Speaker 1 [00:00:04]

Hello and welcome to the Funfire webcast, adapting to multi-gen investors, what wealth firms need to know, sponsored by Broderidge. My name is Peter Karnavas. We'll get started in just a moment, but first allow me to explain the player on your screen. On the bottom, you will see our audio controls. The sliding bar allows you to adjust the volume and the circular double arrows can be used to refresh your media player. Beside the audio controls, there's a text box you can use to submit questions to our panel. We encourage you to ask questions throughout the presentation and please know all questions will be addressed anonymously. Beneath the video window, you'll see a series of tabs containing more information about our speakers. Now allow me to introduce our moderator, Elizabeth Ferdy. Elizabeth is a financial journalist with many years experience covering the industry and will be leading today's discussion.

Speaker 2 [00:00:45] Thanks very much, Pete. And welcome, everybody, to our webinar today, Adapting to Multi-Gen Investors, What Wealth Firms Need to Know, sponsored by Broadridge. It kind of blows my mind, but the great wealth transfer is accelerating. There's $105 trillion expected to shift from baby boomers to younger generations by 2045, according to research by Cerulli. This transition is multifaceted and it is speeding up, but it means that wealth firms must modernize their technology, data and communication strategies, and also their enablement tools to meet the evolving generation's expectations. I know that I'm Gen X and my millennial colleagues and Gen Z colleagues expect something very different to me in every walk of life. So firms who are all watching today hopefully must adapt to a younger clientele, but again they have to make sure that the existing clientele who are a little bit older and have different expectations are kept supported too. So today I am excited to be joined by three women who know what is going on, who are living this day today. They're going to join me for the next 45 minutes, and are you? So please, as Pete says, send in your questions. We'll endeavor to answer as many as we can. So I'd like to introduce you to Christy Smith, who is General Manager Advisor Solutions at Broadridge, Whitney Webb, who's Managing Director and Head of Family Governance at Crescent, and Emily Irwin, who head of Advice Center for Wells Fargo. Ladies, welcome to the program. Great to have you here. Now, we have about 45 minutes to go through all this, and our audience is no doubt going to be asking lots and lots of questions, because 105 trillion doesn't go unnoticed. But, Emily, I'm going to come to you first. As a start for 10, this great wealth transfer, as we're calling it, 105 trillion over 20 years, what are the challenges? Can we just set the scene? What are the challenge for wealth managers? Let's start with juggling client cohort needs, Emily, if you wouldn't then Whitney, I'm going to come to you.

Speaker 3 [00:02:45] Absolutely Liz and you know when we think about the juggling of the cohort needs as you identified we have our current clients and those have a traditional expectation they have years of experience with their financial institution and their advisor and many are open to new ways of doing things but we do have to work towards adaptability and modifying what that experience looks like. And then secondly. We also have new and prospective clients. You know, how are we building a relationship with them? How are we making our financial services model in piecing to those clients in a way that we're tapping into technology, a digital experience, real-time communication. And so when we think about the multi-gen investor. The traditional clients, it really is about both maintaining and expanding. So thinking about how do we pull that next generation in early and often to those existing relationships through things like financial illiteracy or rising gen events that can give them very tactile ideas and kind of insights into what wealth management even is and what the impact and value can be for them. And then when we think about the next gen, You know, at Wells Fargo, we have something called LifeSync. We think about how can we engage with them at scale, in real time, and have a personalized approach. And so we have an ability, for example, for those new and prospective clients to be able to communicate with us and say, hey, here are my goals, here's my timeline, here's duration, here're the dollars I want to assign to things. And then that real time communication immediately gets fed into an advisor where he or she or they can go ahead and start that active bite size snack ability type of relationship as opposed to the more traditional let's meet in six months and have status quo then.

Speaker 2 [00:04:37] Yeah, it's changing incredibly quickly and wealth management firms have to be nimble. It's no longer, you know, just moving from my parents to your parents and, you know, we go for lunch and that's all very nice and we pass the book along. Those days are gone and we're all going, I think. Whitney, what's been your experience here?

