client-first culture. What's notable is not just the firm's growth, but how intentionally it has been pursued. Jason talks about Lido's growth story and more with Jason Diamond, including: The real constraints on growth—and the roles of culture, capital, and clients. The role of the wirehouses in the modern landscape and how the RIA model differs. The realities of scale—and what it enables when done thoughtfully. The concept of “bigger is better”—and why Jason sees that as an oversimplification. Integration versus aggregation—and how Lido evaluates acquisitions. The evolving role of private equity in the RIA space—and why access to capital doesn't have to come at the expense of independence or client outcomes. It's a candid look at what sustainable growth actually means—and what advisors and owners should consider as firms across the industry continue to grow. Want to learn more about where, why, and how advisors like you are moving? Click to contact us or call 908-879-1002. Related Resources Is Scale a Necessary Evil in Wealth Management? Scale can provide a competitive advantage. Yet there might be scenarios in which bigger isn't always better. How to Set Up Your Business to Maximize Enterprise Value Jason and Louis Diamond explore strategies for maximizing enterprise value, whether or not an advisor plans to move. Learn actionable insights, key business practices, short-term vs. long-term tactics, and real-world examples. IBD vs. RIA – Which Model Fits Your Future This guide offers a clear, side-by-side view of the two models—including distinctions between the DIY route of building an RIA from scratch and opting for a supportive independence platform to help align your business goals with greater options and opportunities. Jason Ozur Chief Executive Officer Jason Ozur is the Chief Executive Officer of Lido Advisors, where he considers client focus central to his leadership and devotes significant time and attention to the individuals and families he serves. Based in Los Angeles, he also serves as Co-Chair of the investment committee, overseeing Lido's alternative investment platform and leading due diligence on real estate oriented strategies. A Certified Public Accountant, Jason earned his B.S. from California State University at Northridge before beginning his career in public accounting. He worked as a CPA performing audits, preparing tax returns, and providing back-office services for numerous hedge funds. In 1999, he joined a large family investment office, becoming part of the team that managed the family's substantial investments. During this time, he also served as CFO of the family's worldwide water conservation company, which operated in more than 22 countries, and later provided financial oversight as controller for a multi-billion-dollar Los Angeles–based hedge fund. In addition to his executive and investment responsibilities, Jason is deeply committed to shaping Lido's culture. He takes an active mentorship role within the firm, fostering an environment rooted in progression, excellence, and integrity. Also available on your favorite podcast app and other media sites
Scarce Assets: Alex Pron explains why wealth managers are finally embracing Bitcoin, how Wall Street distribution changes the market, & why long-term conviction matters more than cycles.---
This week, David Lau talks with Tom McCarthy, Chief Distribution Officer at DPL Financial Partners, about the evolution of the advice model, industry stigmas, and how commission-free annuities can be powerful income differentiators for RIAs. From his early fight to shift from a commission-based to a fee-only model, Tom shares his journey from fee-based startups to the explosion of the RIA channel. He also discusses how technology and strategic partnerships enable financial advisors to provide holistic financial well-being rather than just stock picking. Learn more at https://www.dplfp.com/series/advisor-revelations-podcast.
In this episode, 10 Family Office Myths exposed (and debunked). https://youtu.be/j1cgcZZcRBM Welcome back and Happy New Year on the Wealth Actually podcast. I’m Frazer Rice. We have a fun show today where we talk about 10 myths in the family office space. Mark Tepsich, who runs the family office governance practice at UBS is here as we dish into the ideas and concepts that are misunderstood in the family office world. Summary This conversation delves into the complexities and myths surrounding family offices, exploring their structure, governance, and the unique challenges they face in wealth management. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding the specific needs of families and the role of family offices in managing complexity and preserving wealth across generations. It also addresses common misconceptions about family offices, including their necessity, governance, and their relationship with institutional investors. Takeaways Family offices are established to manage complexity in wealth.Not all family offices are the same; each has unique needs.Governance frameworks are essential for effective family office management.Many family offices outsource functions rather than internalizing them.The myth that 85-90% of family offices shouldn’t exist is false.Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves is a debated concept in wealth preservation.Family offices need to adapt to the evolving needs of families.Investment functions in family offices are often secondary to administrative roles.Family offices are driven by complexity rather than just size.The future of family offices may involve more direct investment opportunities. Chapters: Family Office Confidential 00:00 Understanding Family Offices: Myths and Realities02:02 The Complexity of Family Office Structures04:37 Debunking Common Myths About Family Offices06:17 The Role of Outsourcing in Family Offices07:54 Generational Wealth: The Shirt Sleeves Myth10:51 Flexibility vs. Permanence in Family Offices12:48 Governance and Decision-Making in Family Offices15:49 Investment Functions in Family Offices18:05 Size vs. Complexity in Family Offices20:09 Family Offices vs. Institutional Capital21:19 The Aspirational Nature of Family Offices23:30 The Relationship Between Family Offices and Institutions25:36 Technology in Family Offices: Current Trends29:03 Family Offices and Private Equity: A Comparative Analysis Myths 85-95% of FO’s should not exist vs. “there is no such thing as a family office’ Family office internalize everything A Family Office Anchored by an operating business is the same that is one funded solely by liquidity event Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves is myth Family offices are designed to be permanent’ Family Offices don’t need high end (almost SOX) like governance Family Offices are driven by net worth (no, by complexity) Family Offices are built on a robust investment function (no, it”s complexity management- often rooted in bookkeeping and accounting) Family Offices are like institutional Capital (no, many more motivations than pure returns- including whimsy and the knee-jerk ability to override the IPS) Family Offices are the right result for a career (they could be, but it is extremely unlikely- a lot of things have to be “just right” and there is little to know patience for development Family Offices make great wealth clients (very much depends on the function and the product- they can be difficult consumers) Family office tech is best – in – breed (No and it probably never will be) Family offices shun Large institutions (Surprisingly, no- needed for deals, expertise, and most importnatly financing and introductions) Keywords family offices, wealth management, governance, investment strategies, family dynamics, myths, financial planning, family wealth, complexity management, family governance Transcript: Family Office Myths Busted Frazer Rice (00:04.462): Welcome board, Mark. Mark Tepsich: Hey, Frazer, good to see you again. Appreciate the opportunity. Frazer Rice: Likewise. So let’s get started first. We’re going to go into some of the myths around family offices. But you really participate in kind of an interesting subset of that in terms of helping families design and govern them. What exactly does that mean on a day-to-day basis for you? Mark Tepsich: Yeah, good question. So, you know, it means a couple of things, right? So if you think about a family office, you have families that are at the inception point, right? Where things are getting too complex for them. They need to set up some sort of infrastructure. And it’s really like, what is a family office? What can it do for me? What are the pros, cons, and trade-offs? Where do I start? What’s the infrastructure, the systems? Who do I hire? How do I structure a compensation? So you’ve got families maybe coming at it. From post liquidity event, maybe coming at it from, we need to lift up, lift out this embedded family office out of the business to, hey, we’re an existing family office. We’ve got, you know, we’re evolving, right? The family’s growing, their enterprise is changing, the world around us is changing. People are leaving the family office, the next gen’s getting incorporated into the family office in some way. We’ve got some questions that could be, how do we engage the next generation through the family office? Mark Tepsich (01:21.614): How do we make decisions, communicate around our shared assets and resources, which could be a portfolio, maybe even a business, or hey, how do we come together and hire? What is this profile of this person look like? Who should we hire and not hire? What’s the structure of their compensation, carry co-investment, leverage co-investment? What’s the tech stack look like across accounting, consulting, reporting? Now, how do we insource and outsource? So it’s sort of. I like to call it organizational capabilities. So, you know, sometimes it’s soup to nuts, like starting from zero, other times it’s, we’ve been around for a long time, but we have a couple of questions. So that’s kind of my day to day. And, you know, I’ve been living this really since 2008 pre-global financial crisis. Frazer Rice So we’re going to go into, I think, some of the craziness of the family office ecosystem where we have people who wear many hats, people who wear masks, some people who are jokers and other people who are really good technicians and provide a lot of great insight. One of the things you were talking about is that the different types of mandate can be different. And I think maybe one of the first myths we should tackle is the The bromide that if you’ve seen one family office, you’ve seen one family office, which is thrown around at every family office conference and everybody chuckles for a minute and then it sort of washes away and no one cares anymore. What do you think about that statement? Mark Tespich (03:19.006): So I don’t necessarily think it’s true. And here’s what I mean. Let’s make an analogy to this, right? A business needs certain core infrastructure to just operate, right? And using accounting back office, you know the inflows, the outflows, you know, if you’re make a decision, these are the steps you have to go through. And so a family office, right? It needs to incorporate that, but it needs to incorporate it with the family and the family enterprise that is existing for that family, right? So, yeah, each family office is different because each family is different, but that’s like saying you’ve seen one business, you’ve seen one business, right? The strategy could be, the culture could be different, but, you still need some core operating infrastructure. And again, there’s accounting infrastructure, and that’s the basics, right? So there’s a curl of truth, but largely I think that it is false. Well, and at the same time, yes, families are different, but in general, families are trying to get to the same place, which is, know, they want to steward the wealth. They want to make sure it benefits the family and the other constituencies. And they want to make sure that it’s preserved over time. And those functions, you know, it’s very infrequent. You’d find the functions not there. And so how you get from A to B may be different, as you said, but there are a lot of universal truths to setting one of these things up. Frazer Rice So one of the other myths that we’ve come across is