The WealthTech Podcast Transcript

Host: Mark Wickersham

Guest: Kendra Thompson, Epok Advice

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Mark Wickersham: All right. Kendra Thompson, welcome to the Wealth tech. Podcast. I'm excited to have you on the show, just wondering. If you could give a brief introduction, and also an overview of Epok Advice.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah, thanks, Mark, thanks for having me. So. My name is Kendra Thompson, and I am a 25 year plus veteran of the wealth and asset management industry. I've worked on both sides of the border, and both as a client and predominantly in the consulting space.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I recently left a Big 4 firm to start my own boutique. It's called Epok Advice, and we work with boards and executive teams on the future of advice and investing what investors care about what they need and want? And how is industry delivering that to them in compelling ways, and transforming to be sustainably profitable as they do so my clients range from all asset classes and models.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And I work a lot with private equity firms and wealth tech founders as well.

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Mark Wickersham: So can you also give me a brief overview of alpha tech partners? I understand your partner there, and just a brief overview of the firm. And what you're seeing.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah. So one of the coolest things about launching Epok is, it gave me the flexibility to participate in different ways in the market, and one of the ways I'm participating is as a part time venture partner at Alpha Tech partners, which is a Us. Based BC. Focused on the wealth tech space

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and the thesis behind Alpha, which I really align to is that a lot of what we're seeing as it relates to wealth tech innovation, asset management tech innovation is highly likely to have exits or major events related to strategics. So the fund itself seeks to gain capital from industry, incumbents, and mainstay players

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): in wealth and asset management. Those strategics are the source of capital, and the targets of the fund are potential tuck-ins, potential accelerators, potential sources of innovation for those very strategic. It's been an amazing opportunity still, really early days. But we are working with some of the top innovation leaders in North America, and indeed globally.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and it gives me a front row seat onto what's happening in the VC. Space for wealth and asset management, as well as how the in-house innovators within large firms

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and disruptor brands are really changing the way they think about technology.

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Mark Wickersham: It's obviously a really hot space right now, and wealth tech is a wealth management industry in general. There's a lot of

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Mark Wickersham: growth going on. There seems to be a lot of momentum and excitement going on. What are you seeing in terms of major innovation trends.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah. So I think it's a really exciting space. It's also a shifting space. So whenever we see shifts happening in real time, you also get that sort of insecurity and anxiety within the system where things that we were taking for granted are no longer valid, and new things that are emerging are still being proven out. So the biggest shift we're seeing is a movement away from

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): net new capability or app leaders who are entering the market with a killer use case, a killer capability, a killer piece of software that can be plugged in or converted into or added to a portal style platform. We're seeing a move away from that towards a much more flexible data. First, st AI 1st set of players and not all of the

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): wealth tech firms that were walking on one line are going to be able to cross over to the other. Not all of the technology leaders who are extremely capable in identifying, integrating, getting the business cases approved, for those capability plays are going to be good at dealing with some of the ambiguity and the uncertainty related to something in A, in a more AI driven model.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, I certainly want to get into both data and AI and the 2 really can't be separated. But before we get into that. Let's talk about the future of advice.

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Mark Wickersham: Where in the wealth, management, industry, how is the delivery of advice changing? And where does it kind of break down in terms of what the investor needs and what's being delivered by the industry.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So at the heart of our industry is a conversation between an individual, their family and people, that they trust and for years.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): At the heart of our industry is a conversation between an individual, their family and people that they trust, and really that hasn't changed over years and years and years. The degree to which we can see and influence and be part of that conversation has evolved over time, and what we focus on in that conversation has evolved over time.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And the way we enable that conversation through technology has evolved over time. But the heart of our industry is really about humans

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): taking something they care deeply about. In this case, money and the outcomes and the inputs to money and putting it in the hands of organizations and individuals that they have entrusted to guide them, support them, and get a better outcome

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): where the shift is going is really around enhancing and improving the inputs and the outputs of those conversations ensuring the right conversations are happening at the right time, and that they are

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Informed by the full context, both institutional context and broader life context of the individuals participating

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): that the actions on the back of those conversations are less expensive and less risky to implement, and that there is better follow through feedback and iteration, as it relates to a multi-decade hopefully relationship with a client and their family.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): The coolest things we're seeing right now are about all of the in between conversations. So I would say, if you look at what we've done since.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): you know, 2,008 and all of the major sort of 1st generation platform modernizations. A lot of what we've done is try to remove paper, remove friction, improve the consistency, and in many cases document the basics of those conversations and the needs and wants and specific servicing practices.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): differences of those client families, but a lot of times. What was happening up until recently was all of the pre-work.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and all of the post work was a little bit disconnected to the records we kept, and the way in which we actually facilitated what was going on between the humans

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): over Covid, when we really saw broad acknowledgement across the industry that we needed digital we could not sit anymore in a digital versus human debate. All of a sudden we enabled collaboration. We enabled virtualization we invested in both advisor

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and client digital capabilities, and those have been awesome. And what you're seeing now, Mark, is the next level, the introduction of unstructured, a prioritization of notes.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): much richer use of insights and prompts much better feedback loops. And then the removal which is really a frontier that we've neglected real, deep removal of unnecessary work, especially in the most expensive places like the front office and the handover between the front office and operations.

