Farther co-founder says technology can push RIAs past complacency

investmentnews.com:

While serving as an officer in the U.S. Army, Brad Genser knew he wanted to find a way into the financial services industry when he returned to civilian life. Both of his parents were insurance agents, and Genser grew up around the table as his parents helped shape their clients’ futures.

How Genser got there is as unconventional as Farther, the digital registered investment advisory firm he co-founded in 2019 that is approaching $1 billion in assets under management.

After the military, the two-time Iraq war combat veteran (he received two bronze stars for his service, according to his bio on the Farther website) decided to build upon the mechanical engineering degree he earned at West Point. Genser earned a Master of Science in mechanical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He initially relied more on the latter degree, joining Goldman Sachs in 2014 as a wealth advisor focused on ultra-high-net-worth clients.

“I loved what the job was,” Genser told InvestmentNews. “I never wanted to be anything but a great wealth advisor and really serve my clients.”

However, Genser quickly noticed that the firm’s technology forced him to spend more time trying to open accounts than actually meeting people. Utilizing his engineering background, he built a program that could ingest public data as well as internal information from Goldman to predict and prioritize business leads and automate some of the initial outreach steps.

“Your life tends to break on funny things,” Genser said, reflecting on how his work computer just happened to provide the kind of programming language he needed to build such a program. “I was able to code this platform out that really helped drive my own