the idea that 80 to 90 percent of family offices shouldn’t exist. is, people and families set these up for, let’s call it the wrong reasons. Maybe it’s fear of missing out, maybe it’s great cocktail party chatter, maybe it’s an overdiagnosis of their needs. What do you think about that? Mark Tepsich Again, false. know, family offices are largely a function. They largely exist because there’s a market scale here. And what I mean by that is when you look under the hood at a family office, you’ve got basics of an accounting firm. You’ve got basics of an investment slash wealth management firm. You’ve got the basics of a legal slash tax firm. And then you’ve got essentially everything in between. And when you look at professional service firms out there, They can’t provide all of those under one roof, whether compliance or regulatory reasons. But the other reason is because no business model out there can really scale the complexity that each one of these families has. So yeah, you could outforce a lot of this stuff, but at the end of the day, family offices often exist because of a market failure. so, false, 85 to 90 % of family offices should exist. Frazer Rice (05:41.164) One of the other things, I’ve been around enough of these getting set up, is that the family office, if we get into sort of a technical structure, such that you set up a structure so that you’re able to deduct the expenses related to administering the wealth around that, that’s a valid reason to do things in addition to the organizational component. So I agree with you that there’s, to say that they shouldn’t exist is sort of belying the notion that these functions should take place internally. And I think you spoke to that. And I guess that gets to another myth, which is that family offices should internalize all of these functions. You just talked about it a little bit, that that’s not a great business model either. Mark Tepsich No, mean, yeah, so, you know, 85 to 90 % of family members out there, you just use that statistic, outsource a fair amount of things, right? And what that means is let’s just use tax counsel, for instance, right? This is something that these issues exist in every family office, they exist for every individual, but at the end of the day, should you have, you know, a tax counsel in-house in a family office that’s only doing, you know, income tax advisor work? Probably not. For 95 % of family offices because the frequency just isn’t there, right? So, you if you look at general councils alone, right? So they should have a broader mandate than income tax. should have well-transferred estate planning. Every family has those issues, but do they have the frequency to warrant bringing that individual, that professional and the rate, the cost? Probably not. a lot, you know, most family offices outsource a fair amount of whether it’s investment management, manager selection and due diligence. So false. Most fair amount offices do outsource a fair amount. Frazer Rice (07:31.374) One the things, this is one of my favorite controversial topics in the family office ecosystem of vendors that are out there is this notion that shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves is a myth. that the, and for those who don’t know what that means is, know, the first generation has generated the wealth, the second one enjoys it. And then the third one for a variety of reasons is ill-equipped to carry the wealth forward. And then everyone kind of goes back. It transcends culture. It’s lily pad to lily pad. You know, there’s a British version and a Russian version and whatever version. But the advice ecosystem around this is such that there’s a lot of debate about the statistics that have, quote unquote, proven that. And I can listen to that and say, yes, those may be very narrow. But there is a myth out there that shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves is a myth. Maybe you have some comments on that. Mark Tepsich Man, this is a tough one. I will say this will probably be the toughest one. So I think once a family becomes wealthy, right? And you can kind of define that as, the wealth, meaning the financial wealth will last a few generations with really out, with really nobody working, right? Let’s just define it that way. It’ll last a couple of generations if you make some not dumb decisions, we’ll call it. I think such as the financial markets today, right, as long as you’re diversified, you will stay wealthy. Does that mean you are going to have the same amount per capita over time? Maybe not, right? So if you look at it today, is a nuclear family of four, and you look at it 50 years from now, and the family is 30 people, right? I don’t know what the growth rate would have to be on those assets. So I think the family will remain wealthy whether they remain, you know, on a per capita basis, right? That’s a different story. I think what this is missing, however, I think the numbers kind of overshadow what this is getting at. I think when you look at it, when you take a step back, that first generation wealth creator, right? Will the family continue to be builders and entrepreneurs down the road? Frazer Rice (09:50.26) That I think that’s the question. Will they continue to kind of reach their full potential? I think that is that should be the focus. I’m going to punt on this one. I think it’s TBD and it’s there’s no set answer. I think the idea that the returns, To get back to your point is that as you go from generation to generation, the complexity increases, I’d say geometrically. Whereas the assets in many ways are going to be designed to increase linearly. And so at some point it may be 14 generations down the line when you’ve got 300 people that you have to take care of, are those assets gonna be in place to be able to support the level of living that people expected in generation one, two, and three? I think that’s the equation we’re all trying to fight. And so I’d say while Shirt Sleeves to Shirt Sleeves isn’t necessarily a prophecy, it’s definitely something that has to be addressed. So I’m gonna say that the fact that Shirt Sleeves to Shirt Sleeves is a myth, I think that’s the myth. Mark Tepsich So that’s where I draw my line in the sand there. think there’s an equation you constantly have to fight. Okay, so here’s another one. Family offices are designed to be permanent. I happen to think that they start out trying to be permanent, but in actuality, they really have to be more flexible and flex with the needs of the family, even at the first or second generation. Yeah, I would agree. Often they’re established for a good reason, right? That reason is complexity. Whether that complexity continues to exist for the family is a different story, right? You might have a business being sold. The family might just say, “hey, we don’t need to do all these direct investments, these alternate investments. Let’s just keep it simple, keep it passive.” I don’t think they’re designed to be permanent. I think families don’t really think about that too much. They want to exist for probably the existing generation that’s leveraging it and they wanna transition it, to your point, be flexible over time. But I don’t think anyone like a business, right? If you think about a business, the business generally speaking, it’s meant to exist in a perpetuity. That’s why you have a business, right? It’s not a sole proprietorship, but a family office, I think it’s TBD, right? So, you know. I don’t think anyone’s setting up a family that will say this is going to exist a thousand years from now. And I think if they came out and said that, think that it would add question and motivations. Frazer Rice Maybe we may be welcoming the Martians, we may be speaking Mandarin. There’s a thousand things that could happen in between here and then, that’s for sure. Here’s a myth that I think you and I are both going to agree is one, which is that family offices, for the ones that we think are going to try to persist, don’t demand necessarily Sarbanes-Oxley or high-end governance. Mark Tepsich I think as family offices mature, meaning as the family evolves, they do need some sort of decision-making framework. Especially if they’re going to really come together and act like somewhat of an institution. What I mean by that is, under the hood of a family office or under the hood of a family, let’s say there’s 10 family members. Let’s say there’s 20 to 25 trusts within that. You know, you could come together and pull your assets, right? And pull your resources. That’s part of the reason for having a family office. And so you just have a larger pool of capital. When you’re doing that, you do need governance. Okay? But if you’re gonna have, it’s just like, hey, we’re gonna have our separate portfolios. We’re not gonna come together and have pooled investment vehicles. You might not need an investment company, okay? And there might be good reasons to have an investment committee. In fact, many the investment committees I see, they’re not like college endowments where, we got eight people or nine people on here. We need to agree at least have five people to agree to allocate to this manager or change the allocation or change the IPS, depending on where that authority resides. I often see many investment committees for families, hey, we’re just collaborative in nature. We’ll get together. We’re going to have a meeting and talk about different strategies. Different advisors, things we should be doing. But if they’ve always had to agree at the family business level, they might not wanna have that same construct in the family office slash investment portfolio. If they’ve always struggled, know, come into agreement at the family business, now they’re gonna like, hey, we’re gonna recreate this dynamic. don’t have a binding construct. In fact, we ran a report, it’s coming out hopefully in the next couple of weeks. on family enterprise governance and a component obviously is the investment committee. 70 % of the investment committees out there are advisory in nature, meaning they don’t make binding decisions. They take it back to the trustees or whoever the authority is and they say, hey, here’s what we think, right? So individual family investors, whoever that is, co-trustees, it’s a, okay. So I do think governance is important, but it depends on what you mean by that, right? Should there be an IPS in place? I 100 % think that each family investor should have an IPS in place. The biggest mistake I see there is, hey, we’ve got this shared pool of capital. We’ve got 50 trusts. We’ve got one single IPS, right? I think that is a big mistake. don’t think that’s good governance. So it really depends on what you mean, but I think, yes, there should be some decision-making framework that you’re following. Otherwise, what exactly are you? Adhering to it, right? Like, what is your framework? What is your decision making tree? Frazer Rice (15:53.902) On top of that, possible myth. Family offices are built on a robust investment function. I mean, yes, there are some that are like that, right? You know, there’s a big names out there, MSD, Pritzker, so on and so forth. Those are the exceptions rather than the rule. Most family offices, 85 to 90 % are formed to manage the complexity, right? So again, otherwise you’re gonna have all these outsourced providers and that just doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to make a decision, because you need all the different parts to come together. They’re often built as administrative functions first, rather than, we’re gonna go start the next, you know, a private equity firm. that’s false. Frazer Rice The, as I like to say, probably to the boredom of a lot of people who talk to me a lot is that a lot of these really are built on a bookkeeping or an accounting spine. You’ve got to manage the inflows and outflows of everything and keep track of what you have or else you can have a great investment function, but things are going to spill all over the place. Mark Tepsich (17:30.872) I’ll never say, yeah. mean, and that actually goes back to good governance, right? So I always say, it’s not provocative. I’ll say, listen, this is not a provocative answer, but you need to create that first. And most of the people that are considering this rate are business owners. So they’ll intuitively get that. In