Speaker 4 [00:04:56] Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with with everything that Emily is saying. I think that, you know, maintaining somewhat of the status quo for the current generation is is important. Right. There's no need to. Add to the stress that oftentimes these these wealth holders already have around passing down wealth to the next generation, right? If they're then having to balance all of these changes in the way that they interact with their wealth manager, that can be incredibly jarring. But when I think about the needs of the rising generations, there's two things that come to One is simplicity, and one is authenticity. In ways those two can be in tension with one another, because I think, you know, simplicity really comes to what Emily was talking about. You know, if you want something done, it needs to be simple, right? There needs to one kind of key way that people are communicating with their wealth manager, right, whether that's a quarterback, whether that a portal. Really important for people to understand where to turn and then understand how all of the pieces work together. I sit on the family office services team at Crescent, and that's a big part of our value proposition is that there's an entire team across wealth strategy and lifestyle services and banking and lending, all of the things that work together. I think that it's trying to move away from the complexity of, oh, who's talking to who? Like, is everyone understanding what my needs are, what my wants are, and how does that all play together? And then the authenticity piece, I think really comes with the rise of AI, and I'm sure we're going to talk about that a lot here today. I have noticed that young people, while they're utilizing it, they see the future. There's a lot of them that are really turned off by things that are just AI-produced, that are just, you know, it seems fake. It seems inauthentic. Um, and I think a lot of young people want to go deeper, right? There's a reason why there's been a massive boom in the coaching industry. Um, people want be self-reflective and when it comes to money, that can be one of the most triggering and anxiety producing things. And so wealth managers need to be able to address that in an authentic way, right? Not just sending out. Here's a PDF on managing your anxiety around wealth, right? It needs to be deeper. So I think those two are at the top of what people are gonna be looking for.

Speaker 2 [00:07:40] Yeah, and I think often we talk about the young, the younger generations, you know, doing everything online, but they still want authenticity, and especially when money is of concern, because if you get the wrong haircut, you buy the wrong shoes. That's, you know, you can get through that. But if you manage your wealth incorrectly, it can be devastating. So it's a very important way of looking at it. Christy, I don't want to dig too deep in it because we're going to spend the next 40 minutes digging into how this is all happening. But are you seeing, or what are you hearing from your wealth clients who are trying to address this? And are you see some people really getting into it and others kind of not that keen? Because it is really tricky to address. It's just a case of like, oh we'll just plug this in for young people and off we go. So what are you seeing? What are the concerns that come to you?

Speaker 5 [00:08:26] Yeah, so we're seeing three main challenges right now across our current client base and the industry. Some of this is echoing what the ladies had just articulated from their own firms. But first addressing the large aging population of advisors in the industry nearing retirement. Second, there is an influx of new technologies we'll touch upon right now, some AI and machine learning really driving the need for rapid modernization and digital transformation. Third, the expectations of investors are shifting, which is creating a demand for personalized financial advice from their advisors. As a result of all three of these trends, there's this demand for new digital tools to allow these advisors to connect with their clients more frequently at scale and to really demonstrate that they understand the financial and personal interests and goals of their clients.

Speaker 2 [00:09:21] Because that's also changing, isn't it, the old fashioned bond portfolio, the 60-40, the balanced approach, you have the stocks, you have the bonds, and that's lovely. But now you've got a whole world, you've have crypto, you're digital, you have private assets, you can invest anywhere, you could do anything. And that maybe isn't something that our parents or our parents' parents or whoever would be used to. So that is having to change too. I suppose, Emily, can I ask you about that, the asset mix?

Speaker 3 [00:09:50] Yeah, we do see a shift in asset mix and for Rising Gen and for our current clients as well who are in the in the older cohort. And what's really important as wealth managers is to remember, even if this isn't something we necessarily have kind of had the conversation with with our clients, important for us to understand and be knowledgeable about it. And for us to have access to the full picture. So aggregation, to Christy's point about digital, becomes really important because we want to be able to understand what the full picture of our client's portfolio is. Because when we're thinking about something like goals-based planning, which is incredibly important to the next generation, we want understand the risk tolerance of not just each asset class. But as a as an entire portfolio and people build out scenarios that say, look, if these things skyrocket or if they absolutely tank, what does that look like? And what's your risk tolerance people to take that on and weather the storm? One way that we like to think about it is what is the now? What are you trying to take care of right now from a cash flow perspective and an income perspective? And then think about what does the next five years like look like that often requires? A slightly larger capital contribution type of expenditure for most people if you look out five years. And then beyond that, you know, that's where we see assets that might be more legacy based. They may be assets that are even tied towards goals that are decades out, like retirement or charitable endeavors for our younger rising gen. And so it's important for us to be able to think about that asset mix and say, does this make sense in light of the full portfolio that you have.

Speaker 2 [00:11:29] Yeah. And there's all sorts of considerations too, isn't it? There's tax, there's regulation, and the stuff which is hot right now might not be hot in five years' time because it might be regulated completely out of sight. Whitney, how do you work with clients on this? Because it's kind of the softer side of it, I suppose. But just looking at the asset mix and how portfolios are constructed, it's... When I started writing about this enough years ago now, to now, it is completely blown out of the water. It's completely different. So how do you kind of help clients to understand that the mix may change again before they get to their objective?

