Mark Wickersham, Host 0:01

All right, Phil, welcome to the Wealth Tech Podcast. I am happy to have you on the show. I'm excited to talk about obviously your family office veteran, and now you've been on both sides of the table, having worked at Fidelity Family Office Services as well as Eaton Solutions on the vendor side, and now starting your own um multifamily office. But I'd wonder if you would mind giving a brief overview of yourself and TOC23.

Phil Ireidi 0:36

Yeah, sure. Uh great mark. First, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. We go we go back a long way in the you know family office reporting world.

Mark Wickersham, Host 0:44

And uh, Phil, what which employee were you at at FOSS? What number were you? Do you remember?

Phil Ireidi 0:50

Around 10 and 12. We debate it now to this.

Mark Wickersham, Host 0:52

Yeah, am I more senior than you or uh likewise? I think I was 12.

Phil Ireidi 0:56

I was hired in June, but I didn't get to start until October. But yeah. So that that could throw things off. Um but uh but certainly, you know, we've we've been talking about family office and technology and operations for you know well over 20 years now. So um it's a great venue that you put together. Uh hopefully people are enjoying the podcast. And um, you know, just for for my background, uh I spent 25 years at Fidelity. Um I started uh with the family office division as we were actually creating technology for the space, right? We were trying to create the silver bullet, and a guy named Mark Wickersham was working on the product side, and and um, you know, at the end of the day, I think what we put together, um, you know, we couldn't we couldn't scale it. I think we were just too early in the evolution of technology back then. You know, everything was disparate databases pushing data back and forth. And um so anyway, we couldn't scale it. We couldn't charge enough for it, really wasn't wasn't viable. But one thing the interesting happened was when we decided to, you know, move away from the technology. Um, we sort of found our groove on the service side. So there was some real value that we were offering to our clients. And, you know, we took that approach where we just listened. Um, we let that drive, you know, our services and our offerings, uh, which were great. And one of those was we still had to help clients solve the technology picture. Um so I had the opportunity to work um in the consulting capacity there. Um, you know, get out there, understand what's in the galaxy of vendors, what the choices are, listen to clients, understand their challenges, try to figure out what you know, what technology would help them, what outsource solutions would help them. Um and it was a tremendous job. I loved it. Um, love this market. Um, you know, we really helped some multifamily offices and single-family offices. As long as we solve their problem, uh, that was great. Um, and then so at the end, my my Fidelity time, I ran business development and solutions consulting uh for our clients, which was great. Uh, and then after leaving uh Fidelity, I went to go work for Eaton Solutions. So it was a chance to kind of come full circle a little bit with that all-in-one solution um that was sort of custom purpose built for the family office space. So uh I ran sales over there for four years. Um and uh and then I got tapped on the shoulder by some old Fidelity family office co-workers, um, tremendously talented guys, Chris de Bonaventura, Matt Blind, uh, and uh said, hey, let's let's put a multifamily office together. We want something that's you know unconstrained by large companies, um, unconstrained by you know operational efficiencies and scalability of you know private equity-owned firms. Um, so we're truly independent, and uh it's been a great transition. It's been a lot of fun.

Mark Wickersham, Host 3:54

Well, congratulations on that. Yeah, I mean, you look back in the early days of what we were trying to do with the technology, like getting alternatives and marketables onto that same platform, which is a problem that's highly solved now, um, in addition to also alternative data management, which you see multiple solutions for. But there was none of that back back in the day. So switching over to now be on the on the client side, what what has kind of surprised you the most?

Phil Ireidi 4:26

Um well, I don't know how surprising it is, but there's certainly no shortage of really good technology, Mark. I mean, the the the offerings that are out there are amazing. Um, but you know, many of the point solutions, I think they they you know continue to try to expand. Um and um you know, there's there's more and more overlap that's out there, especially as we get into AI, and everybody has an AI solution. And um, you know, which one do you want to use? And it and it and it sort of brings you back to where you are at the beginning, right? Data's king. Um so whoever has the most data, whoever has access to the most data, um, with with you know a relational database, um, you know, tends to to be ahead in this situation. Um but you know, figuring out how all these pieces stitch together in that best of breed world, you know, that's that's kind of been the age-old question, right? All in one versus best of breed. And now as you get into AI, it's it's even more of a challenge there. Um you know, I think from from our perspective, you know, being sort of a startup MFO and starting from kind of from scratch is um you know, how do you how do you sort of buy ahead of of what your needs are? Right? You don't want to, you know, a lot of times you and I would come in in the consulting situations where um you know you were buried in data, you were buried in volume, and you didn't quite have the the technology capabilities to be able to service your clients, right? We're sort of in that situation now where you know we have we have bodies and we have technology, but we may not have all the volumes, uh, so you don't necessarily want to have to buy ahead. But um that's always an interesting dynamic for me, you know, coming in and saying, oh, what's the best technology out there versus what's the best technology for now, right? And how do you plan to get ahead of that volume when the time's right?

