The Five Drivers of Future-Ready Wealth Management Firms with Jeffrey Levi and Rafael Couto

Jack Sharry: Hello, everyone. It’s great to have you aboard this week’s edition of WealthTech on Deck. Thanks for joining the conversation. As our listeners know, I have the privilege of speaking with people from all corners of the wealth management space. I speak with wealth, annuity, and asset management executives on what they are seeing, working on, and where they are trying to go. With platform and technology leaders, we discuss what they are building and refining, where they’re innovating, where they are finding challenges, and where they are enjoying success. And with researchers and consultants, I like to hear what they’re seeing in the data and what they’re hearing in the many discussions they have with folks on all of the above lists I just mentioned. Today we’re speaking with Jeff Levi and Rafael Couto. Jeff is a principal at Deloitte Casey Quirk and the head of strategy for financial services. Jeff advises wealth and asset managers on a wide range of complex strategic challenges. His focus includes strategic planning and business plan development, growth strategy, operating model strategy and transformation, building next generation investment engines, and more. Jeff also manages thought leadership across consulting issues in addition to his leadership role within the investment management sector where he leads research on issues such as private credit, alternative investments, and winning wealth and asset management investment strategies. Rafael is a leader with Deloitte’s retirement and wealth management practice. Rafael’s efforts include assisting wealth managers and retirement providers with large technology and operations transformation initiatives to help them increase their efficiency and better serve their internal and external stakeholders. He is closely involved with the work firms are doing in the convergence of workplace and wealth management. We will hear from Jeff and Rafael today. They conducted research on the future of financial advice, my favorite topic, and are writing a white paper focused on key areas that will drive growth in the next decade in wealth management. For today’s episode, Jeff, Rafael, and I are going to kick it around, discuss their research. I’m going to ask some probing questions. I can feel them coming. We’ll also have a conversation on their findings and where they see the wealth management business headed. Jeff and Rafael, welcome to WealthTech on Deck. Great to have you here.

Rafael Couto: Thanks, Jack.

Jeff Levi: Thank you.

Jack Sharry: So first, Jeff, if you would, thanks for being on the podcast. Also, thank you for sharing the overview of your research findings with me just a little bit ago. Let’s start with you telling our audience. What was the motivation for the study? Who were the kind of folks you were talking to about as part of the research and what were you hoping to find?

Jeff Levi: Yeah, Jack, and thank you for having us. Really excited to be here chatting with you. Look, in our advisory work, we’re seeing a widening gap in performance, growth, advisor and client experience, and the overall marketplace feedback across different wealth platforms. Some firms are winning, some firms are clearly more stagnant, and in some cases, some firms are starting to decay. And we really wanted to dig into what’s driving this, what’s driving that divergence, why are some firms really separating themselves and separating their business and their experience, what are they investing in, how are they evolving? And so we started actually with a very quantitative approach. We looked at what groups of firms were outperforming over an extended period of time, and then dug into what are the drivers behind that. Really looking to understand are there certain factors that seem to be contributing more than others. And does it vary by business model? Does it vary by channel? Does it vary by business type? And then we use that to go have a number of conversations with CEOs, COOs, heads of digital experience. We spoke to some advisors and RMs. We spoke to a range of technology providers, including TAMPs and other service providers, and use that to confirm, validate, and evolve our thinking. And that’s really what led to the conversation we’re going to have today is about the thought piece. We’re still developing it. It’s not done. But it’s at a point where we feel pretty excited about the findings we’ve come to today.

Jack Sharry: Yeah, I was quite intrigued. Tell me a little bit more about the kind of folks you spoke to. Where do they reside in the ecosphere of what we all do?

Jeff Levi: Yeah, look, so I mean, we talked to folks who lead some of the largest broker dealers and some of the largest wirehouses. We spoke to a number of folks at independent broker dealers. Again, senior leadership in a number of functions. We talked to RIAs, we talked to TAMPs, we talked to a number of the technology providers and fintechs, everything from some of those providing kind of investment order management type technology to financial planning technology. So it really was a wide range of leadership across the industry, probably upwards of 50+ conversations in addition to the quantitative research that we did.