Speaker 4 [00:12:04] Yeah, yeah, well, I think a big piece of it is, I mean, it's first digging in with especially for thinking about younger clients, right? Like what, like, what does success look like here? Right? Like what what does return on investment really mean for you in this? You know, this touches on the desire to use money for, for purpose. So, you know, when we think about ESG and impact investing and. Even when you think about, you know, digital assets and crypto and everything like that, that piece of it is usually more aligned with someone's, they're wanting to be part of something, they are wanting to part of this wave. So, I think it's really important for wealth management firms to understand that when people come asking for different additions to their portfolio or just questions around diversification and all of that, there's probably more behind the question than just, oh, I think this is a good investment, right? It has to do with being part of this wave that has to be part of, you know, being part of a collective society. And, you know, and then obviously, ESG is, you know, going in waves in and out of favor. And at the end of the day, I don't think it's a wealth manager's role to tell people that it's not cool to care. Because, you know, kids, young people, all of that, like, do care more, more and more. And to some people, that can be way more important than, you know, an increase in their ROI of their portfolio. So I think we need to take that seriously because someone else will, if you don't.

Speaker 2 [00:13:54] Yeah. So Christy, with all this, you know, whether ESG, sustainability, whatever we're going to call it, whether that's in vogue or not, it needs to be on the table because certainly in the wealth and the high net worth space, there is this legacy planning and creating something better in not saying for everybody, but, you're leaving a legacy and ensuring the world in whatever mold it's going to take is in a good place. So you.

Speaker 5 [00:14:33] Does everyone see Elizabeth frozen or is it just me? Yeah, she's frozen.

Speaker 2 [00:14:38] Let's see if, there we go. Now you're back. Oh, I'm back. I'm bad. Apologies, sorry. I've got stuck over the Atlantic somewhere. Did you get the gist of what I was saying? Apologies.

Speaker 5 [00:14:47] I get the gist and I can certainly take it from here. So we're absolutely seeing the need to understand from a sustainability perspective, but more holistically, we're seeing the needs from our clients to really send out and understand from your investors, what are their preferences. At Broadridge, we've invested... And building a tool, a preference survey, which allows advisors to actually send a digital survey out to their clients to collect data on topics like sustainability, risk tolerance, their interests, their goals, and then storing that data in a place where the advisor can actually access that data and customize some of their outreach through content that relates to those preferences gathered in their surveys. So we are seeing a very large demand there.

Speaker 2 [00:15:36] Thank you. And hopefully I'll stay with you for the next question. So what's at stake if wealth managers and if everybody working in this area just says, you know what, we're just going to stay doing what we're doing. It's been okay over the past 100 years or 50 years, whatever, it's all been all right. We're just going weather this storm and the Gen Z will come in and they'll just fit right in to how their mom and dad used to do it. What's at stakes? Whitney, I'm going to come to you. What to say if people don't get with this program, if people don't start addressing this.

Speaker 4 [00:16:11] I think, you know, it's, it'll be, it will be a loss of client relationships, which is, you what, it is the point of wealth management firms. It's what, you it's what their business is. So I, you I think it could be a slow burn, right? It could be just the lessening of a relationship or you know, you'll start to see clients who, their friends are just getting much higher touch or, you know different service at their firms and it'll just start to be a slow transition over. I think that even the strongest relationships within a wealth management firm can, you know it can be suffered if people realize that they can get better offerings somewhere else. And so, you and I think it really comes down Um, to helping clients understand the purpose behind their wealth, understand the meaning behind it, um, and just looking at them as an, as an individual, um as opposed to a portfolio. And I mean, the individuals in, in the family. Um, and so I, I, I do think that while it's not going to be overnight that firms just fizzle out, um I, I do you think there's, there's a ton at stake.

Speaker 2 [00:17:32] And Emily, Wells Fargo, I don't want to think how long Wells Farga has been going, I've seen the big gold coach in the lobby, I suppose that's quite old, but Wells Fargos had to kind of develop and evolve. So how, you know, there must be some kind of high strategic vision about how to evolve and what's at stake if you don't evolve, because as Whitney says, you just get left behind.