fact, that function might exist somewhere at the business, but it’s really not organized. And without that function, like, it’s hard to make a decision, right? If you’re going to allocate 20 % of your portfolio, to private equity drawdown vehicles. got cap calls, capital commitments, distributions, like that needs to be budgeted and forecasting, right? So a lot of these families will have, one nuclear family can have three to four homes, 10 bank accounts, 20 entities. It’s not like a single piggy bank that you could take cash out of and move it every which way, right? Those are owned by different vehicles, different trusts, different assets and things like that, so. Frazer Rice Here’s a myth that I espouse which is Family offices and whether you have one or not is driven solely by size whether you have five billion or two hundred million or something like that that if you aren’t a certain size you shouldn’t have one and if you’re Of a certain size you must have one. Mark Tepsich That’s a myth. It’s driven by complexity first. I’ve seen, I’ve spoken to people that are worth two to $3 billion. It’s concentrated in a few stocks, meaning like they were early stage employees, right? They’re still in it. They’re getting a healthy dividend at this point. Guy talked to couple years ago. He had two homes, two cars, probably 95 % of his network was tied up into two separate securities that were probably traded. And he’s like, I don’t think I need a family office. You want to know what one was, what it could do from. And I’m like, listen, if you don’t have the complexity, it probably doesn’t make sense. Okay, if you can make a decision within whatever framework you have, whatever complex you have. Now, the other, you know, there is a cost factor to it, right? It gets easier to start a family office, meaning hire a couple of people, if you’ve got the… asset base for it to make sense on a cost perspective. So most of the time it’s driven by complexity, but cost does become a factor, right? If you’re worth a hundred million dollars, you’re to go hire 10 people. That probably doesn’t make sense. Frazer Rice (19:28.342) Right. Well, on top of that too, if you, and there’s a sort of the difference between a family office driven by a liquidity event and meeting that’s, that’s all you have versus a family office that’s tethered or sorry, a family business that’s tethered to it, that is also generating cash flows to help pay for things that that’s a big part of the decision. Because if you’re hiring people, you know, a CIO minimum, absolute minimum is probably $500,000. They’re going to need people, you know, you’re looking at at least 3 million. just to get the thing up and running before you start figuring out what you actually have to do. And so the concept that the size is going to dictate completely, it underscores sort of that cost component that you described there. Frazer Rice This is an interesting one and I like this concept to talk about. Family offices are like institutional capital as investors. Mark Tepsich Again, myth, there are some, again, there are some that are like institutions. They have the size and the sophistication. Oftentimes you see them, they’re former PE or hedge fund founders, right? That just aren’t doing any more of it. They made their wealth in the financial ecosystem, in the markets. And so they’re very sophisticated. But by and large, I mean, they’re sort of quasi-institutional, right? So I’ve seen multi-billion dollar family offices that Again, they’re more of the administrative hub rather than, we’re gonna be splashing around and playing in the markets and using a lot of leverage and doing a lot of control equity investments. So by and large, it’s the myth. 85 to 90 % are institutional-like. They are there to fill a need and that need is complexity management. Frazer Rice Here’s one on a different angle, which is family offices are the goal for people in the wealth management industry to work for, meaning family offices are a great aspiration for people who work in the industry and that that’s universal. Mark Tepsich (21:34.35) Myth, I think it’s an option. I think it’s interesting. I think it is a growing opportunity for folks that work in, you know, maybe wealth management or investment management or the financial ecosystem. But you didn’t, again, family has been around for a long time, but they’ve really only became, you know, kind of popular post global financial crisis with the rise of PE because of ZERP. You know, I’ll talk to a lot of people that are like in the hedge fund ecosystem looking for a change, right? And I say like, listen, like these opportunities for you are out there, but it depends on the family. It depends on their compensation philosophy as on the culture that you’re going to have to live within. There’s a lot of key man risk. Is it an opportunity? Yes. But again, it is, it is family office by family office. Frazer Rice I tell people too, it’s for people who are used to having lots of clients or lots of institutional support that is going to be a shift. It’s different to have one client. It’s different to have a scenario where the business of a family office, the business model of that particular family office can change on a dime. And if you don’t share the last name of the family you’re working for, you could be in a tough spot. Mark Tepsich Yeah, “we’re gonna build out a sustainability impact portfolio. We’re gonna build out, we’re gonna have a direct investment initiative. We’re gonna allocate whatever, a few hundred million dollars to it.” That person, that professional gets there and then a year or two or three years goes by and the strategy changes because a family member too had to change a heart. And then it becomes, okay, why am I here? Where am I gonna go now? So again, they could be great opportunities. I had a great experience.but it really just depends on the family. Frazer Rice (23:26.894) Here’s one, and you’ve got UBS over your shoulder there, so this is dramatic foreshadowing in some ways, but I think it bears talking about. It’s that family offices shun the large institutions, and that they want it bespoke, they want something peculiar all the time. What do you think about that? Mark Tepsich No, I mean, it goes back to the earlier myth that, you know, basically we’re saying family office should, family office do outsource a lot, right? So again, most family offices are five to eight people, right? I call it family office island, meaning you’re there on the island and you’re like, what is going on outside of the island or off of the island? You know your island really well, right? You know the family, know all the facts inside and out, but they are, I mean, there’s a reason why all these institutions, including UBS, has built out the resources to cater to family offices, right? I’m the perfect example. They brought me on to help our clients build family offices, right? They would not do that if it was gonna cannibalize their business. So they could be great clients and other times it’s like, hey, we’re very insular and we’re gonna keep everything close to the vest. Again, it’s family office to family office. But by and large, they’re great wealth clients. Frazer Rice No, and they also, you know, they need institutions to partner with of size, whether it’s at custody or lending or any number of other functions that are out there. Sometimes, you know, the RIA space is such that, you know, they try to be all things to all people and the appeal of being in, you know, the billionaire space. It takes a lot of people and a lot of effort and frankly a different business model to deal with that and to just sort of wander in and say we’re great and we can do these things. I think that’s a short road for a lot of institutions. Frazer Rice (25:17.602) Again, like we are brutally honest too. And I’ll, and here’s what I mean by that. Well, like we’re rated a lot of things, but I’ll say like, listen, there’s things that we can’t do for you. We can’t be your accounting back office, right? Like we just don’t offer that. We don’t have it. We’ve got a couple firms that would do that. They’re pure plays on it. So they’ve got to be good at it. but you know, use the various institutions for what they’re good for. They’re, know, again, that’s why you’ve got a family office. You can kind of pick or choose and be agnostic as to what you’re using them for. Frazer Rice If we wind down here a couple of last ones: The tech that family offices rely on is going to be best in breed. Mark Tepsich I, listen, I have this power station all the time with family office meeting, like what, what, you know, what tech providers should we be looking at? Listen, family office have grown in, right over the past 10, 15 years that there’s not a question. they’re historically, right. had to use in a family office, had to take basically institutional tools, try to repurpose them for the family office and they just, they’re just kind of clunky, right? The family office is still a cottage industry. If you’re trying to sell the family offices, you’re selling the two firms with five to eight employees, right? So the tools are going to continue to get better. But in my opinion, they’re always going to lag the institutional tools and kind of sophistication. But that’s also because institutional tools are very kind of narrow and deep, whereas the family office tech tools, you’ve got the accelerated reporting, but it needs to link to the accounting. That’s an issue. And so the family of standard day is left with like a bunch of disparate fragmented systems that have a challenge talking to each other. With that said, AI, I’ve been talking to a lot of these sort of mom and pop shops, I’ll call them. They’re firms that are trying to incorporate AI to break down these walls. So it’s not fragmented disparate systems. I use the analogy of it’s like jailbreaking an iPhone. I don’t know where this is gonna be in a couple of years, but I think the tools are going to continue to improve. But again, you’re probably not going to take a family office tech tool and deploy it at institutional scale. So if that answers your question, I guess it’s a measure. Frazer Rice First of all, I think it’s going to take a long time before something, quote unquote, replaces Excel, which is still a powerful tool that is flexible and does what it says it’s going to do. And people use it sometimes at their own peril to be the underpinning of everything. the one thing I would add is that the mom and pop software components, I think, have a lot of great ideas. The total market to sell into that, though, does not necessarily make for a great software business. As you say, to get those tools that are specific and required at the family office level to be profitable, you got to figure out a way to sell that into something bigger. I’m not sure there is anything bigger. Mark Tepsich (28:49.358) Yeah, I mean, you’d be better selling it to, you know, small businesses, right? So, I mean, the tools are going to get better, but there’s been a lot of interest recently in the past couple years. I don’t think, I think most of them are not going to survive. I don’t want to say there’s only going to be a couple winners, but on the Consolidated Reported Front, I really think there’s only going be a couple winners because you need scale. And again, family office, if you’re looking to make a decision, you’re like, well, okay, well, 5,000 users use Adapar and 50 use this other platform. So which one are you gonna choose? You don’t wanna onboard to the one that has 50 and then three years down the road, they’re out of business, or there’s fold or something like that. So with scale comes a little bit of security that at least you know that a lot of other people are using. You could point to that. Frazer Rice Last question. Family offices will rival PE firms in terms of influence in the investing market? 