Jack Sharry: Yeah, I mentioned to you guys as we were getting ready that I attended the Tiburon Conference in Boston. And a lot of your findings are consistent with what I was hearing there, not only up on stage. I know you had a colleague that spoke at the conference and then also from Chip Roame, who always gives his sort of State of the Union or whatever, State of the Wealth Management business address. And he was saying a lot of the same stuff. Clearly the big topic take away, at least from where I sat, I think you couldn’t have missed it, is people are struggling with organic growth as markets get choppier and as M&A will continue. But is that all stripped away… really what it comes down to, can you grow your business? And we’ll get into a whole lot more around that. So, Rafa, let’s get into some of the findings. A key finding was there are a few firms who have differentiated their businesses by developing some critical capabilities. Perhaps even more importantly, they have figured out the importance of coordinating all of those various activities and having them work together. As a result, they are growing at a faster clip than others. We heard that in the data over the past couple of days. It also looks like there are four measurable ways those capabilities are playing out that contribute to their differentiation and their leadership position. With an important fifth cultural component that you observed, I was intrigued by that. I want to hear more in a little bit. But fill us in. What are those five key areas of attention?

Rafael Couto: Yeah, that’s right, Jack. And it makes it even more interesting when you think about the information you just shared, right? The industry doesn’t have a lot of organic growth, and yet we could clearly see some firms separating from the others and experiencing some accelerated growth. So when we looked at the characteristics of those that are growing faster, we really see that they were shaping their services around financial advice and having that at the center of the journey. And the way they do that follows those four measurable components and the fifth one that it is very interesting. But the first one is that anticipatory investor experience, you know, an experience that is intuitive, it is consistent, and it is personalized. And you see a lot of these firms starting to kind of leverage data and infrastructure to anticipate what the client needs and provide valuable and relevant advice right when the client needs it. So that’s one, that’s very important. Then to complement that, they have a very seamless advisor experience, one that focuses in reducing administrative work for the advisors. I think we know how much advisors get encumbered with performing activities that distract them from serving their clients. So the more it can provide them tools and resources that allow them to spend time working with their clients, it improves your chances of bringing in talent and leading to growth. Then the next one, I think is one that is evolving a lot recently, which is the holistic product and service offering. And that goes in two ways. One, it includes the investment products themselves with alternatives, with the different account structures that are out there. But in addition to that, also understanding when you really think holistically, you’re looking at the client’s financials in general. So you’re looking at investments, you’re looking at the entire balance sheet with insurance, you’re looking at banking, you’re looking at lending and all aspects that a client needs to manage when they are thinking about their finances in general. And that’s all powered by the next one, which is an end to end core wealth platform. I think, Jack, we all know how many firms have bifurcated systems and very cumbersome experiences. So having a platform that really powers that client and advisor experience in a way that delivers that holistic advice at scale that you can really hit a lot of clients in the way that they want to be served is really critical. And then I come to the fifth point, which we observed and find very interesting and we call it tightly knit transformation DNA. And Jack, I think you will remember a lot of good ideas that fail because of bad execution. And what we noticed on those companies that really separated from the others in leading growth is that natural culture at their organizations of executing change successfully. So there are executives that understand the change, they are tech savvy, and they are supported by very strong change management teams that can adapt and take their capabilities where the market is demanding. So that cultural aspect is something that we found really critical for these firms to be successful.

Jack Sharry: Yeah, we’ll come back to that. I want to pursue that a little bit more. But in the meantime, these five areas that you described, Rafael, how do those play out in the different channels? Private bank and trust, direct to consumer, RIA, wires. Talk a little about that because each place is a, each category, each channel is a different, whole different world. So talk a little bit about what some of the leading capabilities you see at some of the firms that really stand out.

Rafael Couto: Yeah, so naturally when we look at the different channels and channels we talk about, know, private bank, direct to consumer, RIAs, and all of those, those things that I mentioned, they have different importance depending on the business. So when you think about client experience for private banks and trusts and direct to consumers, it was really important, maybe not as important for others. Now, when you think about advisor experience, you think about the broker dealers and how critical that is for them. So we noticed some of those being more important than others, but the one factor that was true, regardless of the channel, including RIAs and all of that, was this tightly knit transformative DNA. It’s being able to observe the market, understand, and then shift and bring your capabilities to provide what the market is looking for.