Mark Wickersham, Host 6:21

Yeah, it's a good point. You don't want to necessarily overbuy. I mean, a lot of firms can't just, you know, the the constraints of it in terms of uh financial constraints, the people that it takes to run some of these systems. I think uh but you want to future proof your business. You don't want to be able to quickly have a platform that that doesn't meet your needs. Um I think you take a look at what's going on with AI. AI is kind of putting that age-old question about best of breed versus all in one on its head again. I think almost every solution you're seeing now has some sort of AI component. I think that's how family offices are are ultimately ending up adopting AIs because the vendors that they use are using AI. And it may not be prevalent to those family offices, maybe it's in the the back office reconciliation, taking a look at large data sets and for outlayers and those type of things. But I mean, it I think it is important for family offices to talk to their vendors, understand what their AI roadmap is and where they're going with that and how that that will fit their practice. Uh you know, we now that you're on on the client side, you know, and I know that you've worked with literally hundreds of firms around servicing the ultra-high net worth, but what advice would you give firms that are that are looking to service that client base? I know it, you know, it sounds great. Yeah, who wouldn't want a hundred million dollar or two hundred million dollar client, but I don't necessarily think some of the firms that that that are attract that that type of client and end up with that that well understand what it takes to service that type of client.

Phil Ireidi 7:56

Yeah, yeah. The the needs are broad, uh or very broad uh for servicing those clients and the complexities are really there. So you you have to be prepared. And I think, you know, first and foremost, you have to define what it is you want to be, all right? What services you want to offer those clients. Because it is difficult to be to be everything to these folks, but you do want to be at the center of that relationship and you want to have control. So understand what it is you want to do, um, what are those things you might want to outsource, but how do you build the controls around that outsourcing client experience so that number one, it's a sticky relationship. You can get your arms around everything. It certainly makes the planning process easier if you're doing financial planning in your office. Um, because the more uh interactions you have with that client, the better understanding you have, the better service you're gonna provide to them. So I think understanding what it is you want to be and being true to that, and then finding the right partners that that can plug into your model and and and maybe white label it, but put you at the center of the relationship.

Mark Wickersham, Host 9:06

Yeah, I think that makes sense. They're looking for an integrator, right? Somebody that's gonna handle all those various components. You really can't do everything, certainly not to the level that it needs to be done. So you have to pick and choose your battles, where you're gonna outsource, what vendors you're gonna use to be able to support your business and your clients' practice.

Phil Ireidi 9:25

Yeah, I think it it goes over both, Mark, right? It's it's you know who your who your partners are maybe operationally, but also your technology and how well it can integrate and adapt, right? Especially as you talk about future proofing and AI capabilities and what you're going to leverage, um, you know, having those providers that play well together, you know, makes a lot of sense. Uh, or again, that all-in-one solution that that you can run the majority of your business on. Because at the end of the day, if you want to leverage AI and you want a future proof, that data's got to come together in some way.

Mark Wickersham, Host 9:59

That's uh that's a good point. I do think um it's not necessarily about vendors having hundreds of integrations, it's having the right integrations for your practice uh that are key, and that that those vendors are investing in those integrations. And I I think I my take on the best of brief versus all-in-one has kind of evolved lately. I mean, we're I think it's you know, thinking about it in terms of major pillars, right? And and then, you know, so there are certainly comprehensive all-in-one systems that that provide those multiple pillars within a platform. But I think, you know, there's general ledger financial accounting as a as a major platform with bill payment, there's portfolio accounting, investment reporting, performance measurement as a major pillar. You're still going to need to bring stuff around the outside edges in terms of data aggregation, alternative investment data management, those type of components. But instead of having a hundred-point solutions to be able to try to bring that together, take a look at you know, what are the major functions that you support, what are the major pillars within your business, and can you have vendors that that support that and then integrate those those pillars together? Let's uh you know, go back in the Wayback Machine a little bit. Obviously, we were both early employees at Fidelity Family Office Services back in the the early 2000s, which is uh it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but uh long ago. How have you seen the family office market change in your past 25 years of being in it?