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Mark Wickersham: Still think there's probably some ways to go right in terms of modernizing the advisor. I some stats that the amount of

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Mark Wickersham: administrative and non client work that they do is still over 50% of what they're doing. And obviously, you're seeing a lot of improvements in those a areas AI with note taking certainly has facilitated that. The new account setup has been streamlined and automized. Auto. Automated. Do you do you see? Is there gonna be a push down a democratization of

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Mark Wickersham: of wealth management, where what was previously at a higher net worth level, vessible asset level, coming down to more of an  mass affluent level.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): All right, let me let me compartmentalize that into 2 pieces. So 1st let me respond to why, there is still an administrative burden and friction with the field. Because I think that is a really important thing to understand if we're going to solve it. And the reality is what we've done for so long is focus on the front end of the value chain. We focused on onboarding, but not any of the servicing use cases. We've focused on financial planning, but none of the reporting or servicing

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): capabilities and oftentimes hidden work taking place within advisor teams or with an advisor Home Office collaboration was totally missed. So a lot of what needs to still occur is to take the things that are working well with

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): advisor enablement and the removal of work and apply it to the full value chain. And I really believe there's a lot of work still to be done there. It's not the sexiest or the most likely to get you a growth Roi, but it does free up capacity and increasingly capacity, constraint, advisor teams.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and the need to address that that capacity is a priority for my clients. So that's how I would answer that 1st part. The second part around democratization is one of my favorite topics, mark and like.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): there's so many levels on which I feel this topic so just at my heart, I am deeply passionate about the value of financial advice. I believe the work that we do as an industry is meaningful and that it should be made available to all investors, and that there is a huge human and economic potential that could be unlocked if we got

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): scaling of access to advice right? And then we improved the way we delivered advice to mass and mass affluent investors, and I believe there's a way to do it that's physically possible and and valuable. I do not believe the barrier at this stage is.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): do the investors themselves have an added an appetite

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): or a willingness to engage in digital 1st models? I think we've proven that that appetite exists. I don't believe the issue is that it's not physically possible to develop compelling digital experiences. I believe we've proven. But we have yet to fully realize that full potential where you think of digital capabilities such as the robo of old

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and human capabilities, like semi-dedicated advisors or non-licensed sales, support

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): as capabilities on the platform versus channels that could be in conflict with each other. So the way I like to think about it is the install base of those consumers are either within traditional universal banks or within traditional, self-directed channels, and they're often underserved, overfeed, and frankly

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): disloyal. And what we found is when you make a business case of just optimizing the heck out of that channel. You get businesses that get a lot of volume, but not always a lot of profit, and you get some underwhelming client solutions, limited offerings.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): What I believe the answer will be, is in really defining for the bottom end of high net worth what a truly virtual, 1st fully flexible model could be break the paradigm of graduation between mass affluent and the bottom end of high net worth really invest where you know you could do it profitably, and then figure out which pieces of that puzzle could be applied to emerging investor profiles.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I don't believe the the answer is in Robo with a call center? I believe the answer is in really understanding the patterns of need and bringing the best of technology and humans to bear for those patterns in ways that are less

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): about down selecting or graduating clients once they have or don't have the right amount of money, or once they hit a specific age. And instead, I think the answer will be in really designing for a user group set that are profitable, and then figuring out how to extrapolate that beyond.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think you especially take a look at

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Mark Wickersham: you know, maybe folks earlier in their career, maybe they don't have that quite that investable asset. But they're on a they're on a career path. How do you? How do you get them earlier? How do you nurture them. And I would agree to your point, too. I think that financial wealth management. It's a noble profession, right? And there's a tremendous impact that you can have positively on people's lives. And if there's a way in which

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Mark Wickersham: we could get more people earlier, I think that that would be certainly a good thing. Let's talk about some of the underserved

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Mark Wickersham: markets. Obviously, that that next Gen. Or the future client is one of those, but also women.

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Mark Wickersham: How is the wealth, management industry fallen down on serving women?

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): This has been a topic I have done tons of research on, talked about for years. I've done full advisor road shows training people on how to connect with women. I have run very specific campaigns and transformations around specific use cases that matter to women.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I think the thing to think about is, 1st of all, women have always been part of the equation on both sides of the conversation. They just haven't always owned the final say, and they haven't always had the share of voice, and they haven't always

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): been in the room when we designed the industry. And I think that's increasingly changing. And I think that's increasingly good. So just like millennials, walked into the room and pointed out all sorts of things that could be improved about our business. I see women and the pushback that we're seeing from different profiles of women as a source for inspiration and innovation. And I think we should really embrace it.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): The second thing is, women make up a huge part of the market, and they have all different sub segments within. So when I work with clients, I tend to help them focus on women in transition.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): women who are new to motherhood, women who are experiencing divorce, women who have lost a spouse, women experiencing dementia or caring for a family member with a serious, long-term disability. These types of transitions actually bring out the nuances of what women need and want

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): in general, we find women are much more interested in understanding and being understood that they're much more interested in the outcome rather than the mechanics of money. That does not mean that they are not able to understand or looking for performance. It just means that what motivates them

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): is what they can do with their money. What motivates them is who benefits from their relationship with wealth. And the other thing that we find is in general, women are