Speaker 3 [00:17:52] Absolutely. Well, and I think at the basis of any relationship we have to remember is trust. And I think sometimes we forget, because it becomes easy to forget, that we've built a relationship of trust with one generational level. But that same intimacy and level of trust absolutely must be built with every other member of the family in order for it to be a relationship. And so when we think about how are we evolving at Wells Fargo, for example, we're starting with trust and part of that is thinking about it through what's the risk to the client as well. So not just a loss of our relationship with them, but it's a loss of reputational risk. And that goes hand in hand with the client potentially having an outcome that is unexpected and typically unexpected in a negative way. And our goal is to avoid that. Our goal is to build that trust with the next generation. Our goal is to have goals based planning that we really understand what is the driving purpose behind each of these dollars, each of the investments and does the client truly understand whatever parameters such as a lockup period or risk or what are their needs in order for us be able to deliver very personalized advice to that next generation to start building the where the client then says. Like they get us, like they get making me tick every morning. They get I'm slightly different than my parents, my aunts, uncles, even maybe my siblings in the same generational level as me. They get that it's different. And as such, the content, it's not just portfolio, but the content we're also providing them to enable them to make decisions along the way incrementally just feels like it's for them because it is for because we deeply understood what the goal is behind that dollar.

Speaker 2 [00:19:42] Thanks, Emily. Christy, I know that Broderidge has done a lot of work on this. What do you see when you're speaking to clients? Where are you seeing the big gaps or the big traps or pitfalls if they don't get with this program? I don't have a better way of saying getting with the program, but it's kind of it. So what's your work on covers in terms If you can put it in dollars and cents, I don't know.

Speaker 5 [00:20:05] So we'd love to echo the earlier points. This is a relationship driven business, right? And investors want to feel that their advisors are adding value. And we know that advisors can't guarantee returns to their clients, but they have to be demonstrating that they're providing value, whether that's through education on financial topics and providing context on how it's relevant to the investor's personal goals and their family's goals, right. And we're seeing, you know, more than ever, a demand for advisors to have tools in their in their tool belt, like broad, which is advisor stream that can help them create and distribute this type of content at scale to their clients. And most importantly, target the next generation of advisors and be distributing that content through social media and video, which the main avenue now where these newer investors are learning.

Speaker 2 [00:21:00] Thank you. Speaking of content, whilst everybody in audience is putting together questions that they're going to put to our esteemed panel, you can click now and download it, but don't read it until we finish because the Broadridge Digital Transformation Study for 2025 is available somewhere on this screen. So you can download it now, but don t read it yet until we've got to the end of our webinar. But please do send in your questions. Christy, can we go back to you? What are the key areas that wealth firms need to look at? Because we don't want to silo it, because it's all going to work together. But you've got your distribution, you've got your client service, and others. We've got investment and we talked a bit about the asset mix, but we're not really talking about investing on this webinar. So what do they need to do? How do they assess where the change needs to be made? How do they start? This is such a huge She. How do you know the technology is changing all the time, how do you even start, where do you start? Sure.

Speaker 5 [00:22:01] Wealth management firms need access to their data to see what's really coming ahead. At Broadridge, we've created an actionable insight tool which uses advisors and client data to provide transparency. It helps advisors save time and administrative and operational tasks. And it really helps drive the revenue of the advisors in their book of business. You know, how do we use this data and harness this data now to help advisors not only reach out to their clients, understand their preferences, but give them real-time alerts as to kind of next steps actionable items to reach out their clients with. Some examples of some of those insights that we're looking at right now are revenue concentration, right? Is an advisor's revenue concentrated on a small number of aging clients, right? Should you start building those relationships with their children or with their spouses now and have you done so? And how exactly do I do that, right, allowing the advisor to go ahead and either send content or reach out or have a script to send a video out to the children of your current clients. Another really focused topic right now is succession planning. Is the advisor, if the advisor's nearing retirement. What is the advisor's book worth today? And how do they create a successful succession plan? Benchmarking, from a performance perspective, how are they compared to their peers? Or better yet, branches comparing each other's performance. But we're really focused on what is that single pane of glass to deliver a toolkit that will allow advisors to be successful in their roles?

Speaker 2 [00:23:43] Because you might be an individual advisor with an firm or an individual who knows the client. But if they leave or if they don't have whatever happens, if it's in their brain or the ledge or whatever it's got. And if you're the company, if you have the firm, you need to have this information so you can say, well, I've got 40 clients in this city or 50, whatever it might be. And I know that they've got these people or they need assistance there. And knowing that, that. That information centrally is key, isn't it? So you can target what you need and see. Whitney, what's been your experience of this? Is it a case of doing a survey, going out and asking everybody, get everyone on the phone, get a big lunch? I don't know. How can you do this practically.

