Category: COO Best Practices
60 posts categorized as "COO Best Practices"
What is Advisors’ Time Worth?
December 12, 2019
Following the success of our COO white paper and personal enjoyment of interviewing the profiled COOs at the end of 2018, we at PFI Advisors declared 2019 to be “The Year of the COO.” We launched our COO Roundtable podcast in January and have spent the entire year speaking with advisors about the benefits professional…
Top 5 Lessons Learned from Episodes 6-10 of The COO Roundtable
November 4, 2019
With ten episodes now under our belt, we’d like to once again thank everyone who has listened, subscribed, and given feedback on The COO Roundtable. We’ve enjoyed having these discussions and hearing your responses on them. Our interviews to date have included fourteen operations professionals at twelve multi-billion dollar RIAs across the country accounting for…
High Tech vs. High Touch: What Are Clients Really Asking For?
October 18, 2019
Technology isn’t developed to replace human interaction, but rather to enhance it. At the Envestnet conference this past May, the late Jud Bergman was asked about his thoughts around technology’s place in our industry. He astutely concluded, “It’s counter-intuitive that [by building a digital connection with the client] great technology can contribute to a stronger human…
The COO Roundtable, Episode 10 Highlights
October 10, 2019
In the tenth episode of The COO Roundtable, Matt takes some time to reflect on some of the highlights and biggest takeaways from the nine content-packed episodes we’ve produced so far and he even finds time to squeeze in a Princess Bride reference! By focusing on all the unique perspectives that our guests bring to…
The Fear of Change, Part 3: The Emotions of Breaking Away
October 7, 2019
The Fear of Change: A 3-Part Series for RIAs As the RIA industry matures, consolidates, grows, and evolves, many of our clients contemplate M&A transactions, changing their technologies or workflows, or they may strive to break away from their current employer to build their own RIA. We focus our attention on building and improving the…
The Fear of Change, Part 2: The Emotions of New Technology
October 1, 2019
The Fear of Change: A 3-Part Series for RIAs As the RIA industry matures, consolidates, grows, and evolves, many of our clients contemplate M&A transactions, changing their technologies or workflows, or they may strive to break away from their current employer to build their own RIA. We focus our attention on building and improving the…
The Fear of Change, Part 1: The Emotions of an M&A Transaction
September 27, 2019
The Fear of Change: A 3-Part Series for RIAs As the RIA industry matures, consolidates, grows, and evolves, many of our clients contemplate M&A transactions, changing their technologies or workflows, or they may strive to break away from their current employer to build their own RIA. We focus our attention on building and improving the…
New RIA COO? How to Prepare for Success on Day 1
September 17, 2019
In the eighth episode of The COO Roundtable, featuring David Canter and Scott Slater of Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions, we talked about an uncomfortable but extremely important topic: how and why COOs often fail in their role at RIAs. We’ve previously written about this unfortunate phenomenon on our blog, but with David and Scott’s…
The COO Roundtable, Episode 9 Featuring Susan Dickson & Suzanne Williamson
September 5, 2019
In the ninth episode of The COO Roundtable, Matt welcomed Susan Dickson and Suzanne Williamson, principals of Private Ocean. Susan is the Chief Operating Officer of the firm, and Suzanne is the Director of Client Services. Private Ocean, headquartered in San Rafael, CA, manages over $2 billion in client assets with 51 employees and has…
RIAs Are Struggling with Too Much Technology, Not Too Little
August 28, 2019
The objection we hear most often from prospective clients (delivered in a sarcastic tone) is, “I don’t want to hire an operations and technology consultant. Not only do I have to pay your fee, but you are going to tell me I can’t continue to do business unless I spend an additional $200,000 on new…