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): quite loyal and quite self-controlled clients. When you have volatility in the market, they are often very good at pausing and getting the right advice. They tend to be less looking for the next bright, shiny investment, and they tend to really invest in the relationships they build. So this is great for our industry. The problem really has to be that we have some catch up to do. We need to help advisors

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): do a better job of engaging with and listening to women all of the time, not just when they're in transition or not. Just when there's a new opportunity for that advisor. We need to increase the sort of partnership and social dynamic and the empathy in which we work with female clients

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and doing that. It's not hard for great advisors to do that. By the way, they all do that like. If you look at top performing advisors, they're wonderful with their female clients in almost all cases that I've observed, the trickiness here is scaling that, and getting an entire workforce of advisors to do the right thing and not be transactional and not be rushed and not talk over.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I think the other thing to understand just in general is the power dynamic of the industry is under pressure from all of the emerging investor demographics, including younger investors. This idea of advisor as access advisor, as expert advisor, as more

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): more in control of the outcome. That's being challenged by lots of demographics. That's part of what's created a disconnect with women. So the more we can help our industry, whether they're dedicated advisors or virtual advisors, or even in rich digital. Experiences, empower and partner and act more like a friend, coach, and part of a broader team with female investors, the more likely we are to win.

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Mark Wickersham: Sounds like good advice just in general regardless of the gender.

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Mark Wickersham: Let's talk about. We talk about scaling a little bit. Why is it so hard for advisors to scale, like, you know, a lot of them reach a certain.

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Mark Wickersham: you know, client plateau, and it's either. Well, I don't want to hire more people like I, you know, and they kind of level out a little bit. Why, why is there such a struggle with scale within their advisory practices.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah. So this is said, this is, there's so many layers to this. So the 1st layer, I would say, is, I have so much empathy and

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): connection to what it must be like to be an advisor in today's day and age, where someone could be like, chat, gpt in the conversation, and getting advice from the entire.

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Mark Wickersham: Like a doctor. Right? They get the same problem.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): It's really hard to put yourself out there, Mark, like I can't imagine, and it's not getting easier. So the 1st thing I want to say is that advisors are humans. Many of them have a certain way that they've been working, and it's hard to shift those behaviors.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Many of them have had lived experience of putting trust into a new assistant, a potential partner, a home office team that has exposed them

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and feeling exposed in sales, and specifically in high empathy sales, is one of the worst feelings you can feel like. I'm in your living room trying to earn your trust, and I feel like the firm or my assistant, or my technology does not have my back. And so what that does is cause most of them to do the same things over and over again. Many advisors will look to spend time with the clients that they get the nicest

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): rapport with, and often that means they're missing opportunities to grow within their installed clients. Many of them are hesitant to introduce new things, and even when they know they want to modernize, even when they hire or have one of their children join their practice to help them get ahead of the trends. Even then they're hesitant to do it at scale. They'll do it with their trusted few, but they may not roll it out to everyone.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): An exception to this recently, though, has been notes. I've seen almost everyone very open to adopting notes, which is exceptional. And then I think the other thing is, there is trade-offs involved with scale so scale in and of itself is not valuable, it can be distracting. It can be collapsing

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): scale of the right type of work at the right profit at the right service. Promise is what you're looking for, and what I've learned over the years is, there is no exact answer for some that means grow a bigger support team like grow a bigger team around me, so that we can do more of the same with more similar families. And in some cases it's

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): get fewer families, but scale our footprint within them. And in some cases it's be very, very, you know, very, very laser focused on what we do. So we can do a lot of what we do well, and we will release either to the firm or to other partners. The work that we don't believe is a fit for us. And I think the thought process around what to scale, how to scale and

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and then how to ask for help with scaling is, it's really complex, and it's a moving target. The best advisors are right there, ready to answer all those questions for you. But when you look at a large group of advisors. Many of them are a little bit overwhelmed or confused about where to go for first, st and who to trust as they think about where scale will come from.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think those are all good points. I think it's not necessarily

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Mark Wickersham: scale growth for growth sake, right? They want to grow intelligently. They wanna be able to service their clients better, and to be able to take on the particular client profiles that that they can best serve.

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Mark Wickersham: You think it's interesting about note taking. I think it's and Doug Fritz on recently. And you saw that around note taking, I think the adoption is like 70% in terms of advisors adopting that that technology and then save saving them like 3 to 4 hours a week, which is fairly significant.

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Mark Wickersham: What AI, let's talk about you know how that's impacting. I'm gonna obviously note takings the classic example, or one of the more easier ones to implement.