Phil Ireidi 11:34

You know, I think uh I think back to those early conversations, and you know, we always knew security was um top of mind for all of these family offices, but um I I definitely see that changing. You know, we used to have those conversations around server-based versus cloud-based, um, and you know, reluctance to go to the cloud. Now you really don't hear about that very much anymore, right? Most people have already said, okay, I if I'm going to future proof my business, I need to need to be on the cloud. So that's that's definitely changed. I think the access to data has definitely changed. So data aggregation has gotten better, and and some of that's through AI and natural language processing, and you know, even the ones where you get paper statements in, you know, you can you can automate a fair bit of that with the natural language processing. So um, you know, I think that's that's another thing. I would say openness to outsourcing, you know, especially after after COVID. You know, people are are open to maybe I don't have to be that hands-to-the-keyboard person, right? But as long as I have control of where all the data is, and um, you know, people seem to be more open to that. I might not need to have somebody right here in my office now that I can video conference like we are today. Um, you know, I can see Mark, we can we can collaborate, you know, you don't necessarily have to be in the same place. So um and I think uh just the overall evolution of the technology, AI, there's more providers in the space, gets a little bit more confusing for folks, I think. Um and and the integrations obviously have gotten a lot better. Um even you know, portfolio accounting to general ledger, you know, business rule engines out there like you know, your your your former firm as well, um, you know, folks at Knowledger, et cetera, that build those integrations. Um you know, there's there's better integrations, there's better technology, there's more freedom to outsource. You know, I think those have been the and accessibility to data have been the big champ, big improvements I've seen um since our early days.

Mark Wickersham, Host 13:38

Yeah, it's really been a dynamic market. You're definitely seeing a lot more um purpose-built software for the industry, a lot more entrance within that. Um you're certainly seeing it in in terms of where the funding's going. Uh, you're seeing some cases where technology is being born out of a family office experience. Purpose-built, whereas you had to previously take something maybe was RA or hedge fund like and try to adapt it. I mean, just the basic stuff like data aggregation and getting alternatives and marketables on the same platform was a was a huge struggle. I think you're 100% correct on COVID too. COVID kind of finally accelerated that that you know, that self-hosting, like you know, that that finally put a nail in that, that the family offices finally went to the cloud. Outsourcing, I think, is definitely one of those things too, where there's kind of a realization that hey, I can have a relationship with with a third party and and have them be an extension of my team, especially the way the technology works.

Phil Ireidi 14:42

You know, you you brought up a really good point. And you know, when I talk about providers, yeah, there's the there's the vendors that are out there, but even the financial services firms, you know, that have, you know, people really believe in the family office space now, right? So operationally, you know, every financial institution has a family office group, which you didn't necessarily see, you know, when we started the business at Fidelity. There was a few out there. Um, you know, the larger banks had their family office divisions, but now it seems like everybody has, you know, is trying to service that market and sell to that market.

Mark Wickersham, Host 15:13

Yeah, the good news is that they have more options. The the bad news is they have more options, is creating a little bit of confusion, but there are a lot more firms that that understand that the family office needs and have built stuff specific to our. I mean, family office, Fidelity Family Office Service is a good example of that, where they put the right service model on a great, you know, uh clearing and custody platform for that that particular group. Let's talk a little bit about AI. Obviously, you've seen firsthand working with uh family offices and and and AI adoption, but what should family offices think about when it comes to AI and how should they approach adopting it?

