Jud Bergman: The 2013 IA 25 Extended Profile

In fact, said Bergman, Envestnet is a leader in serving the two main types of advisors. First are those who serve as “quarterbacks for their clients’ investments.” Those advisors, whom Bergman calls “wealth advisors,” will lean on Envestnet to outsource technology and certain administrative tasks, but will avail themselves of Envestnet | PMC and Envestnet | Prima for their research as well. The second group of advisors, he said, is “the portfolio manager business model—larger, higher-end” firms where the advisor serves as “chief investment officer of the practice—selecting funds, securities, SMA managers.” That model of advisor wants help with “more administrative tasks and practice management help.” While he acknowledged that among advisors “there are as many permutations as you can imagine,” he argued that “Tamarac is an ideal solution for that larger RIA who is the chief investment officer” of his or her firm.

Bergman stuck with his previously announced goal of maintaining 20% annual growth for Envestnet, the majority of which is organic growth, but “strategic activity,” such as its acquisitions, “adds to that from time to time.”

Getting back to Envestnet’s primary goal, Bergman said “the fundamental undertaking of Envestnet when we started was to unify and fortify the wealth management process through good technology, and then the necessary services advisors would look for—back office, billing administration—to free advisors up to do their highest value activity—meeting with clients and prospects, and solving investment issues.”

What’s next for Envestnet and the broker-dealer and RIA advisors it serves? Bergman sees a “rapid movement from desktop solutions to fully mobile solutions; we already have advisors using the Envestnet platform with clients through their iPads.” Another example of where Envestnet will remain at the crossroads of what advisors are facing: benchmarking for larger enterprises. “Larger firms are looking to deploy business intelligence—how certain advisors perform against certain benchmarks. We’re seeing increasing requests for benchmarking intelligence.” Bergman said, “Envestnet Intelligence” will help advisors improve their “performance to the end client by having advisors play to their strength, by using different portfolio models within the organization. We’re excited to see how we can help large RIA firms and large broker-dealers with large commitments to the advisory business” with that benchmarking intelligence. Finally, Bergman said Envestnet is looking at new products, including “launching shortly a new product,” called concentrated stock portfolios, “that we think has some important advantages over ETFs.”