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Mark Wickersham: Where should advisors be on their AI adoption journey? Where are we in terms of AI really impacting the industry.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): AI is part of almost every conversation I have, but I think for those of us that have been around for a while I'm careful to have it be the next bright, shiny thing that is everything and nothing. And I actually am seeing

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): really great innovation around AI so unlike, maybe the blockchain conversations or the ecosystem conversations that I've had that feel similar. I feel like the AI conversations are actually getting legs.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): When I think about the use cases that I see most. They fall into a few key places.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): the packaging and and consuming of raw material in advance of a judgment call whether that judgment call is for an advisor, or whether that judgment call is for someone in risk or in the product team. So think about all the similar use cases we use for robotic process automation. Think about all the things we talk about whenever we're talking about swivel chairing or rekeying or multiple documents or scanning

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): those type of use cases. They're no brainers like, if we can get a lot of information in front of a decision maker so that they have a better opportunity to make smarter, faster, better decisions. Then that's great.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): The other place I'm seeing a lot of innovation is around things like next best conversations or triggers around servicing specifically those that are not systemic or calendar, or like a profile base like. So everyone who has their birthday today gets a card. That type of trigger is not compelling. But where you do have

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): in real time, situation shifts, whether they be market or weather, or something related to behaviors around attrition, and you can shift that to an actionable insight for advisors or service teams. Those use cases are worth their weight in gold, and often that opacity, that where we just can't see what's going on until we receive the phone call or we receive the request.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Those use cases are really intuitive for advisors, because, you know, all of them have been in the situation where the phone rings and they're like, what is this person going to want the other place where we're seeing it is really on coaching

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and time management. So helping with collaboration, helping with what to do with your next available hour helping understand who and how to work smarter within your team. So think of, like the old advisor like you, or teams like you type use cases, but doing that in real time with a feedback loop. And then, of course, everyone's prioritized

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): prioritizing agent style use cases and and really like, if I take a step back from that part of the answer. Mark what I would say to you is.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): everyone should be using AI in their life as whether it's planning a vacation or

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): you know, preparing for a meeting. Whether they do that in real situ, with a client and their family yet will depend on how ready they are, and what their firm has enabled them for, but they should be using it on their private life for sure, and then everyone should be prioritizing

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): understanding what their firm is doing and how they can participate and provide feedback to it. So what I always worry about when we get new technology is, you have someone who's disconnected from those conversations that matter most who is cooking up those use cases and pushing them out. And then when those use cases fall flat, we say, well, AI didn't really matter to advisors.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): What I like to see are firms that really engage and have a fast iteration. And that's what I do with my clients. Right? Is, I really ensure that they pick the right killer. Use cases first, st and then I really prioritize. How do you

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): get some sort of win on the board that will get its own advocacy from the field.

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Mark Wickersham: I think that's good advice in general, I think. I think one of the things that often gets overlooked in

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Mark Wickersham: kind of project management and implementing new systems or technology changes is momentum right? And one of the best ways to get momentum is to get some early wins on the board. Success follows success right?

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Mark Wickersham: And I think AI is definitely one of those trends like

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Mark Wickersham: it's kind of like moving to the cloud. But the cloud took a while, and it took really Covid that got to finish the deal where AI acceleration is just

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Mark Wickersham: much faster. But then you're also, seeing the returns are much faster. That the 10 x return is not necessarily hype on certain use cases, right? That there are some particular use. Cases are really well suited for it. I think alternative investments in general is one of those areas where there's so much unstructured information like the industry hadn't involved from like 1996 and a Pdf. Right? Like it, it is literally transforming

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Mark Wickersham: that aspect of the business which is great to see what are some of the other major wealth management trends that you're seeing in the industry.

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So I'm spending a lot of time in the ultra high net worth family office space. And I'm seeing a real revolution in investment in technology. There, I think there has been

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Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): some fractional models and some various different vendor success. But what I'm seeing now are like much more sophisticated

00:32:04.410 --> 00:32:18.480

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): platforms emerging to support much more complex collaboration in service of the wealthiest investors. Certainly, you know, really understanding

00:32:18.580 --> 00:32:33.820

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): what lives within a firm and what can be systematized or standardized, and where the secret sauce is within any one advisor, practice or business, or any one client archetype need.

00:32:33.820 --> 00:32:54.010

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): For years we were using almost like a cardboard cutout approach, like, here's Sally. She represents all 35 year old women who are up and comers. We have much more sophisticated knowledge around personalization and groupings of clients that are both demographic

00:32:54.130 --> 00:33:04.690

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and needs space, but also situational like. So someone in this situation needs these types of servicing, so really modernizing everything related.

00:33:05.310 --> 00:33:32.000

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): you know, to those value propositions, and how you can make them much more compelling and much more profitable, and how you can do that within your firm and and with the intermediaries outside your firm. And then we've already hit on democratization. That's a super hot one. You hit on Alts. That's a super hot one, maybe another one that I'll just talk about is core platform replace. So as someone who's been living and breathing in this industry. I have yet

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:59.269

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): to see this amount of interest in modernizing the core modernizing operations. This is something that typically is a sort of once in a 20 years, once in a career type set of transformations. And we are really seeing a lot of interest. Some new vendors entering the North American market, and some very big players making bets on taking meaningful work out of their platforms.

00:33:59.270 --> 00:34:09.300

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And then I guess you know, there's tons of interest related to in, you know, consolidation within the Raa space.

00:34:09.708 --> 00:34:16.690

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And you know I could go on and on, Mark, there's so so much exciting work going on right now. The way I would frame it is.

00:34:16.889 --> 00:34:26.670

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): everyone is moving. We no longer see I, at least in my travels. I no longer see clients defending a tiny piece of turf.

