In this candid and deeply thoughtful episode of Don’t Do That, Kelly Waltrich sits down with Dani Fava, Chief Strategy Officer at Carson Group, to unpack leadership, AI, career growth, and one of the most common (and dangerous) professional traps: building your identity around being needed.

Dani shares how Carson is using AI to radically increase advisor capacity, why data infrastructure is the real foundation of innovation, and what it actually takes to build a scalable, valuable firm. But the heart of the conversation lands on Dani’s powerful “Don’t Do That” lesson - why being indispensable can limit your growth, burn you out, and destroy enterprise value, and why true leaders focus on becoming valuable, not needed.

Kelly and Dani cover:

00:00 Don’t Build Your Identity Around Being Needed
00:51 Meet Dani Fava, Chief Strategy Officer at Carson Group
01:56 How Carson Is Becoming an AI-Native Organization
02:47 Creating Advisor Capacity Through AI
04:35 How AI Expands Advisor Capacity and Enterprise Value
06:07 Dani’s Early Vision for AI in Financial Services
08:26 Why AI Adoption Is Accelerating Now
09:30 Why This Tech Wave Is Different
11:38 What It Takes to Build AI Capabilities
13:40 Data Ownership as the AI Differentiator
15:15 Looking Outside Financial Services for Innovation
17:32 AI’s Role in Compliance and Risk
19:56 The Premise of “Don’t Do That”
20:29 Don’t Build Your Identity Around Being Needed
21:59 Why Being Needed Is a Leadership Trap
23:37 Becoming a Multiplier, Not a Bottleneck
25:15 Trust, Failure, and Leadership Culture
29:33 Building Enterprise Value Without Being the Product
31:53 Leadership, Parenting, and Letting Go
35:15 Final Takeaways on Value and Growth

About Our Guest:

Dani Fava serves the pivotal role of Chief Strategy Officer at Carson Group, wielding over two decades of experience in wealth management to drive our strategic direction. Charged with enhancing the client experience through differentiated products and services, Dani's leadership is instrumental in shaping innovative growth strategies and advancing the industry on financial advice and the use of AI. Before joining Carson Group, Dani held influential positions at Envestnet and TD Ameritrade, where she spearheaded initiatives such as digital onboarding, strategic partnerships, and AI integration. 

Dani's contributions include the development of advisor technologies like iRebal and the Model Market Center, reflecting her commitment to empowering advisors with cutting-edge tools and insights. Her impact and forward-thinking vision earned her a spot on FinTech Magazine's Top 100 Women in FinTech (2021), InvestmentNews' Women to Watch (2020), and ThinkAdvisor's 2020 IA25, underscoring her status as a trailblazer in wealth management innovation. In addition to her professional achieve

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