Page 31 - Investment Advisor - November 2021

David Knoch, CEO of Docupace, brought two INDIVIDUALS – OTHER
decades of experience in the financial advice
sector to the firm in April 2020, after ending his Catherine Keating, CEO, BNY Mellon Wealth
tenure as president of 1st Global. At Docupace, Management, recognizing that Americans now
which provides cloud-based digital operations are responsible for their own retirement, with
software for wealth management firms, he has spearheaded a her team developed a philosophy called Active
transformation of a company that was seen as a sleeping giant. Wealth, based on five practices: investing, bor-
This included serving new industry verticals, bolstering com- rowing, spending, managing taxes and fees, and protecting
pany leadership and culture, and executing an acquisition assets and legacy. They advise clients through a methodology
strategy centered on best-of-breed fintech providers. He is of institutional frameworks and disciplines used by CFOs and
focused on leading a “back office revolution” for financial pro- CIOs. The team has been able to calculate the value of each
fessionals and advisors. practice, allowing investors to quantify the advice they receive:
an annualized 2%-5% of greater wealth accumulation. Keating
Bill Crager, co-founder and CEO of Envestnet, has also believes that diversity leads to better investment and busi-
helped transform the firm from a turnkey asset ness performance, with women comprising half of BNY
management program to a unified advice plat- Mellon’s employees.
form, and now a financial wellness and personal
finance ecosystem, connecting actionable data, Debra Guarino, managing director of regula-
technology and solutions to enable an intelligent financial life. To tory risk and electronic control for BNY
accelerate delivery of this, Envestnet acquired Harvest Savings & Mellon Pershing, leads the large-scale regula-
Wealth Technologies, which allows the firm to leverage its bank tory SEC initiative, the Consolidated Audit
relationships and brings capabilities that open all of a bank’s Trail, which requires reporting of significant
accounts to their addressable market, for example, savings order, execution, allocation and client information to allow
accounts as launch points for people to plan for their future, for additional transparency and clearer ownership in the
enabling micro-savings that can connect to investment accounts. marketplace. To achieve compliance for the firm and provide
a CAT reporting service for Pershing’s clients, she guided
Scott MacKillop, CEO and founder of First technology and business team members over 18 months to
Ascent Asset Management, started the firm in deliver a solution to some 300 introducing broker-dealers in
2016 with goal of altering the TAMP business April 2020 to ensure they could meet phase one of CAT
model for the benefit of advisors and their cli- reporting. It allows clients to be compliant without develop-
ents. FAAM passed the $1 billion mark in ing their solution.
AUM/advisement in March 2021, accomplishing this with
only seven full-time and two part-time employees. Over the Andrew Salesky, senior vice president of
past two years, FAAM has launched a series of ESG portfolios digital advisor solutions for Charles Schwab,
and the 401(k) Resource Program for advisors serving retire- is working to merge the custody platforms:
ment plans. MacKillop was recently named an ambassador for Schwab and TD Ameritrade. He is spear-
the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard based on his efforts to heading efforts to create a new Schwab
educate advisors on fiduciary and regulatory topics. Advisor Center that will be the “better of both” platforms.
Efforts to digitize the entire advisor/client experience
John Lunny is CEO of Vestmark, a provider of began before 2020, but the past 12 months have been used to
portfolio management software and trading motivate behavior changes for advisors and their clients.
solutions. In 2020 and 2021, Lunny helped Now, digital adoption is at all-time highs across Schwab’s
forge a strategic partnership with Axos Clearing RIA client base. Also, most new clients are enrolled in
that empowered the firm’s broker-dealer and Schwab Alliance within 30 days versus just two-thirds at
RIA customers with access to the VestmarkONE platform, the start of 2020.
while a collaboration with Redi2 enabled VestmarkONE users
to access new scalable billing tools for managed accounts. David Lau, founder and CEO of DPL Financial
Vestmark also created a solution that enabled UBS Wealth Partners, pioneered the idea of commission-
Management USA to expand its offering of zero-fee separately free insurance for RIAs at Jefferson National
managed accounts and provided its advisors access to model and then started DPL, which now offers more
portfolios from top asset managers. This simplified delivery than 40 commission-free products from 20
and management for both groups. carriers and partners with RIAs to meet the retirement

NOVEMBER 2021 INVESTMENT ADVISOR 29