WealthTech in the Weeds with Eric Lordi and Martin Cowley

WealthTech in the Weeds is a series covering the broad yet critical path to financial services. The goal is to get together with industry experts and get into the details of building an effective, productive, coordinated, and comprehensive advice system.

Comprehensive advice platforms have been a significant development in wealth management. They streamline portfolio management, optimize returns, and enhance investors' financial efficiency. However, implementing these platforms has its challenges. As technology continues to reshape the industry, the lessons and experiences learned from early adopters provide invaluable insights that significantly impact the industry's future and empower investors to achieve their financial goals.

In this episode, Jack is joined by Eric Lordi and Martin Cowley. Eric is the Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and has extensive experience in wealth and asset management. He builds modern wealth management systems that deliver better client outcomes and embraces goals-based investing.

Martin is the Chief Product Officer at LifeYield and has more than 14 years of experience building comprehensive wealth management platforms. In his role, Martin oversees product strategy for portfolio rebalancing, tax optimization, and retirement income, using LifeYield's API-first product suite to address a wide range of client needs. Martin has worked with numerous firms to help them integrate and optimize their systems for improved user experience and financial outcomes.

Eric and Martin talk with Jack about the challenges, benefits, and lessons learned from building comprehensive advice platforms. They dive into the importance of multi-account management, asset location, and tax optimization in improving clients' financial outcomes. The conversation also touches on the operational aspects of implementing these platforms and the need for integration and coordination across different systems. 

In this episode:

• [02:25] -The challenges and goals of building a modern wealth management system.
• [04:27] - Lessons Martin learned during the early days of LifeYield.
• [06:17] - The dynamics of multi-account management.
• [09:22] - How LifeYield coordinates and optimizes multiple accounts.
• [12:50] - Asset location and its importance in generating tax efficiency.
• [15:55] - How asset location adds tax efficiency across different account programs.
• [20:05] - The operational challenges of implementing asset location.
• [22:20] - The three types of withdrawals and how they need to operate.
• [29:22] - The purpose of tax management systems.

Quotes

[02:54] - "We're currently in a world where lots of products and programs have been built vertically over time. How do you start to think horizontally from an advisor standpoint? The biggest mental shift is just moving from an account-based structure to a relationship-based one." ~ Eric Lordi

[10:17] - "Coordinating isn't just about getting the sum of the parts and then working with them. It's about recognizing that some parts fit together better than others." ~ Martin Cowley

[14:08] - "Tax management isn't just tax slots. It's the location and having a machine that is not dependent on underlying trading systems but looks across all these things as holdings that we can score anywhere." ~ Eric Lordi

[30:47] - "Everything we've done has to be flexible because we are looking across multiple companies and client firms. It doesn't have to all be stitched tightly on day one. Those walls aren't going to break down overnight. So, we're building little tunnels between the silos." ~ Martin Cowley