Speaker 4 [00:24:25] Yeah, we start by kind of identifying the pioneers, identifying a test group of clients. So when we want to try something new, whether it's an educational platform or some sort of bringing families together, just something to kind of like dig into any of these topics. And, you know, this works. This works within families, within groups of families, you start with the people who are ready because there's always people who are ready and you build something for them. A lot of people love being a test case. They do, right? It's just like they want to be, again, they want be part of the wave and building things around there. We, and I think a mix of trying to predict what your clientele needs through the data that you have. I totally agree with Christian. There's a lot that you can gain just even from demographic and geographic information. And so just a couple of examples here. So one thing that we built out at Crescent, we built a teen learning platform. We decided to go mostly in-person immersive programming for this. I created something called Launch Generation that's a really immersive program around financial literacy, leadership and entrepreneurship, bring teens together at universities around the US and the UK, really get them to build their confidence, their understanding of all of these aspects that are typically not taught in the school system. And We luckily, you know, we got that right, right? We saw that there was this age group within our clientele, you know a large population of them and we were able to do that well. Obviously we listened to them, we adapt each year. For the older generations, we didn't have as big of a cohort, right, in the 20s to 30s. So what we do there is we pull like maybe six to eight of them. We plan something around them, just those ones. And we. Co-create something together with them. So there's two different ways to do it, but I think both equally important.

Speaker 2 [00:26:53] And Emily, it's because a lot of the time and what you're saying Whitney about the financial literacy and financial education in I think in most countries is my limited experiences is pretty basic. And just because you're a high net worth individual or your family has money, it doesn't mean to say that you are financially literate. It doesn't to say if you're a titan of industry. You may not understand how the bond market works because, you know, it's difficult, this stuff. So how have you worked, you know, to set these levels to ensure that the younger generations are getting this? Because, and I think everyone who's ever worked in business will understand that a client kept is worth three new clients bringing on or whatever the phrase is. So keeping people here. And this does fall into client service, doesn't it? It is vital. So what's Wells Fargo been doing?

Speaker 3 [00:27:50] Yeah, so we're all about the right amount of information at the right time. So very similar to how Whitney described it and Christy as well. I mean, really thinking about everything from what we try to do is design a program that addresses both the nuts and bolts. And then it's personalized with an overlay of communications with the, typically the generation above about how are we going to interweave a personalized aspect of this through balance, trust. Gifting mission statements in governance. So a really tactical example is I can't tell you how many times over the last six months or a year an advisor has come and said you know we'd really you know, we have a client you'll never believe it they'd love to have their kids learn about you know credit or we'd love them learn about the difference between a Roth versus a traditional 401k and these are families that have many many zeros on their balance sheet But the rising gen is truly kind of. At the infancy and elementary school stage of financial services, even if they've been exposed to wealth through their experience and their lifestyle. And so we work with the parents or the grandparents typically to be able to understand what part of the balance sheet are we comfortable showing? Is it typically the personal, the business, the philanthropic side or a combination of three? Often we'll have that generation start with the. We work with them to kind of put together what's the purpose of this meeting type of introduction and then we go into the nuts and bolts but in the context of their current plan and so we're starting to open their ideas up into this is what it means, this is how income versus principle works, this what investment means and this is actually how it operates in the context of me being for example a trustee or a beneficiary or a donor. And then we get into the aspects also of flexibility, control, kind of the duration period of how can they access and how much control do they have over that. And so these half day programs are not just meant for the families to have a one and done, but we set them up in a way where the advisor team can actually continue working with the families on a quarterly or semi-annually basis to continue building those blocks. Of the fundamentals and then revealing more of that balance sheet and goals as time goes on.

Speaker 2 [00:30:21] As you're talking about it, it feels like it should be automatic if you've been surrounded by the stuff. You should just get it by osmosis, but my family's owned cars for many, many years. I don't know how to work a car. I can drive a car, but if you open the bonnet, I can't mend it. I can fix it. So it's not automatic that you can just absorb this stuff. Whitney, I know that you've got something else to add on the financial literacy point.