Phil Ireidi 15:55

Yeah, I think you know, first and foremost would be the security of the data. Right? So you know, you have people that might be going out there trying to use Copilot or ChatGPT and you know what data are they putting into that system? Is it being trained? You know, you hear this over and over again in in AI conversations, but you know, make sure that your data is not being used to train these various models and that your your data is safe when you're using them. Um not all versions of ChatGPT allow for that, right? Um and so, you know, including having a an AI policy um is a good idea. So working with your tech service provider on creating that um AI policy um is really critical. Uh the other thing I'd say is, you know, I used to hear this a little bit that, you know, AI it's not ready. It's not ready, it's not perfect, and people are waiting and they're waiting to see maybe who's going to emerge um from all these various AI providers. And and I would say, you know, get started now, right? Make sure the data's safe, make sure you're working in a way that um you can collaborate across your team, right? And and get started, try it. Um the more that you can iterate on it, um, the more value you'll get out of it. You know, I think safety with it is is first and foremost, and then you know, learn how you can improve, you know, you what you're putting into Chat GPT, right? Value-added, you know, verbatim that you can put in and and and iterate on. And um you just have to keep working at it.

Mark Wickersham, Host 17:32

Yeah, I think that's great advice. I think one is family officers should have an AI policy. Um that it's really important that they do that. That it that there should be a way in which their employees can use AI and use it in a safe manner. I think that if there's an AI policy that's so restrictive, you're gonna end up with shadow usage of AI, which is not great. That is not, then you're it's like Jurassic Park, it kind of escapes, and and you don't want that situation. You want to be able to control your data, make sure your data stays contained and stays with within the the that you protect that privacy of the of the family. Um, but it you know, it is using it is is is a key, but if I find that my own use of AI has dramatically improved the more I use the tool, and I find it a valuable productivity tool that I couldn't imagine not having uh at at this point. But I first used it, I'm like, got limited results. Well, maybe because my prompts are so poor, but it it does take practice uh to use that.

Phil Ireidi 18:34

I do see a difference, you know, people that have been doing their jobs for quite some time. You know, you you always revert back to what you know and you'll just start working on something. But if you're first, if your mindset is, well, let's try to leverage AI first, um, I think that's a shift in your mindset that probably is is most helpful in your adoption.

Mark Wickersham, Host 18:53

Yeah, it's not perfect, it's never gonna be perfect, but it is getting better all the time and it's getting rapidly better. Um you've worked with hundreds of family offices on search and selection and your consulting work at Fidelity as well as is in the buying process at Eaton. What advice would you give to firms that are that are are searching for new technology and where do firms get sideways on this process?

Phil Ireidi 19:23

Yeah. I I think it always it always comes down to the requirements and and defining your budget, right? So the more clearly that you can do that, you know, we used I used to see, you know, we we talked to folks, oh yeah, no, we've defined our our our decision-making criteria, right? And you know, it's cost effective, easy to use. Well, you know, try to define that a little bit more, right? And what are those use cases that you really want to get down to? So there's functionality, there's risk, you know, you have to and there's budget. And you know, I actually saw a lot of it on the vendor side, and you'd always ask the question, well, what's your budget? So from a sales perspective, you're trying to figure out is somebody qualified, but nobody really wants to share that information up front. You know, but if it's because they're afraid that obviously what the salespeople will do with that information, right? But at the same time, you don't want to waste your time. You don't want to go down the path of an evaluation and you know, not have either sign-off from your um from your firm as to what that decision-making criteria is, what that budget is going to be, right? And is this a qualified search that you're on? So um I think you need to have all of those um and then you know define those use cases that you really need to see proved out um because all the vendors can actually make the technology look very good, right? Um, but it it's important that you understand what those pain points are that you need to have solved and how does it work in that particular system.

Mark Wickersham, Host 21:00

Yeah, I I think that makes sense having the use case. What problems are you looking to solve? What are the requirements to solve those problems? What are the particular use cases that demonstrate the that a vendor can successfully solve those problems? I think a lot of times they'll they'll kind of get a list of vendors from from their buddies or from you know what they know in the market, and they just start doing the getting the demos involved. And granted, you know, like you said, vendors can make their demos look pretty good, and then they end up kind of veering off course about what was the problem you're originally trying to solve versus the shiny object syndrome, and um and and at the end of the day, then you're you're you're like, where are you in the search and what problems are you trying to solve? And does that vendor solve that problem? You may have totally missed that that that mark because you just started jumping right in on demos.

unknown 21:51

Yeah.

