Tag: Advisor Growth
RIA Edge Podcast: Building Growth Partnerships with Summit Financial’s Stan Gregor

RIA Edge Podcast: Building Growth Partnerships with Summit Financial’s Stan Gregor

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Explosive growth doesn’t happen by accident. It’s fueled by intentional partnerships, strategic resources, and cultural alignment.

In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong sits down with Stan Gregor, CEO of Summit Financial, who shares how his firm has grown from $3 billion to nearly $25 billion in assets since 2020. 

He reveals the minority investment model that prioritizes partnership over control, the resources Summit provides to help advisors grow organically and through acquisitions, and the importance of cultural fit. Stan also offers his perspective on private equity’s role in the industry and emerging service trends for RIAs.

Keypoints:

  • Summit Financial’s minority investment partnership model and how it differs from roll-up and aggregator structures
  • The selective approach to onboarding partners, focusing on cultural fit, aspiration, and willingness to leverage resources
  • In-house resources, from legal and estate planning to marketing via Chapman Communications, that drive above-market organic growth
  • Industry shifts toward private equity, private credit and alternative investments, and how Summit vets boutique opportunities
  • Views on competition, partnership pitfalls and future monetization strategies while maintaining focus on growth and enterprise value

Resources:

 Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Stan Gregor:

About Our Guest:

Stan Gregor is the CEO of Summit Financial LLC. As a senior executive with over 30 years of experience, Stan has operated in banking, private wealth management, investment management, fiduciary trust services, fixed income trading, investment banking, retirement services, insurance, financial planning, and public finance. He has also been involved in acquiring and integrating some of the largest and most complicated banking, wealth management, insurance, and capital markets businesses and cultures with a demonstrated track record of increasing productivity, profitability, and shareholder value.

Most recently, Stan was the founder and co-CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald Wealth Partners (CFWP). Under his leadership, CFWP grew to over $5 billion in assets in less than two years through several strategic acquisitions of RIAs, independent advisors, and wirehouse teams.

Prior to joining Cantor Fitzgerald, Stan was the Head of Wells Fargo Wealth Management -Eastern US Markets and President of Wachovia Wealth Markets. He provided executive leadership to the Eastern U.S. Markets and headed up the Wealth Insurance Division, overseeing the private bank, wealth brokerage, investment management, fiduciary trust services, financial planning, and insurance. Stan was responsible for leading nearly 5,000 team members, generating revenues of $2.5 billion with $69 billion of investment fee-based AUM, $19 billion of deposit balances, and $16 billion of loans.

Prior to Wachovia, Stan was CEO of Commerce Capital Markets, where he directed private wealth management, brokerage, asset management, fixed income trading, derivatives, investment banking, retirement services, insurance, and public finance.

Subsequently, Stan was CEO of Quick and Reilly (Q&R) as one of the visionaries who transformed Q&R from a transactional discount broker to a full-service advisory company. When Q&R was acquired by Bank of America, Stan stayed on as co-CEO of Bank of America Investment Services until 2005.

Over nearly a decade at Citigroup, Stan had several senior executive-level roles leading different divisions, including consumer banking, private wealth management, and Citigroup as Northeast Group Executive Vice President.

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RIA Edge Podcast: How Taylor Matthews Built Farther to Boost Advisor Efficiency by Removing Platform Friction

RIA Edge Podcast: How Taylor Matthews Built Farther to Boost Advisor Efficiency by Removing Platform Friction

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It’s not surprising that tech-native firms see the wealth management industry’s high margins and sticky revenue, even with its notoriously disjointed and sometimes subpar tech stacks, and think, “Good business. But it could be better.” 

At the recent WealthManagement EDGE conference in Boca Raton, Fla., David Armstrong, director of editorial strategy and operations for the Wealth Management Group at Informa Connect, spoke with Taylor Matthews, co-founder and CEO of Farther, to explore how the firm is seeking to improve the advisor experience and increase the operational efficiency of wealth management firms with home-built technology. 

Backed by a handful of well-known venture capitalists, Farther is a “tech-forward” RIA where the user experience improvements are as much for the advisor’s benefit as it is for the client: The goal was to create workflow efficiencies for advisors that translate into increased time spent with more clients than is found at a typical RIA. 

Taylor outlines how Farther also supports advisors with built-in marketing, lead generation and operational support. The conversation touches on the firm’s philosophy, use of AI, Taylor’s thoughts on the business investment environment for RIAs, and what the future may hold for his team’s firm.

David and Taylor discuss:

  • How Farther’s technology was built from the ground up to solve daily inefficiencies that advisors face with disconnected tech stacks
  • Why returning time to advisors is central to Farther’s strategy, enabling them to focus more on client work and growth
  • The four-part growth engine at Farther, including done-for-you marketing and lead generation
  • How Farther’s internal teams support advisors in areas like estate planning, tax consulting and financial planning
  • The firm’s long-term approach to growth without the constraints of private equity and why consolidation is reshaping the industry.

Resources:

Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Taylor Matthews:

About Our Guest:

Taylor leads Farther’s executive team and shapes the overarching strategy for the firm. Prior to founding Farther, Taylor was a member of the leadership team at ForUsAll, where he helped build the fintech retirement advisory firm from $25 million in assets under management to just under $1 billion in his two years there.

Taylor previously co-founded Essmart, a social enterprise distributing tech-for-development products in India, and was an investment banker and management consultant in his early career. He graduated from MIT Sloan with an MBA and Yale with degrees in philosophy and political science.

Taylor lives in San Francisco with his wife, three children, and a very excitable dog. As Victor Hugo wrote, “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

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