85 to 90 % will not rival PE firms. That’s not what they’re set up for. That’s not the goal of most family offices. Again, it’s complexity management. Will some rival PE firms? Yeah. But again, you… Listen, I’ve seen some family office go out there and raise their party capital. When they do that, they’re not a family office anymore. They might have a component in there, but they’re private equity firms. What you’re getting at is private equity firms are raising a fund every couple of years. Can a family office do that? No, because once they do that, they will be a private equity firm. So PE by and large has an infinite capital source, as long as they are good at what they do, right? So with that said, you know, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that are are post liquidity events have played in the direct investment space, they really wanna do it. They’re still young, right? They’re billers, operators created. They wanna do it from a different vantage point. They’re coming to a realization: “that w”We need to start a fund.” I really love that story because again, they’re founders and operators. They didn’t come from the financial ecosystem first to do this. So I think they’re putting a different spin on PE. I think it’s great for the PE industry as a whole, by the way. And I think, if you’re a founder or a business owner, you might have an easier time taking an equity investment from somebody like that, who’s known in that specific industry that they made their money in, who’s had to make payroll. And they probably have a different timeline than normal PE that’s looking to flip every three to five years. So I think as an investor, I think that would be an interesting investment opportunity, right? And so it’s like, okay, well, part of my PE allocation, you know, This might look interesting. I hesitate to make, you know, I’m not an investment person, so. Frazer Rice Great stuff. Mark, how do people find you and reach out? Mark Tepsich I’m on LinkedIn. I would attempt to just spell my name with my email address at ubs.com, but it’s very lengthy. You just hit me up on LinkedIn. But, Frasier, I appreciate the time. This was great. Frazer Rice I’ll have that in the show notes and as a final parting, we sort of listen to people say, the family space is getting loud. I’m not sure it is. I think the vendors are more loud than the family offices are. I don’t know what your experience is there. Mark Tepsich 100%, the family members themselves are still quiet. You don’t see them out there on LinkedIn. It is the ecosystem to your point around them that is getting loud, right? It’s LinkedIn. It’s like, you know, every time I’m on there, it’s like somebody’s got something to say about families, which is good. Again, if you think about every boom in history, they attract people, right? You could say the same thing about AI, right? But again, it’s become loud, but that’s the industry. It’s not the family offices themselves. Frazer Rice Great stuff. Thanks, Mark. Mark Tepsich Thank you, Frazer. Appreciate it. FAMILY OFFICE DEFINED MORE ON FAMILY OFFICE DESIGN WITH ED MARSHALL https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/
Ria and Mack Story share how dealing with a boss you can't stand boils down to three core options: Quit and Find a New Job and a New Boss: How you quit reveals A LOT about your character. Will you shine or whine?Stay and Be Proactive: addressing issues head-on through open communication and personal development as you rise above the friction.Stay and Be Reactive: moaning, groaning, and whining without building any trust or increasing your influence.Proactive choices often earn respect, maintain relationships, and open doors, while reactive choices create friction, rupture relationships, and decrease your influence.#careeradvice #careertips #careeradvancement #successtips
American Institute of CPAs - Personal Financial Planning (PFP)
Busy season does not have to define a CPA's entire year. In this episode of the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Podcast, Cary Sinnett sits down with Deb Meyer, CPA and founder of WorthyNest, to discuss her path from tax compliance to integrated financial planning. Deb shares why she merged her CPA firm and RIA, how advisory services changed her client relationships, and what CPAs should realistically expect when adding financial planning to their practice. The conversation covers leadership, delegation, client trust, pricing evolution, and the personal motivations behind making the shift. This episode is a must-listen for CPAs exploring advisory services and looking to create more sustainable, value-driven practices. Podcast episode takeaways: Advisory integration improves both efficiency and client experience. Bringing tax, accounting, and financial planning under one roof reduces friction, streamlines workflows, and allows CPAs to serve clients more holistically rather than in disconnected silos. Client transitions require patience and proactive engagement. Clients rarely move from tax compliance to full financial planning overnight. Trust is built over time, especially when CPAs shift from transactional work to year-round planning conversations. The move into planning is as personal as it is technical. Successful expansion into advisory services requires clarity around motivation, willingness to delegate, and acceptance that financial planning redistributes work throughout the year rather than reducing it outright. AICPA Resources: Video: Use your client's tax return to provide valuable financial advice Article: Enhancing tax practices with personal financial planning Video: Steps to add financial planning to your tax practice Article: Building a Financial Planning and Tax Advisory Business podcast series This episode is brought to you by the AICPA's Personal Financial Planning Section, the premier provider of information, tools, advocacy, and guidance for professionals who specialize in providing tax, estate, retirement, risk management and investment planning advice. Also, by the CPA/PFS credential program, which allows CPAs to demonstrate competence and confidence in providing these services to their clients. Visit us online to join our community, gain access to valuable member-only benefits or learn about our PFP certificate program. Subscribe to the PFP Podcast channel at Libsyn to find all the latest episodes or search "AICPA Personal Financial Planning" on your favorite podcast app.
Ria and Kevol Graham join Chrystal Genesis for cocktails and conversation at Kokomo, their family-run, acclaimed Caribbean restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Partners in life and work, the couple talk about opening Kokomo just before the Covid pandemic and building a hospitality business while raising three children in New York City. They discuss Caribbean food as layered and plural rather than singular, their approach to hospitality as an extension of family, and how community, multicultural identity, care, and creativity shape the Kokomo experience. Ria and Kevol reflect on blending Caribbean heritage with New York life, developing a menu connected to memory and experimentation, creating a space that brings people together, and how hospitality can function as a form of cultural storytelling. They also speak about the Kokomo Foundation and their fundraising efforts in support of Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa. This is a lively conversation about food, family, partnership, heritage, creativity and what comes next for Kokomo. If you like what you heard, please leave a review, subscribe, and explore more at stancepodcast.com and on socials @stancepodcast. Stance is Hosted by Chrystal Genesis and Produced by Etay Zwick. Referenced In This Podcast & Show Notes: Kokomo website Kokomo Foundation Kokomo IG
In this enlightening conversation, Ria Story shares her journey of overcoming personal adversity and her mission to raise awareness about sex trafficking. She discusses the myths surrounding trafficking, the signs to look for, and the importance of community involvement in prevention efforts. Ria emphasizes the need for open conversations about these uncomfortable topics and encourages listeners to take action in their communities to support victims and prevent trafficking.Want to connect with Ria or other organization we have mentioned during this episode? Click Below! Georgia Sex Trafficking Hotline: 1-844-842-3678Riastory.com Simply Report App
Building a firm that can thrive without its founders being constantly "on" requires far more than revenue growth. It takes intentional infrastructure, deep team trust, and long-term thinking. This episode explores how designing a business that doesn't depend on any single individual can create both freedom for the founders and stability for clients. Dennis Morton is the co-founder of Morton Brown Family Wealth, an RIA based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, overseeing $475 million in AUM for 275 households. Listen in as Dennis shares how his firm built the systems and team structure needed to allow both founders to take five-week sabbaticals without disrupting client service or slowing growth. We also discuss how socializing clients with the full advisory team strengthens their relationship with the firm as a whole, how strategic outsourcing and in-house specialization support scalability, and how hiring a dedicated marketing leader amplified his firm's brand visibility and lead flow. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/471
Today on the podcast we welcome back Cullen Roche. He has a new book out called Your Perfect Portfolio: The Ultimate Guide to Using the World's Most Powerful Investment Strategies. Cullen is also the founder and chief investment officer of Discipline Funds, and he heads up Orcam Group, a registered investment advisory firm he established in 2012. Cullen started his career as an advisor at Merrill Lynch and worked at an event-driven hedge fund before starting his RIA firm. He received his bachelor's degree in finance from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Cullen, welcome back to The Long View.BackgroundBioDiscipline FundsYour Perfect Portfolio: The Ultimate Guide to Using the World's Most Powerful Investment StrategiesPragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Money and FinanceArtificial Intelligence, Bubbles, Bonds, and Rate Cuts“Three Things—Weekend Reading,” by Cullen Roche, disciplinefunds.com, Oct. 11, 2025.“Three Things—Bubbles, Paradoxes & QE,” by Cullen Roche, disciplinefunds.com, Dec. 12, 2025.“Three Things—Gold, Cuts and Divorces,” by Cullen Roche, disciplinefunds.com, Sept. 19, 2025.“Three Things—Where Did the Integrity Go?” by Cullen Roche, disciplinefunds.com, Aug. 21, 2025.“Bonds: It's Still Time to Chill (For a Little Longer Though),” by Cullen Roche, disciplinefunds.com, May 22, 2025.OtherDiscipline Funds' Tariff Tracker“Cullen Roche: What Tariffs Mean for Your Portfolio,” The Long View podcast, Morningstar.com, April 22, 2025.Bill BernsteinTaylor Larimore“The Case for a ‘Good Enough' Portfolio,” by Christine Benz, Morningstar.com, Oct. 27, 2025. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
If you were to transition your practice to the RIA model, is there is an ideal time of the year to make the change?Before considering calendar variables, though, you first want to consider factors pertinent to your unique scenario including potential vesting cycles on deferred comp, tranches on forgivable loans, etc.It is then important to be aware of, and understand why there are certain times of year that advisors/teams generally seek to avoid making a transition during.On this episode (#139) of the Transition To RIA question & answer series I address these variables and discuss what goes into a timing decision on when to make a transition.Come take a listen!P.S. Prefer video? You can find this entire series in video format on Youtube. Search for the TRANSITION TO RIA channel.Show notes: https://TransitionToRIA.com/what-time-of-year-should-i-transition-to-the-ria-model/About Host: Brad Wales is the founder of Transition To RIA, where he helps financial advisors between $50M and $1B understand everything there is to know about WHY and HOW to transition their practice to the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) model. Brad has 20+ years of industry experience, including direct RIA related roles in Compliance, Finance and Business Development. He has an MBA and has held the 4, 7, 24, 63 & 65 licenses. The Transition To RIA website (TransitionToRIA.com) has a large catalog of free videos, articles, whitepapers, as well as other resources to help advisors understand the RIA model and how it would apply to their unique circumstances.