Speaker 4 [00:30:49] Yeah, I mean, to echo a lot of it, I think one of the biggest mistakes that advisors or their team can make is making assumptions about what people know. And just a quick example, I was working recently with a 22-year-old recent college grad from an Ivy League school. Her parents are incredibly well-known entrepreneurs, very successful. And when we started working through creating a budget for some of her trust distributions, she didn't know the difference between a debit card and a credit card. She didn't what she was using to pay for day-to-day things. And I think what's really important is to catch... Catch your reactions on things like those. You let out one little laugh in a situation like that. And to Emily's point, you've lost trust, right? And it's incredibly important to understand the weight that some of these rising gen inheritors feel and the lack of confidence, the guilt sometimes, there can be shame in it. There's a lot of emotions swirling below the surface. Um, so to be able to come in with a sense of, of compassion and just like start at the ground level, um, is, is incredibly important. Another thing that I want to add on on financial literacy So, first of all, if you look at the data, any studies that are following financial literacy education that's been implemented in school systems over the last several decades, 99 percent of the time it fails to actually change any behavior of participants that come through. And it's because it's not relevant at that time. So, to Emily's point, how do you actually make it relevant to the real-life situation? And that's balancing these tensions of parents not wanting their kids to know a lot because they don't want to throw them off course and kids wanting to know what the heck is going on like for me right now and in the future. So what that means to me and what I realized pretty quickly coming into this world because I you know I started like 15 years ago really thinking about the financial literacy piece of but how do we educate the rising gen? This is a full family affair. And it really has to be because you are talking about a family system. You're not talking about just one cog in that, and we feel pretty strongly that when we work with a client's child, we're working with the full family because so often financial literacy can just be a tool for control. Financial literacy education is another way of saying, I want my kids to act more like I do, or how I expect them to. And so you teach them how to do that. And so I think it's really important to gently bring that to the surface, right? And with compassion, because parents have a reason for that too. It's not because they're trying to be manipulative, it's because they are terrified. And so that's why I think. It's like always remember to dig another layer down and then another layer after that and it's really difficult work and it is 100% worth it.

Speaker 3 [00:34:10] Liz, I'm just gonna add something quickly. So to Whitney's point, you're absolutely on Whitney and some of the words we actually coach advisors when they're working with families is eliminating the use of expectations, eliminating the abuse of the word should and eliminating the used of the world, I did that. So this really delicate balance of trying to enable and facilitate a learning environment without imposing from the next gen up, you know, this is what you should be doing. These are our expectations. This is what, you, know, the reason like, but really reframing it as a way for them to grow into it versus the generation above to kind of impose upon the generation below.

Speaker 2 [00:34:56] Increasingly, I'm ever more thankful that I need to have massive wealth and all kids. So this is all good stuff. Kristy, looking at the nuts and bolts of this, because it all sounds absolutely vital for wealth firms to really get a handle on this because things are changing and society is changing. And the conversations that Emily and Whitney are talking about with this intergenerational discussion of openness and understanding of financial services and financial products and outcomes and how it all works. If it feels that if wealth firms don't get a handle, get a grip with what's happening, it could be curtains, but some of them aren't. I want to dig into why these businesses are hesitating. Is it a cost thing? Because there is cost. Everything that Emily and Whitney are talking about costs money. You need people to do it. You need to structure the programs. You need take time out of managing portfolios or whatever. You need to bring more people in. Is it a cost thing? Is it lack of understanding and strategic objectives? What are you seeing the issues? And how are you kind of helping clients to get a hold of what they need to do? Because it seems a lot broader and faster than I thought.

Speaker 5 [00:36:05] Yes, certainly fast paced and it's worth mentioning. There was an independent research study done by broad rich where we surveyed 400 advisors and only four out of 10 advisors are actually sharing personalized financial literacy with their clients and the next generation. And what was so striking is that roughly 42% of investors want personalized content and financial literacy distributed to them on a regular basis. Weekly is really what the preference is. So naturally it drove so many questions of why are advisors not doing this or why are they unable to do this for their client? And 50% we found simply don't know how to go about it or where to start. You know, these advisors know they should be sharing personalized financial literacy content, but there are some obstacles in their way. And the greatest obstacle, not surprisingly, is that they don't have enough time. And this is a huge challenge for advisors. You know understandably so, there's so much advisors are juggling with between communicating with their clients and managing their demands. They have to be able to carve out time for sharing content through a robust marketing system. And so, you know, we certainly see that, you know, investors want this concept. So advisors need the tools such as advisor stream to allow them to have access to that library of content and to be able to personalize that content based on those preferences known. But having that database where it is created as almost an action item for the advisors, an invitation, if you will, saying, hey, you have a client who is very interested in saving through a 529 plan vehicle, here's some content that maybe they will be interested in. Go ahead and send it. So, it's really the investment in the tool, but also, kind of, you know, the training for the advisor of what that tool kit needs to be for them to be successful to deliver that content to their client.

Speaker 2 [00:38:10] Thank you, Christy. It's your final call for questions to the audience. I won't, in case none of you are aware, I won't be reading people's names out, so if you're ringing in from Ohio, no one will notice you asking the questions. Please send some more questions in, that'd be great. But before you all run in with a question about AI, Christy, I'm going to ask a question. How is AI going to fundamentally change everything we do, and when will it happen? It's exactly. Crystal Ball, your question.