Jack Sharry: So Jeff, let me have you help Rafa and I understand this, I love the name, transformation DNA. So I think I get it. I think I understand it. I know some people that are true leaders that are making that happen at various firms where this is, I’m sure at the top of your list of firms you’ve analyzed and perhaps call out in the paper. Please share with the audience if you would about the attributes of these firms. Talk a little bit about how that plays out on this concept of transformation DNA.

Jeff Levi: Yeah, thanks, Jack. And I’m going to rewind a second and double back on something Rafael said, and then I’m going to answer that question if all right. So I think when we look at the different groups of wealth firms in the different channels, you definitely see distinctions in a backward looking manner. But the reality is we’re seeing a lot of convergence across these channels and a lot of energy to basically break down the silos. And I think that’s one of the big drivers of change across our industry is that the silos are artificial, right? They’re driven by regulatory bodies, they’re driven by different structures that we’ve created within our financial system and within financial walls that to the end client don’t really matter. And as end clients start to vote more with their wallet and with their finances, we’re seeing a lot of these channel lines start to fall down. And I think that’s a big theme we’re going to come back to throughout this conversation is we can all imagine a future state where the channels are really just a construct for organizing businesses and licensures versus something that really matters to the end client. And so to take that then into this transformation DNA, right? Big picture, like we have a lot of smart people in this industry. It’s not debated. There’s a lot of people thinking about really interesting topics and who actually have really good ideas about where they need to go and where they need to take the business. So we’re not short on vision, if you will. But what we tend to fall down is on execution. And I think we’ve seen we’ve seen the wealth space lean much more heavily into data and technology as a central theme of how we drive competitive advantage, how we drive all the facets that Rafael just described in terms of advisor experience, client experience, how we do investments, how we run our business. And that shifts the problem from being able to say, I need to change, I’m going to throw more bodies at it, which is the old mindset, to now I have to undergo a large scale transformation act to put in place change management. I have to rethink how I operate. And by the way, I might not see real results for 18 months or two years. And so it’s a very different dynamic. And I can’t tell you the number of executives I’ve had a conversation with about this kind of program who say, look, that’s a career ending transformation program. I have no interest in going down it. And so when we use the phrase transformation DNA, we’re really looking at those leaders who actually embrace that kind of change, right? Who are willing to tackle the really, really hard questions. They’re decisive. They’re tech savvy, to the point Rafael made. They have highly skilled execution capabilities, and they really embrace change management through and through. They understand what it takes not just to do the change, but to actually drive adoption and to get people to change the behavior. They tend to focus on an end-to-end approach. So we’re not focused just on little narrow changes and hoping that some of the parts create something great, but we actually have a vision for how the whole end-to-end framework fits together. And we might not tackle it all at once, but there’s a view that if we do tackle all the pieces, it’s going to fit together and create something really, really great. And critically, they’ve put in place strong management systems with dynamic KPIs to actually measure progress, to manage the change, to get people excited and motivated and to rally the troops. And that’s truly the difference in terms of where we see leaders and firms who are able to drive these kinds of large changes within their business and those who sort of muddle along.

Jack Sharry: Yep. I have a personal experience of this, I recently went through a planning process and shifted assets to a particular firm because of frankly all the capabilities they had who have embraced what you just said. I’m sure, I know it’s a leader among the firms that you studied. And it ain’t easy because I was just on a call earlier today with the mortgage situation for buying a new home and going through that process. And that’s different than what we did on the financial planning and our own little creation of a UMH type structure and all the stuff that we are working on and we got an estate plan thing that’s on our to-do list and it’s all there. I can see that as a firm, this is somewhat uncharted territory. They’re definitely going that way. This is what they’ve been talking about for a long time. They’re doing it. So Rafael, talk a little bit about the practical reality of what I just described. What I described is where they’re going. They’re not all the way there yet. They’re I think further ahead the most, but they’re clearly committed to it. And that’s, think people are buying into it, namely the advisors and then the people that are doing the day to day of the firm. So talk a little about that in your research, what you found in terms of creating this holistic experience. It’s no small undertaking for sure.