Hello and welcome to Handgun Radio! I'm your host Ryan Michad, Weerd Beard & Co from the wild woods of Central Maine and this is your home for all the news, information and discussion in the handgunning world! This week, we talk the Kel Tec 5.7 Pistol with Weerd and Gwen! Please check out the Patriot Patch Company for their awesome patches and other high quality items! Visit www.patriotpatch.co for more information! Cool artist “proof” rendition come along with the latest patch of the month patches! We are proudly sponsored by VZ Grips! Please go check out all their fantastic products at their website! VZ Grips! -KFrame Magna Grips Thank you to all our patreons! Visit us at https://www.patreon.com/handgunradio Week In Review: Ryan: -Bought my office Christmas gifts they will be fun! -Took my youngest to the movies for a birthday party at 8:30am! Saw Zootopia 2 and I browsed Wikipedia articles about US Involvement in WW2 and ate popcorn. -Had a 10” ham pizza….with the REAL ham. Flat. Not chunk like Dominos does. -AK Sells at RIA for $246,750 -Veera From Firefly Auction -PSA JAKL Bullpup -Pietta Starr DA Gwen: Weerd: Saw COMEADIAN Bob Marley last night Drink Segment: Xander Inspired Red Shirt Cocktail 1oz Campari 1oz Sweet Vermouth 1oz Islay Scotch like Laphroaig Main Topic: The Kel Tec 5.7 Pistol Gwen: Your background? -Pink Pistols Kel Tec 5.7 Pistol -Rotary Barrel -Stripper Clip Loading -Kel Tec's Grip Design -Availability of 5.7 Ammo Wrap Up: Don't forget to shop Brownells using our affiliate link! Head to firearmsradio.net and click the affiliate link in the upper right hand corner! Be sure to go like Handgun Radio on facebook and share it with your friends! Leave us a review on iTunes! Check out VZ Grips! Listen to all the great shows on the Firearms Radio Network! Check out the Patriot Patch Company!! www.patriotpatch.co Weerd where can people find you? Assorted Calibers Podcast, Weer'd World Gwen is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204691521 Oddball gunscarstech.com Assorted Calibers Podcast ACP and HGR Facebook Play screechingtires.wav David Blue Collar Prepping Brena Bock Author Page David Bock Author Page Team And More Claus of War: Santa's Battle Chronicles Xander: Assorted Calibers Podcast Here so Ryan doesn't do a bad impression of me Until next week, have fun & safe shooting!
About fifteen years ago, I gave up the conversation around balance entirely. The word I use instead is integration, and in this holiday episode I share why that shift transforms how entrepreneurs experience everything from year-end deal closings to family obligations. In this holiday episode of the DealQuest Podcast, I share reflections on 2025, point to must-listen episodes, preview what's coming in 2026, and break down the integration mindset that has shaped my approach to business and life. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: In this episode, you'll discover why the balance conversation creates unnecessary stress, the four episodes from 2025 worth revisiting, what's coming in January with my partner Brian Meegan, how designing where you live and which clients you take on become integration decisions, why great mergers have integration at their core while failed ones have integration problems, and how clarity creates filters for better decisions. MY INTEGRATION JOURNEY: Balance frames everything as separate competing demands pulling in different directions. Integration creates a lens where choices support multiple priorities simultaneously. Living in Marina del Rey serves integration. Fifteen minutes from LAX. Secure building. Walking my dog along the promenade during breaks. Cold brew moments on the patio before M&A negotiations. Every choice reduces friction. EPISODES WORTH REVISITING: Dave Hersh on Episode 381 delivered one of my favorite interviews ever, sharing hard truths about post-exit challenges through his inner board meeting framework. Bob Bush on Episode 377 told his remarkable journey from East St. Louis to founding Mutombo Coffee with the late Dikembe Mutombo. Jodi Hume on Episode 366 helps founders avoid the regrets that plague up to 85% of entrepreneurs after exits. Hikari Senju on Episode 354 offered a different lens on building AI companies through strategic bootstrapping. WHAT'S COMING IN 2026: January kicks off with my partner Brian Meegan joining to discuss what we're seeing in the deal landscape. Special series are planned diving deep into specific industries similar to our RIA aggregator coverage. KEY INSIGHTS: The great mergers and acquisitions have integration at their core. The ones that fail typically have integration problems. Choosing podcasting over a weekly column reflects integration thinking. This format feels like an extension of who I am rather than an obligation. When you have clarity about what integrates in your life, it creates a filter for decisions, just like whiteboarding sessions create filters for M&A clients. Perfect for entrepreneurs feeling pulled in too many directions, business owners heading into year-end closings, and dealmakers who want to understand how integration principles apply to M&A success. FOR MORE ON THIS EPISODE: https://www.coreykupfer.com/blog/holiday2025 FOR MORE ON COREY KUPFER https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer/ https://www.coreykupfer.com/ Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. Get deal-ready with the DealQuest Podcast with Corey Kupfer, where like-minded entrepreneurs and business leaders converge, share insights and challenges, and success stories. Equip yourself with the tools, resources, and support necessary to navigate the complex yet rewarding world of dealmaking. Dive into the world of deal-driven growth today! Episode Highlights with Timestamps [00:00] - Introduction: Holiday wishes to the DealQuest community [02:00] - Episode recommendations: Four must-listen conversations from 2025 [04:00] - Dave Hersh Episode 381: Psychology behind successful exits "[05:00] - Bob Bush Episode 377: Global dealmaking and Mutombo Coffee [06:00] - Jodi Hume Episode 366: Avoiding post-exit regret [06:30] - Hikari Senju Episode 354: Strategic bootstrapping for AI companies [07:00] - What's coming in 2026 with Brian Meegan [09:00] - The integration versus balance conversation [11:00] - Designing life for integration: Marina del Rey example [14:00] - Integration in deals: Why great M&A has integration at its core [15:00] - Clarity as a filter for decisions [15:30] - Closing thoughts and gratitude Host Bio:Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker with more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. He is the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast and managing partner of Kupfer PLLC. Show Description: Do you want your business to grow faster? The DealQuest Podcast reveals how successful entrepreneurs use strategic deals to accelerate growth. From mergers and acquisitions to capital raising, joint ventures, and strategic alliances, this show covers the full spectrum of deal-driven growth strategies. Related Episodes: Episode 381 - Dave Hersh: The Psychology Behind Successful Exits Episode 377 - Bob Bush: From East St. Louis to Global Dealmaking and Mutombo Coffee Episode 366 - Jodi Hume: Founder Regret, Exit Clarity and What Money Can't Buy Episode 354 - Hikari Senju: Building AI-Powered Companies Through Strategic Bootstrapping Episode 328 - Richard Manders: Scale Business Growth and Personal Freedom Episode 323 - Holiday Solocast: Taking Stock and Completing the Year Social Media Follow DealQuest Podcast: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer/ Website: https://www.coreykupfer.com/ Keywords/Tags: holiday solocast, integration versus balance, work life integration, best podcast episodes 2025, dealquest podcast, Corey Kupfer, M&A insights, post-exit challenges, deal-driven growth, Brian Meegan, 2026 preview
How will wealth management change in 2026? In this episode of Bank on Wipfli, join Wipfli's Robert Zondag for a conversation with Diamond Consultants CEO Louis Diamond and Wipfli partner Ron Niemasyk about the evolving dynamics of the industry in areas like recruitment, tech and private equity partnerships — plus how wealth management advisory firms are adapting to keep up.Listen for a rundown on key trends that will shape wealth management over the next 12 months, including:Firms moving towards advisory-focused business models, including why tax and estate planning have become expected service offerings.Wealth advisors leaning heavily on technology to drive growth, including AI, CRM integration and a focus on operational efficiency.Private equity's growing interest in the registered investment advisor (RIA) sector, what's driving record 10-12x EBITDA valuations, and why long-term success can depend on capital decisions.Key recruiting and retention strategies, including a holistic approach that embraces flexibility, culture, technology and succession planning.Major recruiting red flags, like compensation changes, limited growth support and a lack of integration into the team.
