When Advisors Become Their Own Boss, Dynasty Answers 'Now What?'

The people in the class had their laptops up, and we had a mini-hackathon.

The professors went around the room and helped each CEO use AI, looking at several different ways that the CEO of an RIA could use it today.

What are some examples?

The way MIT explained it is to think of AI as a team of really good interns. With any intern, you have to give them very specific instructions and monitor their work carefully — and they could be very successful.

One way to use AI, if you were analyzing [a company] over a period of time and wanted to know what the market was for a specific platform, you could [ask] AI, and it would spit out the answer very quickly.

Or if you wanted to create a job posting for, say, an administrative assistant, you can quickly type in that request and it will come back with a very comprehensive job posting.

What else did the advisors discuss concerning AI?

Taking it to the next level: A number of the CEOs said they're going to publish a code of ethics around AI for their organization on what you would use AI for and what you would not use it for.

Broadly, what key content areas comprised the September MIT event?

One was entrepreneurial leadership, which is, in particular, thinking about the shadow that you cast as a leader — how your behavior as a CEO dictates behavior within the organization.

We had another segment around client experience and the journey that clients go through when working with your firm — from the point where you first engage with a prospect to their coming aboard and beyond. 

What do they see and hear from your wealth management firm? What proposals are shown to the client?   

It's putting yourself in the seat of the prospect or client.

What other segments were held?

One was around family businesses. If you yourself are an RIA family business, what are the challenges? Or maybe you're thinking about bringing family into your business.

Everybody in the room had clients with very successful family businesses. They discussed what that might mean about the majority of their wealth and how you become a strategic advisor to that family enterprise.

What else does Dynasty have in it's "Advisor-to-CEO" program?

In the last year or so, we expanded our Entrepreneurs-in-Residence coaching. These are individuals who have run RIAs or other companies in the industry in the past and are now looking to help coach or advise other RIAs.

For example, we have Andrew Marsh [Dynasty vice chairman], who was co-founder, president and CEO of Richardson Wealth [one of Canada's top independent wealth management firms].

This idea is really important because the world isn't short of executive coaches, but very few have experience in the wealth management world. 

So the fact that we're bringing in people who have actually done that job is really powerful.

This was the second year of your "Advisor-to-CEO" event; so clearly, the advisors have been enthusiastic about it. Apart from attending, how else have they shown that enthusiasm?

After the first year, a number of RIAs came to us and said, "I want you to come to my firm and go through this particular piece of content with the [team]."

This year we're going firm by firm, speaking with the CEOs and asking, "What are some key topics that came out of the event that you want to deploy across your organization?"