After asking 21 successful advisors and firm owners the same question, one debate stood out first: should young advisors pursue equity immediately, or get experience first?
5 min
ProfessionBuilding the future of financial planning
For advisors, students, and firms investing in what’s to come.
About the author
Jenna Smith, AFC®
Registered Investment Advisor, CFP Candidate
Jenna Smith is a financial planner based in Utah. She writes and speaks about how the profession recruits, develops and retains next-gen talent.
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12 min
ProfessionAdvice from 21 advisors on how to pursue ownership as a young advisor
I asked 21 successful advisors and firm owners one question: if you were 20 again, what would you do to own a firm someday? Here's what they said, debate by debate.
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TalentBuild a Plan. We Want to See How You Think.
After being handed a 70-page case file with only one instruction, I started rethinking how firms train new advisors — and whether we delay the experiences that help them grow the fastest.
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Four questions on our minds
- TalentHelping firms build exceptional advisorsInsights on recruiting, mentorship, leadership, and creating careers where great advisors want to stay.Browse
- NextGenWhat the next generation wantsExploring the careers, cultures, leadership, and opportunities that attract and retain tomorrow’s financial planners.Browse
- TechnologyBetter technology, better advice.How innovation can improve planning without sacrificing the human side of the profession.Browse
- ProfessionThe next generation of ownershipHow client wealth, advisory firms, and leadership are changing hands.Browse
Mission
Financial planning is in the middle of the largest handoff in its history. I write to make that handoff go well. For the advisors leaving, the ones arriving, and the clients who depend on us.
The profession is short on planners and demand is increasing. Most of what has been written about that gap is written by people looking at it from the end of a career. I am looking at it from the beginning, and hoping to add a new perspective to the conversation.
The Future of Planning is where I think in public: what draws students in, what pushes them out, what technology changes and what it never will, and how firms build the kind of place a twenty-two-year-old wants to spend a decade.
Speaking
Speaking detailsConversations about the future of financial planning for students, firms, and industry leaders.
Helping firms win the talent race
What today’s emerging advisors are looking for and how firms can recruit, develop, and retain exceptional people.
Firm owners, hiring managers, recruiters
The first five years set the foundation
The mentorship, responsibility, and growth opportunities that turn new hires into future leaders.
Firm leaders, teams building an associate track
From student to advisor
A practical map of the path into the profession: internships, credentials, conferences and the decisions that compound early.
University programs, student chapters, career centers
Newsletter
A letter on where the profession is going, from a fresh perspective.
New essays, insights, and the occasional research finding. Sent when there is something worth sending.