[깊이 있는 경제뉴스] 1) 손익통산부터 RIA까지.. 복잡해진 서학개미 절세 셈법 2) 중국, GDP 대비 부채 300% 넘어.. 세계 경제 파장은? - 김아름 머니투데이방송 기자 - 조미현 한국경제신문 기자 [친절한 경제] 인공지능은 각종 데이터를 공짜로 수집하나요? - 청취자 김유미 씨
This week's Money Wise episode takes a step back to assess where markets stand as the year winds down and the Santa Claus rally remains firmly in focus. With a holiday-shortened trading week and lighter volume, the S&P 500 edged closer to a new all-time closing high, supported by strong performance over the final five trading days of December. The guys discuss why late-year seasonality still matters and how recent gains align with historical Santa Claus rally patterns. Beyond market action, the conversation shifts to the broader economic backdrop. Despite incomplete and delayed data from the recent government shutdown, key indicators point to continued momentum: third-quarter GDP growth came in at a strong 4.3%, savings rates are rising toward 5%, and consumer spending remains a major driver of economic expansion. The Money Wise guys push back on narratives suggesting growth is narrowly driven by AI infrastructure, emphasizing that consumer activity continues to power a significant share of GDP. With year-end optimism intact and early 2026 catalysts on the horizon, the episode reinforces why long-term perspective matters, especially when headlines focus more on costs than growth. The Santa Claus Rally A Santa Claus rally refers to the market's historical tendency to rise during the final trading days of December and the first few days of January. This period is often supported by seasonal optimism, lighter trading volumes, and investors repositioning portfolios for the year ahead. When it occurs, it can help improve overall market sentiment and reinforce confidence after a full year of trading. A strong year-end rally may also provide momentum as markets enter the new year. While not guaranteed, it's a pattern investors often watch closely as a gauge of near-term market tone. In the second hour, the Money Wise guys explore RIA vs. Broker. You don't want to miss the details! Tune in for the full discussion on your favorite podcast provider or at davidsoncap.com, where you can also learn more about the Money Wise guys or take advantage of a portfolio review and analysis with Davidson Capital Management.
On this episode, we welcome Sheryl Ann Syby, Assistant Vice President of Women's and Children's Services at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center. Sheryl has over 35 years of nursing experience, specializing in women's and children's health including pediatric care, OB Clinic, Family Centered Care, and Neonatal intensive Care unit. This is one of the topics that is near and dear to our hearts at Seelaus. Sheryl's career journey has given her a front lines of the myriad issues that women and babies face and how the medical community is evolving to address their most critical needs including a Centering program for women that empowers women to advocate for themselves. About Sheryl SybySheryl has over 35 years of nursing experience, specializing in women's and children's health. Prior to joining CBMC in 2024, she worked at Holy Name Medical Center as Director of Women's and Children's Services. More recently, Sheryl worked as the Assistant Vice President of Nursing at Hudson Regional Hospital. There she obtained operational experience broadened by her work in various clinical areas, including emergency medicine, perioperative services, case management, emergency management, security, and hospital education. Sheryl has a bachelor's degree from Farleigh Dickinson University and her master's degree in Leadership/Administration from Aspen University.About Cooperman Barnabas Medical CenterCooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC) is a fully accredited acute care hospital and offers a comprehensive array of services including advanced cancer care, sophisticated neurology and neurosurgery services including a neuro-interventional lab and cardiac care featuring three cardiac catheterization labs.About R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. was founded in 1984 by Richard Seelaus, originally as a municipal bond broker-dealer. The firm has since become a certified women's business enterprise ("WBE") and has grown into a full-service financial firm that is mission driven in its commitment to creating more opportunities for women in the financial services. R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. and its subsidiaries offer investment advisory, asset management, capital markets, brokerage, fixed income and equity trading, institutional sales, leveraged finance and insurance services. The R. Seelaus & Co., LLC subsidiary is a broker dealer registered with the SEC and member of FINRA, and the subsidiary Seelaus Asset Management, LLC, is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor ("RIA"). With various fixed income trading desks and more than seventy professionals, both entities serve individuals, families, public and private companies, non-profit organizations, and institutional investors. The firm has offices in NJ, CT, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, South Carolina, and Massachusetts. For more information about R. Seelaus & Co., and its subsidiaries visit www.rseelaus.com
On this TCAF Tuesday, hear an all-new episode of What Are Your Thoughts with Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick! For more from special guest Sam Ro, check out: https://www.tker.co/ This episode is sponsored by Betterment Advisor Solutions and Rocket Money. Grow your RIA, your way by visiting: https://Betterment.com/advisors Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://rocketmoney.com/compound today. Sign up for The Compound Newsletter and never miss out! Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Enjoy this annual winter tale from Cider Chat Central! In this special holiday episode, Cider Chat invites you to step into the enchanting world of the Talking Pommes. The Talking Pommes Grand Winter Party is more than just a story - it's a celebration of all things pome, community, tradition, and the joy that comes with every glass of cider. The cider house hums with anticipation as Ria, Perry Pear, Mr. Quince, and the Medlars prepare the night before their annual pressing. But as every year before there is always magic in the air for Ciderville. With the Talking Pommes truly anything can happen and so it does! With snow blanketed orchards, and just the right amount of "Believe" a sleigh pulled by apples glides through the starry sky. Raise a glass and join us on this festive adventure—because in Ciderville, the magic is always just a sip away. Meet the Stars of the Cider House This holiday episode of Cider Chat brings together some of Ciderville's most delightful characters: Apple: The vibrant leader with a twinkle in their eye. The Medlars: Sweet, quirky, and always ready with a witty remark. Mr. Quince: The taskmaster who wants to be a comic Perry Pear: Full of charm and flair, a natural performer. A Wide Assortment of Pommes: From Dabinett to Kingston Black, they bring their unique personalities to the mix. The Gift of Holiday Cider Magic This story is for anyone who cherishes the magic of the season. As Apple says, "Every glass of cider holds a story, and this one's for you." From Cider Chat to all of Ciderville, we hope this episode brings joy to your holiday season. Raise a glass, gather 'round, and join the Talking Pommes and Ria in Ciderville!
Income-focused investing may seem old-school in a world dominated by total-return portfolios and model ETF allocations—but for some retirees, predictable cash flow is the key to peace of mind. This episode explores how a differentiated investment philosophy, rooted in individual income-producing securities, can become a powerful engine for both client trust and firm growth. David Scranton is the CEO of Sound Income Group, an RIA based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, overseeing $4 billion for 10,000 client households. Listen in as David shares how he constructs income-focused portfolios using combinations of what he calls "insured options" and "contractual securities", as well as high-dividend equity instruments with a focus on individual securities rather than mutual funds or ETFs. You'll learn how steady cash flow has led to greater client retention in down markets, David's "four keys" to attracting clients, and why narrowing his investment focus (and creating systems to implement it) has ultimately allowed him to serve more families. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/469
This episode of the podcast we are joined by an amazing group of RIA volunteers and board members that include RIA President, Jeff Moore, Vince Scarfo, Mark Davis, Marcie Richardson, and Davis Ness. We will look at how the Restoration Industry Association moved the industry forward in 2025—and what's coming next.From record-breaking events and major advocacy wins to education updates, ethical standards, and the future of AI, this episode breaks down why RIA engagement matters and how it's shaping restoration in 2026 and beyond.
This episode of the podcast we are joined by an amazing group of RIA volunteers and board members that include RIA President, Jeff Moore, Vince Scarfo, Mark Davis, Marcie Richardson, and Davis Ness. We will look at how the Restoration Industry Association moved the industry forward in 2025—and what's coming next.From record-breaking events and major advocacy wins to education updates, ethical standards, and the future of AI, this episode breaks down why RIA engagement matters and how it's shaping restoration in 2026 and beyond.
Lillian Turner is the Founder of Daring Greatly Wealth, and she joins the show today to share how her interest in financial planning in high school turned into owning her own firm. If you're interested in the realities of career pivots, early leadership roles, and building a firm from scratch, this episode will be especially valuable. Listen in as Lillian opens up about how growing up watching her parents struggle with money disagreements shaped her desire to help others, leading her from an accounting major to finance and into her first financial planning internship through a career fair. You'll hear how she was unexpectedly pushed into a lead advisor role at a large RIA when her boss left—which ultimately showed her it wasn't the long-term fit she wanted—as well as what led her to start her own firm and how she's navigated both the flexibility and challenges of entrepreneurship. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/3Kl736Q
Sandi Bragar, CFP®, Chief Client Officer and Partner at Aspiriant, shares how the firm's independent, employee-owned structure shapes its client-first approach and differentiates it in the wealth management landscape. She also discusses Aspiriant's perspective on succession planning, growth priorities for the year ahead, and what advisors curious about the firm should know.
Jason Wenk is the founder and CEO of Altruist, a fully-integrated digital brokerage platform and RIA custodian designed to help fiduciary advisors optimize and scale their practices. Jason joins host Mark Gatto, co-founder and co-CEO of CION Investments, to discuss how Altruist is re-envisioning the custodial space and improving the accessibility and outcomes of financial advice.
What if financial advisors didn't just use AI tools—but had AI workers supporting their business? In this episode of Money Matters, host Chris Hensley is joined by Jonathan Michael, Director of Growth at TIFIN AXIS, to unpack what AI agents really are, how they differ from chatbots, and why they're quickly becoming a practical way for advisory firms to scale. Jonathan brings a founder's perspective from both EdTech and WealthTech and focuses on one core idea: AI should take on the operational, repetitive work that slows firms down—so advisors can spend more time where they add the most value. In this conversation, we discuss: What defines an AI agent (and what doesn't) Why AI workers are best thought of as digital co-workers Where agents outperform traditional software and manual workflows Why structured prompting is a best practice for reliability and oversight How verification loops reduce AI errors and improve confidence The role of data infrastructure in deploying AI responsibly What the RIA of the future looks like with humans and AI working together If you're a financial advisor or RIA leader trying to make sense of AI without the hype, this episode offers a grounded, practical look at how firms are actually using it today—and where it's heading next.