Rafael Couto: Absolutely, Jack, they are in progress. And Jeff talked about how a lot of these firms are looking to break the silos, simplify their operating model, and bring more of those services together. Something we’re seeing is a lot of these firms have almost aligned on a similar segmentation structure on how you serve clients of different wealth thresholds. And then the differentiation is coming within, right? On how you service each of those segments. In fact, Jeff and I are having conversations with an executive that I know you know really well, Jack, who is looking for ways to improve the quality and consistency of advice. And when you put that advice that really needs to think about their cash flows, their banking needs, and how they interface with the organization in general, it requires a lot of the things that we talked about here. You have to have data available to power that analysis and help the advisor plan their day. You know, what are the clients really trying to accomplish from their goals? What they’re doing in their day to day, you look at their expenses, you look at their credit cards, you look at how they’re paying loans, where they’re spending their money. And you start to build a profile of the client based on the goals that they articulated to you with their own words, their own language. And then you create very specific advice to them. That’s where that personalization comes from, is we’re looking at the data, the behaviors, what the clients are doing and providing them something that is on time, that is relevant, that is good for them. And firms are at different stages in this journey. Some are a little further along, others not so much. And I think what you said, Jack, everyone recognizes the difficulty of bringing together processes, people, platforms, data. It’s a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done in an intentional way. Sometimes we see kind of standalone initiatives that don’t kind of form into a whole. So really when you’re thinking about the end objective and how that impacts the journey that you want to offer to your clients, it’s really when you start to design all those different solutions and how the advice becomes really powerful and helps you strengthen the relationship that you have with your clients.

Jack Sharry: So Jeff, I’m going to ask you a question around this, but again, I’ll just personalize the experience. Because what I found, it’s sort of funny to be on the client side of the table, talking about my wife’s and my goals and our family and our children and grandchildren and where we want to live. All of our questions have little to do with investments, other than we want to have those managed in an appropriate risk appropriate and tax smart way. That was a big, in terms of our priorities, taxes were huge, as they should be. And so we had that whole conversation. It was sort of funny to watch. It was, the advisors were very, good. It was a great team. That was another thing. We wanted a team that could support our efforts from an administrative standpoint, just dealing with all the stuff you got to deal with. We’re at a stage in life where things are just more complex, seems. Wealth management is complex. And what was sort of interesting is they, it was clear the advisor and he had a financial planning specialist that was part of the team. Super sharp young guy, this great administrator that would probably the hero of the whole thing. You know, just helped us get through all the, we transferred assets and all the stuff that goes on there. It’s a pain in the neck. But what was interesting is that they were like, they couldn’t wait to talk about investments. And I said, you know, I’m a set it and forget it guy. We’re going to buy models. I want you to buy them really inexpensively because I know you don’t have to spend a lot of money for this stuff. And I said taxes are all that matter. And so our whole conversation was around the tax management aspect as opposed to the asset management. I, to me, it’s a commodity, it’s just the way I look at things, but I’d love to hear from you, Jeff. So that happens to be my situation. And then there’s a million other clients that have their situations, all of which are a different set of circumstances. So if you’re a leader of an organization, how do you pull that together? How do you win at that in terms of the business. Talk a little about some of the findings around how you pull it all together from a leadership standpoint.

Jeff Levi: Yeah, look, and we started this conversation by talking about organic growth slowing and that being one of the key challenges in our industry. And I think that that ties together, Jack, to this question. I think at the end of the day, we’re seeing a shift in how trust is built and trust is formed between individuals and their advisors or their wealth managers. And the industry is still operating under an old model of trust, which is things need to be done in person, things need to be done in office. Investments is the center of our universe. I mean, we can define it in whatever manner you need to or you want to. And we’re starting to see a pivot. It’s not a pivot for every individual and every investor. It’s happening at different speeds, depending on age, demographics, attitude toward technology, attitude toward different types of advice, goals, objectives, all those things. But at the end of the day, if you believe trust is built as a combination of credibility, reliability, the ability to have an intimate conversation, self-orientation, some of these core kind of trusted advisor type ingredients, then I would argue a lot of the success characteristics Raphael described and that I described that we found in the paper are actually models of really enhancing and deepening that trust. So good CEOs, good leaders, appreciate at the end of the day what their end clients are seeking. They appreciate what their biggest producers are seeking, whether it’s their advisors or their RMs, you know, it really depends on their business model. And they look to create the capabilities and the tools that deliver a unique, compelling experience to the clients. They arm the front line to deliver that as well. So it doesn’t have to be direct, but it has to be able to meet the clients where the clients want to be met in the way they want to be met. And it brings the advice in a very digestible, timely manner. So, being able to really orchestrate it around big life events or big meaningful moments that matter to actually deliver. I think, I think it’s the CEO’s job to orchestrate the platform to be able to do that. And that’s why we’re seeing a lot of reviews in terms of the capabilities businesses have internally. We’re seeing a lot of M&A right now. You called that out, which is, it speaks to both the importance of scale, right? For us to be able to deliver this, we need to have a bigger platform, a bigger asset base, a larger set of people in the field, but we also need to have an engine that can do it in a way that creates more consistency and maintains personalization. And so I think we’re seeing a pretty big pivot in how a lot of people think about this. And to kind of take it a step further, we’re seeing a lot of recognition from investors, from PE shops and from other institutional investors to say, actually, we view this as a really important part of the future growth, not just organic growth, but also capital markets related growth, and are willing to put real money behind it to help transform this historically fragmented and somewhat antiquated business model.