Speaker 5 [00:38:41] Yeah, it's really happening now. And while firms are focused on some of this groundbreaking technology, like data analytics and machine learning and other emergent technologies right now, it' hard. It's complex and it's very costly. They're dealing right now in-house with very several disparate systems, each with their own data models that don't necessarily talk to each other. And each firm is looking for new technologies and new ways in partnering with firms like Broadridge to really help transform their businesses on their terms and at a pace that they're comfortable with.

Speaker 2 [00:39:19] Whitney, how are you using AI? Sometimes we think we're using it and we're not, and sometimes we don't think we are using it, and we are. How are you at Crescent using AI.

Speaker 4 [00:39:29] Yeah, really, I would say proactively and carefully. I think one of the, going back to Emily's point of like the biggest, I think the biggest asset that you have is your trust with your clients. And so really trying to think about the use cases and what can we start with that Is it going to? Somehow put at risk privacy and just really trying to protect all of the data that we have. That's really the first lens that we're looking through. We use it in some kind of like fun ways. So let's say we're we're working with clients to. Not like move from values to action, right? So they've got their shared values. One fun thing is to input some of the family values, some of notes and conversations from our meeting and ask it to put together a motto for that family. Like, you know, six to eight words. What's this motto that you all can remember and live by when in doubt, this is kind of a litmus test. And so if you put it to chat GPT, it'll spit out. 10 great options and people can tweak from there. So trying to help kind of refine, here's some of the big thoughts that we've been talking about and how do we bring that into action? And then, I mean, in a lot of ways, it's, you know, we encourage young people to say, hey, if you've got a business idea. Talk to chat. What would be the best next step, right? Like, just use it for every kind of throwing ideas against the wall and yeah, much more to come. But again, we're taking a really paced approach.

Speaker 2 [00:41:27] Yeah. And what AI and ChachiBT and all the other tools out there at the moment can't do is replace wisdom being shared like we are doing today, though. And we've got some questions in, which is lovely. But before we get there, Emily, Wells Fargo using AI, obviously across the business, but in this particular landscape, because also we've seen over the last couple of weeks, cybersecurity is absolutely key. And it's something not to be, I know we all wouldn't understate it, but it's absolutely vital. So how are you using it in this Thank you.

Speaker 3 [00:41:55] Yeah, I think we're really focusing right now on the advisor experience. So thinking about it from an operations side, how are we making our advisors lives easier by making sure that they have quick access to, you know, whether it's full reporting, easy email follow up, being able to aggregate all of the different content across our systems. And it's a it's a methodical process that we're working towards. Um, so I'd say, you know, it's happening in real time to Christy's point, but to Echo's place, it is also a deliberate process to make sure that we are not unnecessarily exposing our business or our clients to risks and privacy concerns.

Speaker 2 [00:42:39] Yeah, and that's going to continue to evolve, isn't it? And Christie, I'm sure that there's huge amounts of study and research going on at a broad range around AI and the use of it. Because at the moment, it's useful, but it's still, in many cases, you have to know what you're doing. So you can't just say, oh, we'll just AI. I think a year or two ago, people were saying, oh, I'll just A.I. It. And you realize that it's not that simple. There's still a lot of thought that needs to go in to make the tool work. We've had a quick question in about communication. I think a broad one for maybe Emily, Whitney, can you go for this? Is it just a case of less formality with youngers, or is, I've seen lots of, you know, younger people wearing very nice clothes going to very fancy dinners, so it doesn't necessarily follow, does it?

Speaker 3 [00:43:25] Yeah. So it's a great question. The questions, of course, you know, is communicating with the next generation? Do we need to adapt? And if so, how is it, you know, be just simply being less formal? I would say maybe. Right. So the answer is maybe the biggest difference we're seeing with the next gen and Whitney, I'd love to hear your thoughts too, is that they want more rapid communication. They want a more instantaneous response they want and they want to have shorter but more frequent interactions with their advisors to be able to get advice on very specific ideas and investments. And so I think there is a tendency to want from a less formality standpoint, maybe not the very formal, you know, you bring in a portfolio and you sit across the table and you review it, but that doesn't mean that they, they're not interested in a professional experience. I think the biggest change we're seeing is more frequent. Very targeted and quick communications between advisors and clients.