From chief marketing officer at the first internet bank to building the leading annuity platform for RIAs, David Lau shares proven strategies for raising capital, navigating public company challenges, and why converting commission-based revenue to fee-based can multiply your exit value by five times. In this episode of the DealQuest Podcast, host Corey Kupfer sits down with David Lau, founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners, who has raised over $500 million across multiple ventures and built DPL into a platform serving more than 10,000 advisors at over 3,500 RIA firms. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: In this episode, you'll discover why organic growth matters far more than market growth when acquirers evaluate your business, how converting commission-based annuity business to fee-based can multiply both your revenue and your exit multiple, the real tradeoffs of taking institutional capital and signing up for aggressive growth, the critical difference between venture capitalist optimism and private equity scrutiny, and how recognizing when your business has "run its course" can open the door to building something bigger. DAVID'S JOURNEY: David's career began as chief marketing officer of Telebank, the first internet bank, where he helped raise over $500 million. When preparing to go public, the stock jumped from $17 to $150 in weeks before Goldman Sachs stabilized pricing at $105. He later built Jefferson National, an insurance carrier he sold to Nationwide. That experience taught him the valuable part was distribution, not the capital-intensive balance sheet, leading directly to founding DPL in 2018. KEY INSIGHTS: A billionaire David met admitted he "mistook a bull market for brilliance." Acquirers only pay premium multiples for organic growth. If you did nothing different over the last decade as an RIA, you're making twice as much just from market performance. Buyers know this. Converting from commission to fee-based transforms exit potential with three times the revenue and five times the multiple, while expanding your buyer pool. DPL's technology reviews 2,500 policies per hour, and a significant portion of DPL's $4 billion in annuity sales were M&A related. When launching DPL, David planned to bootstrap until meeting Todd Boehly. Taking institutional capital means signing up for aggressive growth where some team members won't make it to the next stage. Venture capitalists are optimists who see your vision. Private equity investors see everything that can go wrong. Perfect for RIA owners considering M&A, hybrid advisors evaluating fee-based transitions, and entrepreneurs weighing capital raising decisions. FOR MORE ON THIS EPISODE: https://www.coreykupfer.com/blog/davidlau FOR MORE ON DAVID LAU: https://www.dplfp.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lau-b6449b7/ https://x.com/dpl_fp FOR MORE ON COREY KUPFER: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer/ https://www.coreykupfer.com/ Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. Get deal-ready with the DealQuest Podcast with Corey Kupfer, where like-minded entrepreneurs and business leaders converge, share insights and challenges, and success stories. Equip yourself with the tools, resources, and support necessary to navigate the complex yet rewarding world of dealmaking. Dive into the world of deal-driven growth today! Episode Highlights with Timestamps [00:00] - Introduction: David Lau's journey to building DPL Financial Partners [04:00] - Capital raising at Telebank: $500 million raised, stock jumping from $17 to $150 [08:00] - The tradeoffs of taking institutional capital and signing up for aggressive growth [12:00] - Venture capitalists as optimists versus private equity investors who see downside [16:00] - Why choosing the right capital partners matters more than just getting funded [20:00] - How DPL solved the RIA insurance problem with commission-free products [24:00] - Converting to fee-based: Three times the revenue and five times the multiple [28:00] - Why organic growth matters more than market growth in valuations [33:00] - The future of RIA consolidation and when to sell a business [40:00] - Freedom: Working with Russian defectors and gaining perspective Guest Bio David Lau is founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners, the leading annuity platform for RIAs. Since 2018, DPL has worked with 20 insurance carriers and built an advisor base of more than 10,000 advisors from over 3,500 RIA firms. Before founding DPL, David was COO of Jefferson National, which he helped build and sell to Nationwide. Earlier, he served as chief marketing officer at Telebank, the first internet bank, where he helped raise over $500 million. His work has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Barron's, and CNBC. DPL is backed by Todd Boehly's Eldridge and Bob Diamond's Atlas Merchant Capital. Host Bio Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker with more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. Show Description Do you want your business to grow faster? The DealQuest Podcast with Corey Kupfer reveals how successful entrepreneurs and business leaders use strategic deals to accelerate growth. From large mergers and acquisitions to capital raising, joint ventures, strategic alliances, real estate deals, and more, this show discusses the full spectrum of deal-driven growth strategies. Get the confidence to pursue deals that will help your company scale faster. Related Episodes Episode 350 - When NOT to Take Venture Capital with Tom Dillon: Explore alternative funding sources when traditional VC doesn't fit your exit strategy. Episode 339 - Next-Gen Leadership and M&A: Why G2 Matters: Understand why developing Generation 2 leadership commands premium valuations. Episode 209 - M&A Talk with Leading RIA Aggregators and Integrators: Bob Oros of Hightower Advisors: Explore what aggregators look for in acquisition targets. Social Media Follow DealQuest Podcast: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer/ Website: https://www.coreykupfer.com/ Follow David Lau: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lau-b6449b7/ Company: https://www.dplfp.com Twitter/X: https://x.com/dpl_fp Keywords/Tags s RIA M&A, capital raising, fee-based revenue, commission-free annuities, DPL Financial Partners, organic growth, enterprise value, hybrid advisor transition, RIA consolidation, private equity, venture capital, going public, IPO, exit strategy, insurance for RIAs, annuity platform, wealth management M&A, financial services, startup funding, institutional capital, valuation multiples, deal structures, business growth strategies, dealmaking
Succession planning is rarely easy, but when life circumstances accelerate the timeline, it requires courage, clarity, and deep trust in your team. This episode explores how to manage an ownership and client transition with empathy, structure, and transparency. KayDee Cole is the founder of Clarity Wealth Development, an RIA based in Corvallis, Oregon, that manages $200 million in AUM for 220 client households. Listen in as KayDee shares how she navigated an expedited succession plan after a cancer recurrence, selling equity to her COO through a seller-financed loan and preparing other team members for ownership. We also talk about the structured four-meeting process she created to transition clients to new advisors, how she coached her team through readiness conversations, and how transparent communication helped retain nearly all clients through the change. For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/468
Louis Diamond (CEO of Diamond Consultants) joins David DeCelle to break down what really drives advisor transitions—and how top teams evaluate moves to independence, new platforms, or M&A opportunities. Louis shares the "consultative recruiting" model his firm has built over nearly 30 years, why freedom, flexibility, and control are the three core forces behind most breakaway decisions, and what a realistic timeline looks like from exploration to execution. You'll also hear how Diamond Consultants structures compensation (including a refundable retainer approach), what their 7-step consulting framework looks like, and how advisors can avoid getting overwhelmed when independence opens up a "toy box" of tech, compliance, and infrastructure decisions. What You'll Learn The difference between traditional recruiting vs recruitment consulting Why most advisor pain points trace back to Freedom, Flexibility, and Control How Diamond Consultants helps advisors compare 3–7 best-fit destinations (wirehouse, IBD, RIA, aggregators, etc.) How fees work: firm-paid recruiting model + when a refundable retainer comes into play A realistic view of the transition timeline: 6–12 months is common, longer for breakaways How many breakaway teams simplify tech decisions by plugging into existing RIA platforms #FinancialAdvisor #RIA #AdvisorTransition #BreakawayAdvisor #WealthManagement #ModelFA #DiamondConsultants #MergersAndAcquisitions #SuccessionPlanning #AdvisorGrowth Connect with Louis: Website: https://www.diamond-consultants.com/team/louis-diamond/ LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisdiamond Email: ldiamond@diamond-consultants.com --- About the Model FA Podcast The Model FA podcast is a show for fiduciary financial advisors. In each episode, our host David DeCelle sits down with industry experts, strategic thinkers, and advisors to explore what it takes to build a successful practice — and have an abundant life in the process. We believe in continuous learning, tactical advice, and strategies that work — no "gotchas" or BS. Join us to hear stories from successful financial advisors, get actionable ideas from experts, and re-discover your drive to build the practice of your dreams. Did you like this conversation? Then leave us a rating and a review in whatever podcast player you use. We would love your feedback, and your ratings help us reach more advisors with ideas for growing their practices, attracting great clients, and achieving a better quality of life. While you are there, feel free to share your ideas about future podcast guests or topics you'd love to see covered. Our Team: President of Model FA, David DeCelle If you like this podcast, you will love our community! Join the Model FA Community on Facebook to connect with like-minded advisors and share the day-to-day challenges and wins of running a growing financial services firm.
In this special “Best of 2025” episode, David Lau David Lau revisits powerful insights from John Thiel, Matt Regan, and Megan Carpenter on the evolving RIA landscape. Together, they unpack consolidation, succession challenges, organic growth strategies, and why modern advisory firms must treat marketing as a measurable engine—not just brand awareness. Learn more at https://www.dplfp.com/series/advisor-revelations-podcast.
While it is not always referred to as a "1099 model", there is a type of RIA platform offering that many advisors find to be an attractive alternative to running their own RIA.These "1099 models" come in various flavors but they typically share the following (among other things):Retain 100% ownership of your practice;Use your own brand;Control your local expenses;Access a suite of technology and solution provider resources;If applicable, provide solutions for your remaining legacy commission assets; etc.If considering starting your own RIA, it's worthwhile understanding how these models compare.In this episode (#138) of the Transition To RIA question & answer series I explain what these models are and why they're worth considering for your practice.Come take a listen!P.S. Prefer video? You can find this entire series in video format on Youtube. Search for the TRANSITION TO RIA channel.Show notes: https://TransitionToRIA.com/what-is-a-1099-ria-model/About Host: Brad Wales is the founder of Transition To RIA, where he helps financial advisors between $50M and $1B understand everything there is to know about WHY and HOW to transition their practice to the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) model. Brad has 20+ years of industry experience, including direct RIA related roles in Compliance, Finance and Business Development. He has an MBA and has held the 4, 7, 24, 63 & 65 licenses. The Transition To RIA website (TransitionToRIA.com) has a large catalog of free videos, articles, whitepapers, as well as other resources to help advisors understand the RIA model and how it would apply to their unique circumstances.
