An RIA innovation co-op is born with Fidelity and Pershing among the founding members

The great news is Pershing and Fidelity are interested in innovation, the question is whether Hortz has the background to manage the desired result, not having a technical background in advisory services, prudent process, advanced institutional technology not available to retail advisors or work flow management.

An interesting real world correlation is when we asked top advisors at a major wirehouse (most of which had more than a half billion in assets and far more with an ample sampling of institutional accounts held to fiduciary standard) what they needed in support, and responded precisely to their request, they said that was not what they really needed. This establishes the need for enlightened leadership—support expert fiduciary standing based on objective non-negotiable fiduciary criteria of statute, case law and regulatory opinion letters with no exceptions. This sort of leadership can not be advanced in a brokerage format and requires by definition leadership and accountability. Innovation without context only confuses the end game. Everyone feels good, but nothing gets done.

SCW

Steve,

Part of the slant here is that Mr. Hortz can bring in ideas from outside the advisory business. But, yes, that is only good if he is fully steeped in the existing business.

There seems to be a growing slant I hear that the advisory business has software that was left behind by other industries. But I’m not sure I really have a clear sense of how that is the case. People like Victor Fetter, Bill Winterberg and Joel Bruckenstein seem to have a decent grasp of the broader picture and bring that knowledge with them.

Brooke