Speaker 4 [00:44:28] Yeah, yeah, we very much use like the the bluff approach. So like bottom line up front, when you're when you are starting with young people, because yeah, again, you think about the format of TikTok, it's all about like, how do you get the point across quickly, and that works for a reason. But another thing is, you know, I wouldn't say that it's necessarily more informal, I think. I think first of all, practice mirroring. To Emily's point, someone can walk in. You can have a Gen Z who is incredibly formal, right? And that might be what they want. So always mirror, see what that person is portraying, and then ask, right, and they won't always get it right. A lot of times, young people don't know how they want to interact with their wealth manager because they haven't interacted with the wealth manager before, right. So give them time to figure out what they wanna it to look like. Don't think that if they say like, oh, I just want you to text me, always check in on that. Hey, is this working? How I work with other clients, you're just like this, how does that land with you? Just remember that they need you to adapt. They absolutely need you too because they are trying to figure it out themselves.

Speaker 2 [00:45:44] There's a great piece in the Financial Times today about... About how it is the younger generations driving, returning to the office and in face to face meetings. So yeah, it doesn't always follow that the kids just want a text. I can say that. I'm of the age where I can say that now. Right, I'm afraid, ladies, we're almost out of time. So I'm going to ask you one final question. How do you see the wealth transfer impacting the industry over the next decade? This is the true crystal ball question. You can't get this right. Well, you might get this, right. And if you do, best of luck. But there's no right answer here. Whitney, how do you say this changing? And then we'll come to Emily and we'll finish off with you, Kristy.

Speaker 4 [00:46:19] Yeah, I think we're just shifting to a much more human-centered, individualistic approach to wealth management because I think that the younger generation values their individuation. They value being unique, they value being different from their peers, but also connected to them. Um, and I think that we need to find ways to adapt to that. And I think the AI is actually going to help us, right? Because how can we automate the ordinary, um, so that we can better showcase, um, the customization, the, you know, the excellence. And, and one thing that I think is really important for all wealth management firms to think about is think about the lens that you're looking through. When you think about this change, right? Because it is going to be huge change. And if you're looking at it through a lens of fear, that is going absolutely trickle down into how clients experience everything, right. But if you can look through it with a lens hope and opportunity. That trickles down to everyone. And at the end of the day, there is a lot of fear, there is lot of uncertainty. We don't need to add to it, right? We need to, but we've talked about this before, Elizabeth, we need to broker some hope. Um, and I think that wealth management and just wealth in general is so ingrained into how we, how we view ourselves, how we interact with the world, right? It's like so ingrained. Um, and so if we can broker a little bit of hope of how, how this all plays out, um, I think serves us all really well.

Speaker 2 [00:48:06] Fantastic. Thank you, Winnie. And, Emily, before we get to you, and I think, Winny, you're probably chiming with this. You would chime with this, jive with this? I don't know how the Americans say it. A very last-minute question. So, we haven't spoken about involving the younger generation with talking to this younger generation. And I think... We'll all agree that is vital. We have lots of discussions on talent and bringing new talents into businesses and I'd like to think that this is a big part of it. Emily, I'm just asking you to consider that as well when I ask you that because we've only got a couple of minutes left, but how do you think the world is going to look through wealth firm prism in a decade's time.

Speaker 3 [00:48:45] Well, I think open. I'm really sorry. Thank you.

Speaker 2 [00:49:17] Questions that we make. Hi, sorry, I think we lost the connection firmly, but hopefully we got what she was saying. Kristy, would you like to close us out, please, on where you think we're going to be in the next 10 years? Sure.

Speaker 5 [00:49:32] In the next 10 years, I see advisors needing to access data and distribute personalized content at scale to their clients. With the aging population of advisors, we're going to see a shortfall of advisors. So, how do they service their clients in a meaningful way at scale? Successful advisors will have access to tools that they need to collect client preferences. Distribute content in the ways of video and podcasts and social media, really demonstrating their understanding of how their individual clients learn, how they want to receive their content, and aligning that with their financial goals and interests will certainly be key.

Speaker 2 [00:50:17] Brilliant. Thank you ever so much. This has been very, very interesting for me, hopefully very interesting, for our audience. We've had some really good questions coming through, so thank you for that. Whitney, Emily. And and Kristy, thanks for being here. Thank you for joining us. As I mentioned, the digital transformation paper from Broadridge is on your screen somewhere. You'll find the little button. Please press it and take it a read for your afternoon. You can get a replay of this that you'll get an email about that through as soon as we finished, I think. But thank you all for being with us. Thank Poudridge for supporting it and see you at the next one. Thanks very much.

Speaker 5 [00:50:54] Thank you.

Speaker 2 [00:50:55] Thanks, Elizabeth.