Jack Sharry: So it’s interesting, I’ve had conversations with leaders at big wirehouses, big RIA firms, two of the biggest were at the conference and had talked to the CEOs of those two firms that are brand names you know. And one things that I find as I look at your list of investor experience, advisor experience, product and service offering, with all due respect, those are important, very important, kind of table stakes. I’m not sure how differentiated you’re going to be on all that. A little bit maybe on the experience side, but certainly on product and service, everybody’s got the same stuff, so I’m not sure how differentiated that is, but you got to have it. I grant that. But when you get to the core wealth platform and the transformation DNA as you’ve depicted it, I’d love to hear from you guys on this, seems to me that’s where the point of differentiation occurs. And I talked to one of these top, one of the I think number one, RIA firm in our industry, he received an award at Tiburon. And as we chatted afterwards, I described some of the things we do in my world. And he says, that’s our number one priority is how to build a UMH. How do I build an end-to-end system? And I said, well, that’s what we do. And we’re talking. We’ll see where that goes. But point of all that is that, and I was not at all surprised because hearing him talk about his career and how he built the company, and it really is a bootstrap story, a very impressive bootstrap story. But it was clearly, it’s the combination, I think, of understanding the core wealth platform has to be in place for that consistency you talked about. And then also the transformational DNA, other words, making sure that it all comes together because this stuff is not, that’s the hardest part, I think. But either of you gentlemen want to weigh in on that?

Jeff Levi: Yeah, I’m happy to. So look, I think at the heart of it, all of these factors are tightly related. And so that’s been kind of one of the challenges of the past models. If we buy the shiny, bright piece of technology or the new capability and we put it in place, we think we’ll get value, but the reality is we don’t because our data is not in order, our wealth technology is fragmented, we don’t bring together brokerage and trust. There’s a whole bunch of reasons that have historically been blockages to be able to deliver that compelling experience and being able to deliver products and services to clients in a seamless, impactful way. And so they’re table stakes on their face. Everybody has them, but the actual delivery is actually quite different. So we’re seeing in our work a significant focus on, call it the core wealth platform. I mean, really, really the, it’s the end to end digital experience and all the things in the middle and back office you need to enable it. And one of the bigger trends right now is the bringing together brokerage and trust capabilities of how do we have a single lens of a client? How do we enable seamless delivery of our full platform to create more holistic advice? So we’re no longer bringing things in a fragmented swivel chair manner that requires lots of logins, different reports, and it can provide a full picture. We’re in the early stages of that evolution in my mind, right? And we’re, I think we’re starting to see some firms emerge with new capabilities. And again, I think there’s a long way to go, but as the world of financial planning, financial advice, financial wellness start to come closer together as retirement converges with wealth, as asset management converges with wealth, as advice becomes more central to retail banking and consumer banking, this is the tip of the spear for a much broader set of changes that are going to likely allow people to have a much more intimate perspective on kind of where they stand, where should they focus, what do they need to do, how do they think about longevity and health, how do they think about fill in the blank to get that more complete picture. But our industry moves really slow and there’s a lot of impediments to getting to that end state and I think that’s a lot of what we’re talking about here is how do you put in place the right DNA to not have to wait another 20 years to get to that next step function change? Because if you wait, somebody’s gonna come ahead of you and disrupt and it’ll probably be a firm coming at it from the fields and something that’s a bit unexpected.