Mark Wickersham, Host 21:52

I think the budget thing's really good too. Like there are certain solutions out there that that are maybe more affordable, but have a little bit. Less functionality, or or maybe the service model is a little bit different, and then being realistic about what your budget is and understanding how much technology actually costs, because you know family offices are cost centers and they don't want to spend uh money on on or everybody wants to minimize how much they spend, but in some cases maybe you need to spend more than than what you're thinking about as as part of the initial search after you educate yourself.

Phil Ireidi 22:29

Yeah. You know, the the other thing I would say, Mark, where I I see things kind of go sideways or people make decisions on technology, is they don't stack rank kind of the decision-making criteria or their fun functional requirements, right? Um so something that might be extremely important. You know, if you're looking at a matrix where they're checking a box across all the different vendors, um, is probably the most critical, right? And then you have something that's a requirement that's maybe less of a priority, you know. Nice to have. But you know, they're probably the you know the better of the 80 to 90 percent solution.

Mark Wickersham, Host 23:10

Yeah, I think that's that that's true. Um, so you you've you've selected your vendor, you you've you've made the purchase decision. What recommendations or what advice would you give family office in terms when it comes to managing their key vendor relationship?

Phil Ireidi 23:29

I think it's important that um, you know, as you go through implementation, um you you tend to build a really good relationship with your um implementation manager, and then you're kind of off. You might get put to a client success person, but you know, pushing and and um maintaining those kind of weekly meetings for the first few months are really important as you, you know, you you want to keep that connectivity with your vendor. You want to be open and honest with them, right? As you have challenges and and and how you want to, you know, improve the relationship so you can maximize. I mean, everyone is should be on the same page, right? They want, they should make you want to be a power user. You should want to be a power user on that system. Um, you know, do the work to put the training in. But but keep that connectivity. Um stay up on, you know, when they're putting out, you know, newsletters, quarterly releases, make sure you're understanding the software. Um I used to see this a lot. You know, you get six months down the road and you'd say, Well, yeah, I want us to use this piece of functionality. Well, no one let me know about it, right? Um, if you have that good connectivity with your relationship manager, your client success manager, you're staying up on the newsletters, it's really a two-way street.

Mark Wickersham, Host 24:45

Um the vendor maybe cre creates functionality that solves a problem that you have, but you don't know that they solved that problem. Um, so there can be a little bit of frustration with that. I I think the key is treating your your vendor like a partner, not like a vendor. So it is a two-way street, and it's important that you share with your vendor where your business is going, the challenges that you're having. I think taking a step back once in a while, maybe having a quarterly business for you, and you can't do this with every vendor, maybe, but you talk about your more important vendor relationships that have uh a QBR where you kind of step back and and and be able to take a look at the high-level picture versus just the you know, whatever the open tickets are, and and that to kind of be a little bit more strategic with that relationship, make sure that you understand their product roadmap, you understand what functionality they've delivered and are planning to deliver, and how does that line up with your business? If they have a client advisory board to be able to, you know, can you participate in that? Can you have influence in their roadmap? I think the more time that you can spend helping your vendor understand your requirements, the better uh for you know both parties, I think.

Phil Ireidi 25:56

Oh, you nailed that, Mark. I should have you on my podcast.

Mark Wickersham, Host 26:02

The modern family office. This is a question I've been thinking about for a little bit. Like, will AI cause family offices to modernize? Certainly have the next generation um that I is going to force that regardless of what technology is out there. But how should family offices think about modernizing? How should family offices think about legacy software? How should family offices think about potentially the retail software or they're on? And how should they think about you know future proofing their business?

Phil Ireidi 26:35

Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. I think we we've over the years going to you know various conferences around this and discussions around this, and everyone getting ready for the next gen and and you know digitizing their business. And um some of that's starting to come to fruition, but I'm still really surprised that a lot of mobile applications, like everybody has a mobile application, right? And you know, adoption for that mobile application tends to be really low. Um with every vendor I I talk to. Now, there's some that you know they use it quite a bit, they push their reports out that way, they might store documents, they might do other things, but um I would say just typically if you just scanned it, it would be really low adoption. But that's what people are used to. They're used to walking around with their phone, they used to having access at their fingertips, you know, but maybe they don't need to see their hundreds of millions of dollars on their phone every day. Right. But so you have to be able to um be ready for that. The communication back and forth, keeping your communication safe, you know, through those digital experiences are are critical. Um uh but again, you know, the modern family office goes back to future proofing and you know, can you get the data in a place that you can service and anticipate what your clients' needs are? Um, you know, that's that's how you're gonna win this game. Um you know, being able to scale it, being able to put it in a place that you can turn it into relevant uh relevant data that can help you service and stay ahead for your clients, right? What can you anticipate going forward? Um so it's nice to have a nice, shiny mobile application, you know, for the next generation and all of that. And I and I do think that is important. Um you know, to keep your brand and keep relevant information and then maybe improve and keep secure your communications. Um, but it it's still very slow to adopt.

