The Best Dressed RIA Executives

Ric Edelman of Edelman Financial Engines

First of all, I am willing to bet that poor Fredric “Ric” Edelman probably suffers daily from having the #1 most frequently misspelled CEO first name in the RIA industry.

I can empathize about having an unwanted letter added to your first name. From someone who constantly faces this same battle myself, hello Rick (Ric), pleased to meet you, my name is Sarah (Sara) Grillo.

His fashion sense

Love the beard! (Check out my article on bearded financial advisors)

How his fashion style reflects the brand

I’ve noticed Ric often sporting the tieless look. Nice job with the collar stays, keeping the entire neck area nice and crisp. He pulls this look off well. This casual style reflects, as I’ve said before (read “Tie or No Tie?”), a movement towards less formal dress and attire as the demographics of the advisor client base shifts towards millennials, etc.

Where I think the firm is headed

Edelman’s firm merged with Financial Engines and it’s clear the intention is to become the largest RIA firm in the world and reach trillions in AUM. Who can argue with wanting to be king? But, it’s not clear that the firm’s current business model is set up for that.

Can an RIA firm actually scale this way? Is that really the experience that wealthy people want?

Mega growth may also sacrifice employee satisfaction. If you want to be big like Microsoft or IBM, you’ll have to do all happy bappy stuff that the management consulting firms charge you a million bucks for. Or get a volleyball court with real sand like Google.

#1 suggestion for his marketing

This firm keeps stalking me with retargeting ads because I visited their website one day last year. I’m not even a viable prospect! I feel bad about all the pay-per-click revenue I’ve put in Google’s pocket at their expense.

There is a fair amount of chest pounding on their website with mention of the Barron’s rank and his philosophy is based upon Nobel-prize winning economic theory. Do we care, really? No offense, but the Nobel Prize doesn’t prevent your portfolio from going down in a bad market – only put options do that.

But seriously, in the future people are going to be looking at a wealth advisor for humanness and relatability. Touting all the buzzwords and declarations of success, while it does demonstrate competence, distances the firm from the reader.

Martin Bicknell of Mariner Wealth

His fashion sense

Marty’s got a classic style, not deviating too far from the traditional corporate look. I could imagine him on Shark Tank sitting next to Kevin O'Leary.

How his fashion style reflects the brand

He’s an investment banker, which makes sense given his firm eats RIA firms for lunch. My only recommendation would be to accessorize a little bit with a pocket square or watch.

Mariner claims to be looking to recruit Gen Y advisors. Given his facial shape and high cheekbones, could you see Marty with a ponytail or one of those high man buns with both sides of the head shaved? This would convey a millennial friendly look and soften up the corporate image a bit.

Where I think the firm is headed

The firm went through a reorg in order to bring its wealth management practice to the forefront. That’s a wise move. Just make sure you don’t go the route of Focus Financial and do an IPO. Having to bow to the shareholders would turn off any RIA firm looking to sell itself!

#1 suggestion for their marketing

Why can’t I find you on Youtube or Instagram if you’re targeting the younger generations?

Also, if you are going to target younger advisors then the website should prominently display resources and content that apply to younger advisors specifically. How about a blog post entitled, “What a Roth IRA and Ariana Grande have in common”? Just an idea…

Gene Diedrich of Moneta Group

His fashion sense

He should bring out those baby blue eyes more! Very sharp dresser but let’s bring out those dazzlers instead of hiding them with the same old black or charcoal get up.

Try the blue suit and white shirt with burgundy, brown, or pink tie combination.

How his fashion style reflects the brand

Moneta Group is a pretty standard RIA brand. They could use a shiny jewel, something to brighten things up a bit.

Where I think the firm is headed

Where the rest of the industry big shots are scaling and digitizing, Moneta seems to be sticking to the traditional high touch approach with their “family CFO” service. Although I have my issues with this terminology, in theory it’s a good play as long as they can convince people to pay for it.

To pull this off they’d be best served to target clients with at least $5 million – focus on the bigger clients and let the rest of the industry take the smaller ones.

#1 suggestion for their marketing

One thing that stands out on their website is the claim that their family CFO client-to-advisor ratio is 48-to-1, nearly half the industry average. If this is true and there is that drastic a difference, then bring that further than the numbers. What evidence is there of the impact on the client experience? Share stories, experiences, etc. and talk about it in human terms.

Also, Moneta should more clearly address the fact that, although the firm is an RIA, many of their IARs are licensed to accept insurance commissions. Instead of footnoting that, why not make it clear and state what the advantages are to the client? For example if it’s just so that clients don’t have to deal with another advisor to get term insurance then that is clearly a benefit. If it’s because your reps are consistently selling whole life insurance as opposed to putting the client into Vanguard ETFs, that’s another thing.

Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments

Yes Ken, I know you stepped down as CEO but the firm still bares your name and everyone still associates it with you. It’s my article so I can bend the rules.

His fashion sense

I love how Ken Fisher frequently appears wearing a yellow patterned tie. It’s rare for someone to pull off either a yellow or a patterned tie effectively, but he has managed to do both simultaneously and it works.

Who’s your personal shopper, Ken? Send me his or her business card!

How his fashion style reflects the brand

A technically intriguing fashion motif for the leader of a brainy sort of investment firm.

Where I think the firm is headed

They were the first to triumph the idea of being a fee-only fiduciary and bash the annuity game. The question is, how can they sustain this first-mover advantage in a world where investment advice is quickly becoming commoditized?

Competition is increasing for this brand. Can you climb up the spout again or will the rain wash the spider out?

#1 suggestion for their marketing

I like the use of YouTube videos – this is an area where most financial firms do not go. Good idea to get there first. But why are the views so low? I mean we’re talking a couple thousand views per clip where it should be in the hundreds of thousands.

Why are you not killing it on YouTube? I mean, my personal YouTube channel has more followers than Fisher’s. Huh?

Try applying some sponsored direct advertising to them, altering the format to include a more engaging intro/outro, and keeping the length to under two minutes.

I know, I know, you don’t care about the millennials if they’re not your clients’ kids and the Boomers don’t watch YouTube…or do they? I’ve seen random advisors with no name make a killing on the tube. Why can’t you? You’re a billion dollar investment firm with news appearances galore. You should have YouTube wrapped around your little finger.

YouTube matters. It is a Google product and helps improve your SEO ranking results if your videos rank highly. And video is the way content is going in the future.

Sara’s upshot

If there are any other CEOs reading this that would like me to review your fashion style, please go ahead and send me an email or connect with me via LinkedIn! Maybe someone wants to review my fashion style…

And if you’re not a big RIA firm CEO (yet), come join my membership and I’ll teach you some LinkedIn tactics that’ll get you there.

Sara Grillo, CFA, is a top financial writer with a focus on marketing and branding for investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers. Sara graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature and has an MBA from NYU Stern in quantitative finance.

Read more articles by Sara Grillo