A holiday-flavored Friday Q&A that covers a lot of ground without selling a single candy cane. Don answers listener questions on Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage (and the IRMAA buzzsaw), how to safely reposition an elderly parent's taxable account, whether to ditch target-date funds for a DIY equity portfolio, how to think about international small-cap ETFs, why teaching kids to pick stocks is a terrible idea, and what to expect when a “free portfolio review” comes from a company whose name literally includes the word annuity. Skeptical, practical, and very on-brand. 0:17 Corny holiday Q&A musical intro and setup 0:33 Friday Q&A format, how questions get on the show, and holiday vibe 2:00 Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage, IRMAA penalties, and why private insurers are exhausting 3:37 Why capital gains can make Medicare shockingly expensive 4:15 The profit motive problem with Medicare Advantage plans 4:37 Question transition and listener call-in reminder 5:43 Managing an 82-year-old's taxable account: safety vs. yield 6:18 Why bond funds like BND diversify interest-rate risk better than savings accounts 7:15 CD ladders: how they work and why discipline matters 7:39 Treasury funds vs. total bond funds for capital preservation 7:47 Closing thoughts on preservation-focused portfolios 8:52 Target-date funds vs. DIY 401(k) portfolios 9:20 Glide paths, rebalancing, and what target-date funds do well 10:35 100% equity risk, volatility, and why down markets help accumulators 10:53 Choosing between AVDV and AVES (international small value vs. emerging markets) 11:47 Why the correct answer is often “both” 12:33 Teaching high school students about investing 13:52 Why stock-picking education reinforces a dangerous myth 14:28 Luck vs. skill and the evidence against beating the market 15:39 Index funds, market efficiency, and investor behavior 16:49 Morningstar vs. other research tools 17:18 Empower's “free portfolio review” and what might be coming next 18:06 Portfolio concentration concerns and tech exposure 19:33 Humor break and annuity skepticism 20:55 What Empower actually is and what that implies 21:16 Empower as an RIA and how to treat their recommendations 21:52 Getting a second opinion from a fee-only advisor 22:58 Thanks, holiday wrap-up, and call for more questions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Savvy Wealth Founder & CEO Ritik Malhotra shares the origin story behind the firm and the industry gap it set out to solve, along with how Savvy's modern, tech-enabled model differs from a traditional RIA. He walks through how the platform equips advisors with digital tools, operational support, and independence, while still enabling highly personalized planning—especially for next-gen clients who expect both efficiency and customization.
Together, they explore practical decision points advisors should consider:• The real implications of the $100M AUM threshold and the trade-offs between state and SEC registration• When it may make sense to stay with an independent broker-dealer - especially if more than 20% of your revenue is still commission-based• Why some RIAs are now “breaking away again” and rolling into larger platforms or supported-independence models• The emotional and operational realities of dropping a Series 7, and how that can change your flexibility with media, branding, and marketingChuck also opens up about Sovereign's “three doors” approach - including “Sovereign as a Service” - and how advisors can use incubation-style models to learn the RIA world before fully standing up their own firm. Frank underscores a central theme: there's no universally “right” answer, only informed vs. uninformed decisions.Resources:Chuck's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/charlesfailla Chuck's Websites: www.sovereignadvisorsolutions.com | www.goria.com Elite Consulting Partners | Financial Advisor Transitions: https://eliteconsultingpartners.comElite Marketing Concepts | Marketing Services for Financial Advisors: https://elitemarketingconcepts.comElite Advisor Successions | Advisor Mergers and Acquisitions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.comJEDI Database Solutions | Data Intelligence for Advisors: https://jedidatabasesolutions.comListen to more Advisor Talk episodes: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/Follow us on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/eliteconsultingpartners
Eric Kittner, CEO, Chairman and Partner of the Moneta Group, outlines why Moneta's internally owned model offers a distinct alternative to RIA firms that rely heavily on outside capital. He also explores the future of advisor ownership, the importance of next-gen buy-in, and ways to drive stronger talent retention.
Larry Kriesmer shares how his career evolved from life insurance to options-driven wealth management, explaining that supervisory limitations at his former firm pushed him to launch his own RIA focused on option-based strategies. He and the host discuss the industry's longstanding discomfort with options, the differences among custodians, and the surge in option-centric ETFs driven by investor demand for income, downside buffers, and more predictable outcomes. Larry explains why he favors synthetic long exposure to the S&P 500, how options can create defined risk in ways traditional 60/40 portfolios cannot, and why repeated market shocks have increased interest in structures that limit drawdowns. He also stresses that while options can be powerful, they require real understanding—especially given the asymmetric risks—and that most investors are best served using simple strategies or working with experienced professionals. Larry Kriesmer shares his background transitioning from life insurance into wealth management and ultimately founding his own RIA due to options-related supervision limitations at his prior firm. We highlight how many insurance and brokerage firms restrict options usage because supervisors often lack the necessary licensing or comfort with the risks. Early-career experiences show how compliance departments often misunderstand options and overburden advisors executing client-driven trades. Larry explains that custodians also vary widely in their options competency, noting TD Ameritrade's historically advanced approach compared to more conservative platforms like Schwab and Fidelity. He describes how the growth of option-based ETFs and structured strategies reflects rising demand for income, risk buffers, and outcome-based portfolio design. Why options are resurging in popularity despite being decades old, tying it to investor frustration with unpredictable markets, multiple major drawdowns, and the need for more controlled outcomes. Larry outlines his discovery of options through studying indexed annuities, which showed him how options could define downside risk and reshape portfolio construction. He explains his core strategy of staying synthetically long the S&P 500 at all times, avoiding market timing, and focusing on capturing upside while limiting drawdowns. The conversation touches on potential expansion of his strategy into other sectors or international markets, though the S&P remains his primary exposure due to its self-healing nature. Larry critiques modern portfolio theory as outdated and insufficient for managing real downside risk, arguing that a bond-plus-options structure can outperform a traditional 60/40 on a risk-adjusted basis. You discuss how 2022 exposed the limitations of conventional diversification when both stocks and bonds fell simultaneously. Larry emphasizes that while options can be powerful tools, investors must deeply understand which side of the contract's risk they are assuming to avoid catastrophic losses. He concludes that most investors should pursue education but ultimately rely on professionals or ETF structures if they want to safely incorporate options into their portfolios. Today's Panelists: Kirk Chisholm | Innovative Wealth Barbara Friedberg | Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance Phil Weiss | Apprise Wealth Management Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moneytreepodcast Follow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/money-tree-investing-podcast Follow on Twitter/X: https://x.com/MTIPodcast For more information, visit the show notes at https://moneytreepodcast.com/strategies-for-modern-investors-lawrence-kriesmer-770
On this TCAF Tuesday, Josh sits down with Charles Lemonides, founder of ValueWorks, to discuss the future of flight and how soon we might see flying cars taking to the skies. Charles makes the case for Joby and dives deep into why he thinks it stands above the rest in the eVTOL space. Then at 35:26 hear an all-new episode of What Are Your Thoughts with special guest Ed Yardeni joining Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick! This episode is sponsored by Betterment Advisor Solutions. Grow your RIA, your way by visiting: https://Betterment.com/advisors Sign up for The Compound Newsletter and never miss out! Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
HOLIDAY SHOW TICKETS > https://bit.ly/CITOPHILLYSHOW. Fran's Jonas Brother NJ concert review (00:00-11:56). Ria smoked Wiz Khalifa's weed (13:38-27:24). Stassi Schroeder to host ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' season 3 reunion (28:17-33:56). Shep Rose caught going on rant about Paige DeSorbo & Craig Conover's relationship (33:57-39:28). Madison LeCroy & Sai De Silva feud (39:29-43:56). PopCorner voicemails: Kris Jenner facelift hot take, Does ‘DWTS' need multiple versions of the show?, Updated celebrity Chris rankings + more! (44:43-1:06:40). Interview with RHOSLC's Bronwyn Newport - talking her first BravoCon experience, where she stands with Lisa Barlow, her passion for fashion + much more! (1:07:28-1:49:06). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office
HOLIDAY SHOW TICKETS > https://bit.ly/CITOPHILLYSHOW. Ria's BrovoCon experience (00:00-20:18). Fran saw ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' on Broadway (20:19-36:07). BravoCon biggest moments roundup (37:10-1:00:45). Weekly Watch Report: ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,' ‘Dancing with the Stars,' ‘Maxton Hall' + more! (1:01:29-1:39:03). Interview with ‘DWTS' semi-finalists Robert Irwin & Witney Carson (1:40:15-1:54:51). Interview with ‘DWTS' semi-finalists Whitney Leavitt & Mark Ballas (1:54:54-2:08:53). Interview with ‘DWTS' semi-finalists Alix Earle & Val Chmerkovskiy (2:10:41-2:29:26). CITO LINKS > barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/chicks-in-the-office