RIA industry is slow to ‘capture more clients,’ EP Wealth CEO says
When you ask EP Wealth CEO Ryan Parker how the RIA firm managed to grow its assets to $21.4 billion and serve 13,000 households across the country over the span of 25 years, he’ll say it all comes down to having a laser-focused mission.
“That is to enrich people’s lives, but to do it one relationship at a time,” Parker says.
That matters, he added, because clients are looking for “total financial advice.
“We really pride ourselves on combining financial planning with tax planning and estate planning and trust services that really wrap around the investment management that we do to really focus in on what people’s goals are,” Parker said. “While investments are certainly important, the firm and the clientele that we serve are people who want that more full-service, almost like a family office type of services.”
The former CEO of Edelman Financial Engines admits while there have been a few surprises during his career in the industry, the one that’s surprised him the most is the slow pace at which the RIA industry goes out to capture more clients.
“We just haven’t seen more rapid market share gains by the RIA space,” Parker says. “Even though it’s the fastest growing part of the industry, it surprises me sometimes that some people who aren’t being served, [even though] they really deserve to be, haven’t yet made a change to find someone.”
A possible solution, he notes, is that some of the larger players in the RIA space could come together in concert with the CFP Board, for example, to amplify simple communications and marketing that’s easy to understand, especially since wirehouses spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing and advertising.
“What do we do to tell a better story that gets people to understand
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