00:34:27.120 --> 00:34:30.739

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Almost everybody I speak to in financial services

00:34:30.830 --> 00:34:57.499

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): seeks to lead with advice, and seeks to do so enabled through technology. And then the question is, how will they play into their own strengths and do it in a better and more compelling and sustainably differentiated way, and that that's really what I spend almost all my time working through with individual clients. And it is. It's such an exciting part of the modernization of our industry.

00:34:58.280 --> 00:35:10.560

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, this personalization at scale or or turbo charging the interesting trend. It just allows them to be able to do more meaningful work at a greater level.

00:35:12.410 --> 00:35:17.319

Mark Wickersham: Technology gone wrong. Let's talk about where firms can kinda

00:35:17.640 --> 00:35:26.160

Mark Wickersham: make better technology decisions. How do they avoid failures? How do they get better outcomes, I think. Certainly firms struggle at all sizes.

00:35:27.500 --> 00:35:31.630

Mark Wickersham: With being able to get good returns and good results from technology.

00:35:31.740 --> 00:35:34.420

Mark Wickersham: How can firms make better decisions on that.

00:35:35.930 --> 00:35:40.080

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So the first, st

00:35:40.350 --> 00:35:51.889

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): which is often the last to implement, or the least attention given to, is really around the operating model and the governance you have, as it relates to technology.

00:35:52.429 --> 00:36:15.690

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I'm a big believer of a platform strategy. So, regardless of which business line owner which channel owner might have the compelling use case. Whatever is built ought to be built quickly for that channel, with the contemplation of its broader application on the platform in mind. That sounds so obvious, but it's something I still see. Clients struggle with optimizing in channel

00:36:15.720 --> 00:36:37.939

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): is intuitive to anyone with a P. And L, but optimizing in channel, in service of a capability that will have legs for other channels seems to be something that falls down. They either over complicate delivery to that individual channel owner in order to get it right for the platform. Therefore, under serving everyone or domain, everyone, or

00:36:37.940 --> 00:36:49.900

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): they allow for too many spot solutions, and they just end up with a spaghetti mess at the end. So that that's 1 governance operating model. Really understanding your platform strategy and really having

00:36:51.030 --> 00:37:14.600

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): a move and reuse vision for that platform strategy. The second thing is, I think you gotta move away from design by noise, net, new capability. Add tack on. I mean this whole mental model that we've had across so many of the advisor desktops and client portals of like a portal with like lots of different apps you can get into.

00:37:14.600 --> 00:37:41.179

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): We really need to move away from that. I think it's great to have a strong foundation of data and infrastructure and killer capability apps, and many of those capabilities are clearly owned by a small group of vendors, and it's hard to make a case for not going with one of those core vendors. But then, when you start to talk about the wrapper and the way in which you provision the experience out to users.

00:37:41.180 --> 00:37:47.379

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I think you need to be careful not to just add more apps on top of apps, and I think

00:37:48.420 --> 00:38:13.139

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): again, it's going to sound super intuitive, but I still see clients struggle with it. That means understanding what the conversation is, or what the work is, and designing from the outside in it means just as much what you stop doing, or what you remove as what you add. And I think in general, it's much easier to galvanize an organization around filling a gap than it is creating consistency within the system.

00:38:13.585 --> 00:38:28.270

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And then I would just say, like, increasingly, I advise clients to avoid conversions and void, putting massive data transformations ahead of getting something out. I think we have had for some time.

00:38:28.270 --> 00:38:49.609

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Every roadmap has 3 to 5 phases. Nobody has confidence in phase 3. So they front end everything in phase one and 2 creates all this risk. We then end up with something, kludgy. We lose the trust of the users. Blah blah, I would say for me, having much more iteration, having much more

00:38:49.905 --> 00:39:12.620

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): gratification for the the users, whether they be advisor users or Home office users, and then iterating quickly and making that part of how you work, I think, is one of the best things we took from Agile and from the Silicon Valley mindset. Some of the other things we took from them haven't been sustainable, but that one has. I think there's a lot there. And then the the last thing I would just say is.

00:39:13.010 --> 00:39:27.650

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): don't become entrenched. There needs to be a constant reassessing and stress testing of your roadmap of your stack. In fact, that's 1 of the biggest things that I do with CTO. Clients.

00:39:28.040 --> 00:39:37.899

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): like most of my clients, Mark, are exceptionally deep in what's going on, where they're going, why, they're going. They have killer teams, they know their stuff.

00:39:37.900 --> 00:39:59.380

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): They rarely come to me and say, I have never thought about this, or I have no idea what the answer is. But in general, what I do a lot of times at CTO is strategic stress testing and helping them quickly iterate what is working? What do we need to finish delivering? And what do we need to pivot away from? So we can deliver something else that didn't exist

00:39:59.380 --> 00:40:02.269

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): when we drafted the 1st version of this roadmap.

00:40:02.270 --> 00:40:06.059

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And this is where leaders

00:40:06.200 --> 00:40:33.509

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): need to understand that the work of a CTO has shifted. You can't say, well, this guy pitched me or this gal evangelized this particular vendor as the Second Coming, and now they're telling us to move away, and therefore that person has failed, the success is in being able to iterate and to figure out how to get the momentum and not be stuck in analysis. And so for me. Those are the things that it really takes.

