The Insights of In-Person Talks

‘I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”—Socrates

Investment Advisor has been awarding Broker-Dealer of the Year honors for 25 years now, carefully encouraging and gathering (and performing due diligence on, under the careful eye of Research Editor Liana Roberts) votes from the reps of independent broker-dealers who rate their own BDs on a number of specific topics. Those broker-dealers who get the highest ratings from the legitimate votes of their actual reps win Broker-Dealer of the Year in four categories, based on the size of each BD (so small BDs compete with each other; larger ones with their peers, and so on).

For nine years now, the editors of Investment Advisor (this year, myself and Executive Managing Editor Danielle Andrus) have hosted an annual meeting of the leaders of the winning firms. We look back at where their firms and the industry have come from, and we look ahead to where they’re going. We talk about technology and recruiting. They lament about the state of compliance and the tendency of regulators to go after the deepest-pocketed parties in arbitration cases. We assess the benefits and drawbacks of alternative investments or private placements. We talk about where the next generation of advisors will come from and how well they’re doing in attracting younger people to the profession.

The last two years, the in-person conversation has been built around different scenarios that we present as highly likely and ask how each leader would respond. For example: a former rep leaves your firm and starts bad-mouthing your broker-dealer in the press and on social media. How do you respond? In kind? In public?

In addition to talking as a group, we conduct individual video interviews (you’ll be able to view them on ThinkAdvisor.com in September) and do individual and group still photo sessions. Thankfully, our esteemed Art Director Chris Nicholls was present in Chicago to help direct the photo shoots.