Addapar with Natalie Sunderland (CMO) | E112

Summary:

In this 112th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Natalie Sunderland, Chief Marketing Officer of Addepar, to talk about embracing risk, the benefits of technology, and the importance of advancing data reporting in wealth management. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 01:03: – Addepar is a wealth management platform that specializes in data aggregation and performance reporting that currently has $1.7 trillion being managed on the platform. 

● 02:10: – Addepar was founded in the wake of the financial crisis when the founder was struggling to understand how the crisis was impacting their assets. 

● 03:53: – Getting a complete picture and understanding your assets is even more difficult now that people often split up their assets into different accounts, different financial institutions, and with different wealth managers. 

● 05:22: – Financial advisors are limited in the advice they can give clients by the legacy software and tools they have. 

● 06:40: – Addepar strives to create a friction-free experience for wealth managers and their clients, including the use of a mobile app. 

● 08:50: – Addepar’s core value proposition is to aim to serve those who manage wealth and allow them to create tailored conversations with their clients. 

● 10:08: – The Addepar interface is referred to as “Apple lite” and is very intuitive. 

● 10:58: – The platform is customizable and allows wealth managers to include their own branding on reports. 

● 13:55: – Having a personal conversation with your financial advisor shouldn’t be reserved only for those with ultra-high net worth. 

● 15:42: – Advisors have said that with Addepar, activities that used to take them days now only take them hours or even minutes to complete. 

● 17:10: – Addepar has built over 200 pipes from scratch to different banks to ensure they have the highest quality data rather than using scrapers. 

● 21:42: – If Natalie could change one thing it would be to help these firms to embrace more risk. 

● 22:48: – The biggest challenge for Natalie has been building a story for a company that is 10 years old, and also helping the market understand that Addepar isn’t a niche product or solution. 

● 24:40: – Natalie is most excited about the investment they’re making to improve the experience for clients who use the platform, and the overall data opportunity. 

3 Key Points 

1. Understanding your assets is even harder when they are divided among multiple financial institutions. 

2. Addepar allows you to create custom reports in moments, built to answer specific questions. 

3. Improving data collection and reporting allows for more personally tailored conversations between wealth managers and their clients. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● “There are some pretty complex assets out there and we could provide a very valuable service to the wealth managers and their clients to truly help them understand, get that 360 view, and help them make better decisions.” –Natalie Sunderland 

● “Independent advisors who choose Addepar are doing so because they realize the value that technology can bring to helping them scale their practices, becoming much more efficient, and being able to service their clients in a way they demand it these days.” –Natalie Sunderland 

● “One of the things I’m excited to do is help the market understand the capabilities that we have and help them realize that moving from legacy to modern technology doesn’t have to be as painful as they think it will be.” –Natalie Sunderland 

Resources Mentioned: 

● Website – J