00:40:34.390 --> 00:40:37.410

Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think those are all really good points. I

00:40:37.820 --> 00:40:43.800

Mark Wickersham: previous career was a product manager. And I think a lot of those principles

00:40:44.812 --> 00:41:00.130

Mark Wickersham: apply, I mean, the more iterations you can put into a particular system or capabilities. You, you just build that level of maturity in the into the product right, ensuring that it works for a broader set of use cases, and it works consistently.

00:41:00.190 --> 00:41:28.630

Mark Wickersham: It meets the expectations. I think iterations key. I think the other one is like to your point. The hard part's not necessarily figuring out what to do, the hard parts figuring out what not to do when is really kind of the thing like you have limited resources, you have really unlimited demands to a certain extent. And how do I prioritize. What's going to give me the biggest bang for the buck? How can I deliver some of those bigger bangs early in the process without having to go through a complete big Bang type of

00:41:28.700 --> 00:41:35.740

Mark Wickersham: technology process that that takes you years to deliver. And it's still because you don't have iterations. And it doesn't quite meet the mark.

00:41:35.880 --> 00:41:48.649

Mark Wickersham: I think those are all good. And then you know the final point. I think, having that technology roadmap and constantly updating it should be a living document. Right? That's your north star. It's directional. You don't necessarily need to follow it to the T should be constantly being

00:41:48.650 --> 00:42:10.770

Mark Wickersham: Updated. But how does that particular point solution. You see this with family offices, too, they have a particular problem. They go solve the problem. They get a solution for the problem. And then, you know, like you said, they end up with a spaghetti mouse with a bunch of point solutions that are integrated. There isn't. I'm not able to take advantage of that data in a more holistic way. And maybe I solved the tactical problem. But

00:42:10.820 --> 00:42:13.510

Mark Wickersham: I lost a strategic war on that one. So I think.

00:42:14.510 --> 00:42:33.730

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): One other thing I didn't mention. Which is it? It actually ties really well into what we were talking about earlier around AI is understanding based on your firm's culture and based on your priorities the degree to which you are enforcing adoption, or, you know, hoping to woo adoption

00:42:34.055 --> 00:42:48.689

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): With AI, and where we could go, so much of it is dependent on the in on the data being there in the 1st place, and so much of the data that's going to have a meaningful difference whether it comes from front office integration

00:42:48.690 --> 00:43:04.040

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and interactions, or whether it comes from all of the work that's taking place in the middle and the back of the value chain. It really depends on adherence and use of core systems. And some of these more.

00:43:04.360 --> 00:43:24.629

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): let's just say not fully adopted parts of the platform. So a big part of what I'm thinking through right now in my work is, you know, it's 1 thing, when you're in a bank owned firm where adoption is mandatory or in a more traditional like private banking model, where you're an employee, and these are the tools that you use.

00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:48.409

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): But in our North American advisory model, where so many advisors have sideways of doing work, have done things offline have not bought in have not adopted. Let's say, financial planning as an example. Where you don't have adoption, you won't have enrichment where you don't have adoption. You won't have data that can be then used as the triggers.

00:43:48.410 --> 00:44:04.710

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And so a big part of what I'm seeing is this new desire not only to iterate but to re-engage with advisors on this sort of concern that they've had for years, that things are over engineered, or things are being engineered by big brother for tracking purposes

00:44:04.710 --> 00:44:29.589

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and shifting the dialogue around. Okay, no, we need a certain amount of your engagement. And in order to earn that engagement, we're going to iterate with you and respond to your feedback faster. You can trust us. But in exchange for that, you'll have your data in the data lake, and that data will be able to be used to create much more compelling reporting as an example. So that piece there, that's more the human piece again, market often comes down to the human piece.

00:44:30.680 --> 00:44:50.910

Mark Wickersham: Well, I think to your point to like there's a lot of talk about AI, how great AI is. But if your data is not great. AI is not going to be great, right? It's like garbage in garbage out, like having good data, having clean data. Having consolidated data. It's so important to be able to leverage these capabilities that are coming out.

00:44:51.250 --> 00:45:02.399

Mark Wickersham: Where do you see the wealth management industry? Maybe 5 years is too long given. How dynamic the industry is going! But 2, 3, 4 years out. What's the future? Hold.

00:45:03.470 --> 00:45:21.299

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So I have line of sight onto what the next couple of years will look like for many of my clients. I know what they're working on now, and I can see it, and I'm super excited. And in general, when I work with teams I'm like don't design for what's in market right now, because almost everyone I know has really compelling changes

00:45:21.350 --> 00:45:48.029

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): on almost every frontier underway. And that makes me really excited, because what I see that as the realization of some things that we've been talking about for a long time, whether that be better integration across households and accounts, better collaboration within teams or with servicing. Whether that be you know better. Next, best conversation insights, whether that be finally better reporting or

00:45:48.260 --> 00:45:59.610

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): enriched client virtual experiences. So much of what we've promised has yet to be fully delivered, and I have a real excitement about some of what's coming out over the next bit.

00:45:59.640 --> 00:46:17.129

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): The second thing that I think we're going to be seeing is the 1st attempts to really challenge what will replace what we had for years been calling robo, which is like asset allocation, product, selection, low touch.