Mark Wickersham, Host 28:39

Yeah, the client portal uh has really still been one of those things that's been slow, the adoption, and firms have rolled it out with, you know, as you say, that the really the results of you know the the exception is when they actually clients use it. The the norm is that clients will look at it a few times and then that that adoption kind of drops right off. I mean, I think there's probably a number of different factors to it. I is there enough value for them? Maybe you're offering too much information to them, or do you not offer the information that you want? I do think it's important to think about how do you you communicate in a secure manner uh that information to your clients, and sometimes you need to kind of force that adoption. If you want clients to be able to send you sensitive documents, you certainly don't want to be emailing it. You don't want to be emailing them reports, you want them I think that online experience is key, but you know, I I'm still surprised and I'm I'm sure you know you run into it all the time. How many clients are I I mean, Family House is still so dependent upon Excel.

unknown 29:41

Yeah.

Phil Ireidi 29:42

Yeah. It's it's amazing. Yeah, and and you it's hard again, it's hard to be everything, right? And and it it might come down to a cost issues or one outlier thing that you have to do and it just proliferates over time. Um but uh yeah, just just thinking about you know the client experience and modernizing, you think with AI, you know, if you can provide that portal experience and all the data's there, right? You know, this is one of the shifts that you start to see is you know, I think about Mark, all the time we spent creating reports, right? Building reports, you know, for to go against data in a database. And you know, now with AI, it's it's it's really you can start you, I mean it's real. You can start asking questions, right? If the data's in one place, you know, ask questions. What you know, where's my balance today? What do I have in in my Fidelity account? What do I have across the and you don't really need those interfaces, right? Yeah. You can say, hey, now I want to see this in a in a bar graph, now I want to see it in a pie chart. What's my performance? You know. So I I think uh maybe that type of usability on the AI side, you know, if the data can be in an accessible place uh, you know, for the end clients, that that's great. Um internally with the office, it's you know, how well does everything integrate? You know, are you forward-looking? You know, are you staying ahead uh of the game? And um, you know, are you quick to adapt AI? I think is is part of your modernization plan.

Mark Wickersham, Host 31:11

Let's take a look at the the future of the family office market. Uh taking a look at, I don't know, three years is probably pretty far given how dynamic this market is. But where where do you see the family office market in three years? What do you see changing and and what do you see not changing in three years?

Phil Ireidi 31:30

I I think maybe some of these providers will will start to, you know, on the tech side, maybe merge together, right? Um you know, I I think some will continue to evolve um and emerge as leaders, and others will maybe get folded in and bits and pieces will be taken up. I think what we'll start to see is what we've already started to see is people expanding what they currently do. Well, we do this really well. Now we have this data, what else can we do? Right? Um, you know, specifically maybe in that alternative investment world, you know, you're you're you're gathering all the data, right? What can we do maybe on the front side of that, right? With you know, um manager evaluations now. How can we push down to the reporting side, right? So everyone's gonna seem to expand their offering um to appeal to more providers, uh more buyers. Um and I think some of that might lend itself to some consolidation um with these vendors. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the investment side uh changes over time. Um, you know, you already see those shifts, you know, private equities in in favor now, and then it's hedge funds, then you know what's next? Is Bitcoin gonna actually evolve? What about blockchain? Um, things like that. I I I can't predict.