Rafael Couto: I just wanted to highlight a little bit the end-to-end component of this. It tends to be a little bit overused term. We kind of just throw in end-to-end and make things sound interesting. But I do see here this being very relevant because we have seen in the recent past, a lot of firms invest in their digital experience and build very shiny dashboards, pretty looks and views and tools for the front end to look at. And not a lot of investments in the middle and back office. So when you think about the quality of your transactions, the quality of the data that you get, you know, the processing of all of these things in coordination, Jack, it’s a lot of what you have experienced in the past many years. It’s coordination across the different things. You really fall short. So yes, you have a pretty dashboard, a shiny tool. But what you’re really delivering and the value of what you bring to the client is not really coordinated, it’s not synchronized, it’s not really thinking about the taxes, it’s not thinking about the different investments, where you put each of those things. So when we say end to end, it is really looking about, yes, it is what you put in front of the client, it matters. But then you have to think about all the way down to the operational component and how do you bring everything really together so that the value that you bring to the client is what really makes you win in the market. So I do think that end-to-end has a meaningful position here.

Jack Sharry: Well, we’ve talked about this, Rafa. This is… I couldn’t agree with you more. An interesting situation, we have a particular client very big on financial planning. As you well know, financial planning is a multi-account exercise. They’re developing a UMA platform capability. As you know, that’s a single account solution. And then they built a multi-account retirement income optimization program. So you go from multi-account to single account to multi-account. That’s not end to end. That is just three functions that are not terribly well coordinated and they’re struggling with it. And I’m not picking on them because I know that’s true of everyone or just about everyone, not everyone. Just there’s a few that have figured it out, but not many. And the thing I’m seeing, we’ve been around this whole UMH conversation for over 16 years and the conversation is heating up. People are recognizing, but they also are coming to the grips with the fact that it’s hard. It’s just hard to do. You know, it’s just not, not easy, but in the spirit of keeping us to a half an hour, we’ve covered a lot of ground here, really fascinating stuff. Anything we haven’t, you guys haven’t talked about that we want to make sure our audience hears before we start to bid adieu.

Jeff Levi: So look, overall, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but the topics that are threads through a lot of this is that the way work is conducted with organizations is going through a radical change. I know you’ve had people come on and talk about gen AI and AI. We’ve had people come on and talk about the use of global capability centers, the role of outsourcing, right? These are all factors that are really reshaping how work is conducted. And I think the last five years, there’s been a lot of focus on efficiency and productivity. I think the next five years will actually be focused not just on the facets we talked about, but on actually rearranging how work is done in firms. And that’s going to open up a whole set of new opportunities as firms learn how to leverage this broader toolkit, learn how to leverage resources in other geographies at lower costs, learn how to leverage better technologies. And so a lot of the changes we’re talking about are in somewhat isolation, but the reality is there’s a surge of change coming at the business that I think will enable a lot of new opportunities and I’m super excited about the prospects that that puts in front of us.

Jack Sharry: Rafa, anything you want to add to that? I agree with everything you just said, Jeff.

Rafael Couto: Yeah, I think interesting, a lot of the conversations that we’re having really touch on that. How do I do this differently? How do I leverage newer technology? Everyone wants to know where the industry is going and how they’re leveraging is all new. And I can only imagine that in very few years, everything is going to be done very differently. But the value proposition, I think, remains valid. So there is what you do and how you do it. The firms need to pay close attention to the value proposition that they offer and they bring to the market. And then how you deliver is a question that will constantly evolve.

Jack Sharry: I’ll add my two cents and where, I’d love to hear if you guys agree or disagree. Personally, I think AI is going to play the role of advisor productivity, firm productivity, just lot more faster, better, all that, all good. That, nothing bad about it. It’ll enhance the role of the advisor, not hurt them in any way. Plus they’re going to have to manage a lot more accounts. There’s just fewer of them. There’s that. But I also think that, I know there’s only four ways to improve outcome – cost, risk, tax, and Social Security. So if you want to improve outcome. And that’s a function, by the way, or an element of organic growth. And the biggest one is taxes. You’ve to figure that one out. And then the risk, of course, that’s just important because it is. Cost, already our industry has done a pretty good job of lowering costs. That’s going to go lower. It just always does. And then Social Security is one of those things people don’t give much attention to. But it’s free money. It’s a pretty simple solution. Again, back to the original thesis, and really under your transformation DNA, a lot of this is what it’s going to come down to is really how you coordinate and collaborate around the ecosystem. But that’s my statement. What do you guys have to agree, disagree, push back, amplify? What say you?

