Altruist CEO & Founder, Jason Wenk - What Financial Advice Should Be

In today's episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with Jason Wenk, Founder & CEO of Altruist. Altruist is an all-in-one digital platform for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and their clients that helps make financial advice more efficient, more affordable, and accessible to more people. Using Altruist, advisors have cutting edge tools on an investment platform that significantly streamlines and reduces their costs, enabling them to serve more people, better. The upstart most recently raised its $50mm Series B led by Insight Partners, with follow-on participation from Series A investors Venrock and Vanguard. Ally and Jason discuss: - How the space has evolved over the decades he's been a founder in financial advice and wealth management, and how he was able to get "more efficient" with each new company - Where he stands on the human advice vs. roboadvisory trade-off and why Altruist only works with RIA firms - How he cold solicited the Top 10 Financial Advisors To Watch on Linkedin as part of customer discovery - Launching the Human Advisor Podcast (https://apple.co/3KMghnX) to elevate the stories of a new breed of modern advisors - Building a "dreamy" group of board members, including Wharton Alumni and Former Chairman and CEO of Vanguard, Bill McNabb, Jonathan Rosenbaum (Insight Partners), Nick Beim (Venrock), and Ryan Barrows (Vanguard) as an observer. - Attracting folks to the challenge of taking on 2 major incumbents controlling 80%+ market share and each with $100 billion dollar valuations - Why Altruist's people quotient centers on kindness, brilliance, and grit - And a WHOLE lot more About Jason Wenk Jason has excelled as a leader in the financial services industry over the past 20 years, working as an advisor, investment systems developer, analyst, and founder of multiple companies. He is dedicated to making finance a collaborative space between advisors and consumers, emphasizing the importance of human connection and interaction to improve financial wellness with affordable and accessible resources for more people. After a number of successful and innovative business concepts including FormulaFolios and Retirement Wealth Advisors, Jason chose to focus on creating meaningful experiences for advisors and their clients with fintech firm, Altruist. Jason was awarded GRBJ Newsmaker of the Year in 2016 and 2017 (finance category) and was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018. About Altruist Altruist is a Los Angeles-based company on a mission to make financial advisors more efficient, more affordable, and accessible to more people. The team builds products to provide advisors cutting edge tools, and offers an investment platform that substantially lowers costs. As a completely digital brokerage, Altruist helps advisors provide their clients with a delightful experience with their money. Learn more at altruist.com, follow on Twitter @altruist, and check out the Human Advisor Podcast here: https://grow.altruist.com/introducing-the-human-advisor-podcast. Honorable mentions: - WFT podcast episode with Bill McNabb, Former Vanguard CEO & Chairman: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech/former-vanguard-ceo-chairman-bill-mcnabb-the-future-of-finance-leading-in-crisis-esg-436f1c031907 - WFT podcast episode with Henrique Dubugras, Co-Founder/Co-CEO of Brex: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech/reinventing-financial-systems-henrique-dubugras-co-founder-co-ceo-of-brex-8dc7ab820765 -- As always, for more Fintech insights and opportunities to collaborate, please find us below: WFT Blog: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ally's Twitter: twitter.com/AllyMcCloskey Wharton FinTech Home: https://www.whartonfintech.org LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ Suggest a Podcast Guest: https://airtable.com/shrdbokQPxAJzgVh7