00:46:17.130 --> 00:46:33.709

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): advice. What will replace that for digitally? 1st consumers. And I'm especially interested in what the monoline disruptor brands might do there. They've had some setbacks, as you know. They've had some innovation that was maybe ahead of its time, or maybe not fully realized.

00:46:33.710 --> 00:47:00.810

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And I am not 100% sure which one of them will emerge, but I am confident some of them will emerge with much richer, much more humanized and much more sophisticated advice experiences at scale. And I think that'll be really interesting. And then I think I'm most excited for the incumbents or the more established brands that really decide to

00:47:01.040 --> 00:47:26.380

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): be willing to move faster than their peers, and and go away from iterative small improvements within channel, and take something that says, what is the best of this platform? And how can we bring that to market in a new and better way? And again I see the signs, both in operating model and technical feasibility. Of that I think it'll be really exciting to see who moves fastest and hardest.

00:47:26.450 --> 00:47:35.240

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and I really believe that you know that is within reach for a number of my clients on both sides of the border.

00:47:36.270 --> 00:47:40.240

Mark Wickersham: Well, you know what they say, the futures here. It's just not evenly distributed. So.

00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:44.290

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Exactly, I would say. I think I'm going to use that one mark.

00:47:44.630 --> 00:48:04.769

Mark Wickersham: It's I forgot who exactly had the quote. But yeah, I like that quote because it's true. It's true. It's just there are capabilities out there that are here today. They're just not, maybe deployed as broadly, and that some people are, and that they're gonna be able to take advantage of that 1st mover advantage.

00:48:05.305 --> 00:48:12.189

Mark Wickersham: I think there will be a a robo 2 dot. OI think there was some good learnings from Robo, I mean new account set up, and the streamlining of new accounts.

00:48:12.190 --> 00:48:12.520

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah.

00:48:12.830 --> 00:48:18.300

Mark Wickersham: You see a lot of that coming from that, that experience and the the those capabilities.

00:48:18.590 --> 00:48:21.799

Mark Wickersham: And what's the next iteration? That will be interesting.

00:48:22.395 --> 00:48:42.070

Mark Wickersham: What I always like to do. Kendra is finish up these podcasts on a personal note, 3 questions that have nothing to do with wealth, management or wealth tech you're from Canada. So I'd like to ask you what people might not know in the US. About Canadian culture.

00:48:43.820 --> 00:49:03.480

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Well based on recent events. I feel like way more than I thought. So. I am a Canadian born and bred. I've worked and lived all over the world, and I have spent a significant amount of my career and continue to spend 50% of my time in the Us. Or with American clients. So I do believe I'm uniquely positioned to see both

00:49:03.680 --> 00:49:12.202

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Canada's perspective of the Us. Specifically for our industry, and more broadly as a person. And then the Us. Perspective of Canada, I think in general.

00:49:13.240 --> 00:49:33.769

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): it's hard to penetrate Canada. So when I work with wealth tech founders, they often think of Canada as just as another region, or another State, or something that they can do. At the same time. I specifically see this. By the way, Mark, when I'm dealing with, like non North American vendors that want to enter Canada and us at the same time.

00:49:33.810 --> 00:49:42.650

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah. And I see with private equity players they're like, look, I bought a bunch of RIAs in the US. Why can't I just snap up a few independents in Canada. There are complexities.

00:49:42.690 --> 00:49:54.769

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And ways of doing work and ways. Our regulatory framework works that just do not translate easily. All of the basics are the same, like the things investors need and want are very similar. But.

00:49:54.790 --> 00:50:22.249

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): for instance, the concentration of Canadian banks are really different. As a Canadian person, though I think it's a value difference, and that value is shared by many Americans. There's so many Americans that I work with that are similar to me, but ultimately we are founded, and continue to exist on a basis of the we rather than the Me. And our entire economy, and our entire structure

00:50:22.330 --> 00:50:28.470

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): skews more towards a European mindset than it does towards an American mindset.

00:50:28.740 --> 00:50:36.539

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): And it's 1 of the reasons why I think Canadians and Americans make good teams together, because I think there's a lot of things Canadians can learn

00:50:36.750 --> 00:50:51.979

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): from the pace of innovation and the way in which Americans think about progress. And then I think there's a lot of things Americans could learn, both individually and broadly, about what it means

00:50:52.120 --> 00:51:01.190

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): and what is the purpose of society and being and being part of it, and taking care of each other, is something that Canadians really feel strongly about.

00:51:02.840 --> 00:51:08.080

Mark Wickersham: Certainly our nicer cousins. That's what we like to the think of. I think. Yes.

00:51:08.080 --> 00:51:15.879

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Be careful. We don't become distant cousins. That's what I'm pushing for a little bit of a of a de-escalation of some of the rhetoric. You know I'm.

00:51:15.880 --> 00:51:19.021

Mark Wickersham: No better ally. We have no better.

00:51:20.510 --> 00:51:34.369

Mark Wickersham: no, just leave it at that. We'd have no better ally than Canada, and we have probably the most in common with. But there are differences. There is not the 51st State, or it's not a Northern State. It's

00:51:34.890 --> 00:51:37.960

Mark Wickersham: It certainly has its own culture.

00:51:38.553 --> 00:51:41.240

Mark Wickersham: What is your favorite spot in Canada?