Jeff Levi: Look, I’d agree. I’d take it a step further and say the ecosystem that exists today is going to look very different in five to 10 years because service providers are all evolving to become technology providers. And we’re seeing massive convergence across servicers, technology firms, clearing and custody firms, TAMPs. You’re seeing a lot of the IBDs say we want to launch platform as a service models to serve other parts of the landscape. And so the value chain is going to be rearranged and that’s going to, that means the economics of the value chain are also going to get redistributed. And so I think we’re in a really interesting paradigm right now where we’re actually going to see some serious movement, which opens up the opportunity for new firms to emerge as leaders, which is really at the heart of the conversation.

Jack Sharry: Yep. That’s great. So, I would ask you for key takeaways, but I think we’ve covered them pretty well, especially given some of the things you highlighted in the, in the paper. So I’m going to, I’m going to skip that, that part of our discussion, but I’m always curious. My favorite part of the podcast is to find out what people do outside of work for fun. Stuff they’re interested in, passionate about. So, Rafa, why don’t you kick it off? What do you do outside of work for fun that people might find it to be interesting or surprising or… fill us in.

Rafael Couto: I’m glad you started with me, Jack. When you hear Jeff’s, mine is not going to be that much interesting. But, so Jack, when I’m not working, most of the time I’m playing with my three-year-old. If I’m not with him, as a good Brazilian, you would expect, I used to be playing soccer a lot. That’s what really brings me joy and passion. Unfortunately, I had a bad knee injury last year and while I’m still recovering, I shifted my attention to reading more about healthy habits and how I can increase my health span. And I’m learning a lot of very interesting things that I never really paid a lot of attention. And they just became, you know, I was like, wow, how did I never think about that? And a lot of us just kind of go, our day to day gets consumed with work and activities. And I’m trying to be more intentional with how I do things in my life and increase my health.

Jack Sharry: So you’re executing on the plan, right?

Rafael Couto: I am. Yeah, it may not be interesting or surprising to many people, but it is for me and how…

Jack Sharry: But it’s healthy, it’s smart.

Rafael Couto: So hopefully I can get back to soccer with a healthy body.

Jeff Levi: So mine might be a unique one for your show, Jack, but I share with Rafa the focus on health. I had some major health issues back in 2020 and so strong focus on health and fitness and all those things. But aside from that, in my free time, I’m a big player of bocce. And we have, we have some guys in my town set up a whole bocce league and we play every Thursday night and it kind of all started back in 2019 when we decided to go for the Guinness World Record of longest bocce marathon, which we, so we played bocce on a court for just over 33 hours and we are, you know, it’s called, the group is called the Ridgefield Eight and we are officially, we still hold the record and we are the official longest bocce marathon record holders.

Jack Sharry: I have to say, Jeff, that one counts as one of our more interesting, I don’t what you would call that, sports, pastimes. That’s great. That’s a lot of fun. I love that. And so you are a Guinness World Record holder?

Jeff Levi: Right now we still hold the record.

Jack Sharry: That’s great. Well, this has been a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. Look forward to the paper when it comes out. I think you’re onto something here. It’s highly consistent with my experiences. I talk to a lot of folks, so I look forward to that. For our audience, thanks for tuning in. As we do with all of our podcasts, if you find what we have to say here interesting, please review, subscribe, and share what we’re doing here at WealthTech on Deck. We’re available wherever you get your podcasts. You should also check us out at our dedicated website, wealthtechondeck.com. All of our episodes are there along with articles, perspectives, curated content that comes from many of the leaders, like the gentleman I’m speaking with today, from around our industry. So once again, thanks very much, Jeff and Rafa. Great conversation. Look forward to the next one.

Rafael Couto: Thank you Jack, I enjoyed our conversation as well.

Jeff Levi: Thank you, this was fun.