Mark Wickersham, Host 32:51

Yeah, there is a lot that is uh unpredictable. I I do like that quote that the the the futures here is just not evenly distributed. So you do see some things where maybe there's some firms that are a little bit on the leading edge or the bleeding edge, or maybe you see it in another industry. I think you certainly see the the RA industry is pretty dynamic, and and some of the trends over there that have been spilling over to the family office side. I think consolidation is a good bet that right now you you've seen more and more vendors enter that market. I I think there'll be some sort of natural shakeout that will happen. I do think there are some zombie kind of software uh providers out there that are on kind of a legacy platform that maybe have 25, 35 clients that that that haven't really grown much over time, that that you're gonna see that that those firms either those client bases are gonna get bought up and and moved on to another platform or cease to exist uh just because it couldn't keep up, especially with AI capabilities. Um so I think consolidation is gonna be a good one. I I hope one of the things that's gonna happen is that the the onboarding experience is is gonna get improved. I think that's still a hard nut to crack in terms of being able to switch vendors, especially accounting, you know, whether it be on the portfolio accounting or the financial accounting, that that's still a land war in Asia doing those those conversions. And and that's a hard thing that the vendors will be able, especially with AI, be able to streamline that onboarding process. I I think that what it isn't gonna change or or what will allow AI will allow people to do is spend more time on the client relationship. Um that that people to people will actually have more of a premium. Um and that AI will actually take care of some of that administrative task and some of the things like that, that low value first mile tech activities, and and and people will be able to spend more on being, like you said, proactive uh to anticipating what clients' needs are. Um but I I think if anything, you you know, that Amazon thing, like what's not gonna change in the future. Um they take a look at that, that that there's gonna be that value on the on the on the client relationship, that the the the family office market's gonna still be dynamic, change will continue to accelerate. I think these are all things that are are are still gonna happen. Um I love the end of the podcast on a personal note with three questions that have nothing to do with wealth tech.

Phil Ireidi 35:24

Okay.

Mark Wickersham, Host 35:25

You played collegian baseball uh at Providence College. What did being a collegiate athlete teach you about the business world? How did it prepare you?

Phil Ireidi 35:36

Um I I think it was it was the the discipline, getting up every day, um, you know, early workouts, you know, working hard, um, building team camaraderie, right? Um it really taught me a lot about building successful teams. Um, you know, having been involved with with a few uh while I was there. Um but it's it's really that that work ethic um that that goes into you know having a goal, coming in, focusing on it every day, whether it's you know getting stronger, getting faster, you know, working on your swing, whatever it is. Um and also that that desire to compete. Uh in the business world, it's always it's always good when you can get the juices flowing, you know, on the vendor side, you might have been going up against two or three different vendors or um two two or three providers. And um I I love the competitive nature of it.

Mark Wickersham, Host 36:30

Yeah, the one the the one-to-win, the to be uh the comp. Was Lou Lou Moroni, did he go to PC?

Phil Ireidi 36:38

He did, yeah. Lou and I were captains together. We same same class. Nice.

Mark Wickersham, Host 36:42

Got a Lou Moroni story for me.

Phil Ireidi 36:46

None that I can share. Great player, though. Great college player.

Mark Wickersham, Host 36:50

Yeah, I'm enjoying him on the broadcast too. I think it's great. Um all right, North Shore versus South Shore. We're both uh you're in the South Shore of Boston, I'm in the North Shore of Boston. Pub pizza versus roast beef. What do you what do which which is better, North Shore or South Shore?

Phil Ireidi 37:07

Oh, I I I love both of those. Um, but I'll have to go with South Shore bar pizza. There's it's it's everywhere down here, and um, it's very different uh than you know traditional you know northern Italian pizza, but it's uh I'll go with the um South Shore. Yeah, the pub pizza is pretty roast beef three-way if I'm on the North Shore.

Mark Wickersham, Host 37:30

The three-way, yes. Yeah, it is kind of funny how there's these like really kind of regional micro-region type of of things going on. The accents used to be different too. I mean, that got that's kind of getting lost, but you could definitely tell when somebody was like from Quincy or South Shore versus uh maybe Charleston or further up. Um, Phil. Well, it's been really great to catch up. Always good to see you. Best of luck with TOC23, and thank you for coming on the podcast.

Phil Ireidi 38:05

Always good to see you. Thanks for having me. Have a good day.

Mark Wickersham, Host 38:12

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Wealth Tech Podcast, brought to you by Seta AI. Seta is on a mission to modernize the family office. I really appreciate you listening, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Talk to you soon.