00:51:43.430 --> 00:51:44.050

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): So

00:51:45.570 --> 00:51:59.229

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I live in Toronto. I went to school in Montreal, which is a killer city. If you're young, I don't know if it's my favorite spot, but it's definitely one of them. My family has a cottage in Muskoka which is beautiful. That's where all

00:51:59.569 --> 00:52:19.590

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): you know the sort of summer vacations take place, but my favorite spot in Canada is Georgian Bay, which is where I cottage now with my family, so it is much more raw and rustic and remote. So you know, you land at what we call the station because it's like an old train station at the end of

00:52:20.167 --> 00:52:36.439

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): a channel, and you boat 45 min out into open water, and you spend time with your family on a very remote island. Everything's boat access, and it's quite rugged. Many places without electricity and very, very beautiful.

00:52:36.440 --> 00:52:51.599

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): There's actually quite a few Americans where we go, many of whom are from sort of Cincinnati old industrial families, and they would have steam shipped up to these areas in Georgian Bay. But that's definitely one of my favorite places in Canada, for sure.

00:52:52.380 --> 00:52:56.719

Mark Wickersham: I'm gonna throw one out there. I was just recently in Victoria.

00:52:56.840 --> 00:52:58.010

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Oh, beautiful!

00:52:58.010 --> 00:53:03.809

Mark Wickersham: Beautiful city. It's so livable, so gorgeous. The ocean, the big mountains like

00:53:04.300 --> 00:53:08.909

Mark Wickersham: sign me up. I mean, my God, that that is a fantastic place, so.

00:53:08.910 --> 00:53:17.710

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Lots of wealth. There, that's and very interestingly, Victoria, in the Confederation of Canada. And if you ever have a chance to read.

00:53:17.760 --> 00:53:40.130

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): there's a great book on the founding of Canada called Dominion, and in it it talks about Victoria and a group of Americans that had decamped to the Victoria region, who were avoiding some of the dynamics in the Us. And who really played a key role in the founding of Canada as a nation by insisting

00:53:40.130 --> 00:53:52.629

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): on train and port access for them and the businesses that they were trying to build. So Victoria played a massive role in Confederation for Canada. It has a major role to play in our partnership

00:53:52.630 --> 00:54:07.139

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): as the seat of the province of BC. But it's also a great example of what it could look like to have a really livable, beautiful place, where everyone

00:54:07.220 --> 00:54:11.620

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): enjoys nature, but also is part of the economy.

00:54:12.410 --> 00:54:14.200

Mark Wickersham: You like to ride bikes, too. It's a great area.

00:54:14.819 --> 00:54:16.059

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah, yeah.

00:54:16.060 --> 00:54:20.100

Mark Wickersham: The 6% of the population commutes by bike, which is.

00:54:20.100 --> 00:54:20.710

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah.

00:54:21.032 --> 00:54:29.090

Mark Wickersham: Great to see. Yeah, it's just a a fantastic location. So just finishing up here, I'm sure you're gonna have an opinion on this

00:54:29.220 --> 00:54:31.259

Mark Wickersham: Tim Hortons or Dunkin donuts.

00:54:32.050 --> 00:54:58.200

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): I've never had Dunkin Donuts. I don't think outside of an airport, and I would never judge based on that. So I will say, Tim Hortons, but I'm not a big Tim Hortons girly, I think the commuters, the people who, you know, go through drive throughs on their commutes, or who are sitting in hockey arenas are much more likely to be big fans of Tim Hortons. But I'll say, Tim Hortons, just for loyalty to the Canadian culture.

00:54:58.460 --> 00:55:06.840

Mark Wickersham: Well, you know, I'm a Bostodian. So I'm gonna say, Duncan Donuts, because Duncan's is from the New England area. Their iced coffee is like unicorn blood. It is.

00:55:06.840 --> 00:55:07.240

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Oh, okay.

00:55:07.240 --> 00:55:10.639

Mark Wickersham: How they do it. Try to make it home. Can't even come close like it's.

00:55:10.640 --> 00:55:13.300

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): It's sugar and fat that that.

00:55:13.300 --> 00:55:14.350

Mark Wickersham: No, no! I take it black.

00:55:15.820 --> 00:55:18.599

Mark Wickersham: You don't. You don't mess. This is perfection like you don't.

00:55:18.600 --> 00:55:19.059

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Oh! Is it.

00:55:19.060 --> 00:55:21.329

Mark Wickersham: Don't touch it, it's so good.

00:55:21.330 --> 00:55:21.780

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Oh!

00:55:22.110 --> 00:55:31.550

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): All right. Okay, you've inspired me, Mark. I'll give it a shot, I'd say for me. I have to find a Duncan's that's not in an airport, so I can judge it fairly.

00:55:32.240 --> 00:55:40.989

Mark Wickersham: Duncan donuts, iced coffee black. Believe me, it's so good. So anyways, Kendra, it's been a great conversation. I really appreciate you sharing all your thoughts.

 00:55:41.550 --> 00:55:51.290

Kendra Thompson (Epok Advice): Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And you know I really appreciate what you're doing trying to bring leaders together. I hope we have a chance to continue the conversation.

00:55:51.660 --> 00:55:52.779

Mark Wickersham: Me too. This would be great.