In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Chairman and CEO of LifeYield Mark Hoffman. In addition to leading the company, Mark is responsible for pulling resources and customers together to construct Unified Managed Households. 

Early in Mark’s career, a colleague’s father broached the idea of combining household assets to achieve client goals, particularly as advisors help clients prepare for retirement. Fast forward more than 30 years later, and that concept has taken shape at LifeYield.

In the years that led Mark to LifeYield and his success building money-saving technology, he’s learned a few things about helping large firms achieve complex goals, the importance of quantifying benefit, and developing a software system that sticks. 

Jack and Mark discuss where the financial industry is headed next, how to provide optimal client value, and the three biggest lessons Mark has learned building LifeYield from the ground up.

“The most important feature that you need to ensure advisor adoption is the ability to quantify the benefit of the advice being given to the customer. What is in it for them and why? ” ~ Mark Hoffman

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In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Cheryl Nash, CEO of the Financial Supermarkets Division at InvestCloud. Cheryl unpacks her acquisition-filled journey to CEO and everything that makes InvestCloud an industry standout.

Cheryl began her career as a data entrant at Security APL before automation was as widespread as it is today. Security APL was ultimately acquired by Fiserv which recently sold a 60% stake to Motion Partners. Cheryl was then appointed CEO of the newly branded Tegra118. Several weeks before Tegra118’s first anniversary, they merged with InvestCloud and Finantix. 

A true industry leader, Cheryl chats with Jack about planning for retirement, how COVID has shaped consumers, and the future of wealthtech.

“Technology is an essential enabler. Use technology for the tasks where speed, efficiency, automation, and precision are needed, while always remembering that we’re in a people business. Relationships matter and trust matters, but technology really becomes an essential enabler.” ~ @cherylnash2

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In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Michael Liersch, Head of Advice & Planning at Wells Fargo. They dive into Michael’s transformative approach to financial decision-making and what drives his desire to improve financial opportunities for future generations.

With a background in academia, Michael took a somewhat unusual path to the financial industry. Growing up in a household where money wasn’t always well-handled, he became fascinated with his own financial psychology and knew his career path would involve helping others.

So he began teaching at NYU before transitioning into the corporate sector where he could help clients directly and in real-time. Now at Wells Fargo, Michael breaks down his industry-first approach to helping clients make better financial decisions.

“I think a key piece is to always speak in data and fact around the mission of the organization and the transformation exercise. And the data and facts that I always love talking about are around real human beings. What are the jobs that real humans want to be done with their money? And that has really inspired people intrinsically to say, ‘Yes! This is a purpose-driven organization!’ In that way, it becomes a very exciting mission.” ~ Michael Liersch

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In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Dani Fava, Head of Strategic Development at Envestnet. Envestnet’s mission is to make financial wellness widely accessible. 

Having entered the financial tech world in a non-traditional way, Dani encourages others to embrace what makes them unique. After unintentionally impressing a firm with her technical abilities, Dani found herself catapulted into the world of wealth technology, eventually landing at TD Ameritrade where she launched a web-based rebalancing platform. In the process, she realized advisors could use tech to better serve their clients. 

Today, Dani lives on the pulse of consumer behavior, following the latest tech trends and predicting how they’ll ultimately impact what clients need from their advisors. Her long-term vision is to develop a connected intelligent system that seamlessly manages a client’s current and future financial wellbeing.

Jack and Dani talk about the importance of experimentation, user experience, and why technological advancements will only help advisors stay indispensable.

“Everything that we do, everything that we’re automating, everything that we’re building, everything that we’re bringing together, is intended to power the human advisor and is intended to give the human advisor more freedom and time to be that coach for their clients. In my view, the advisor space is becoming more irreplaceable because of the use of technology.” ~ @danielle_fava

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In this episode, Jack Sharry talks with Ed Murphy, CEO of Empower Retirement. Empower is the second-largest retirement plan recordkeeper with more than one trillion dollars in assets for more than 12.5 million Americans. 

The chaos of 2020 has launched more people into retirement than ever before. In fact, a recent study suggests that four times as many people retired in 2020 versus 2019. To stay agile, advisors must adapt to an ever-changing demographic with ever-changing preferences. And no one knows that better than Ed Murphy.

As it’s grown and rebranded, Empower has made several smart acquisitions including the acquisition of Personal Capital just last year. Ed walks us through the reasoning behind several of these recent acquisitions, the void in the market that Empower aims to fill, and how he’s navigating a world that’s increasingly retirement-ready.

A believer in the need for personalization and a hybrid human-technology approach, Ed discusses Empower’s holistic approach to advising, his emphasis on wellness, and the importance of scaling efficiently.

“There're 128 million mass affluent households and many of those households are underserved today. Oftentimes RIAs and the big broker-dealers are typically focusing on much larger balances. And yet those customers have real needs, whether it’s retirement, college savings, or emergency savings. And so I think there is a void there.” ~ @EFMurphyIII

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WealthTech on Deck is a new podcast from LifeYield about the future of wealth management technology. 

We created this podcast specifically for wealthtech innovators, financial services executives, fintech product leaders, and financial advisors who want to stay ahead of the wealthtech game. 

Join us each week as our CMO, and host of the show, Jack Sharry, talks with industry leaders looking to build the wealthtech platforms of the future. We promise to keep it short, sweet, and valuable.

Our first episode drops in March 2021. Subscribe now, wherever you listen to podcasts.  

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