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Financial Planning > UHNW Client Services

What Comes After the CFP? This Industry Group Offers an Answer

By Timothy Welsh

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What You Need to Know

  • After a 2017 rebrand, IWI says it's seeing high demand for its advanced advisor certifications.
  • At the group's conference, a panel discussed how AI is affecting firms' tech spending.
  • AI could have a positive influence on geopolitics, Ian Bremmer said at the gathering.

While most industry associations in the wealth space have been struggling to maintain their advisor memberships, a clear outlier is the Investments and Wealth Institute.

Now boasting more than 21,000 members, IWI is seeing high demand among financial advisors focusing on the high-net-worth investor segment for its advanced programs, which include paths to be a Certified Private Wealth Advisor, Certified Investment Management Analyst  and Retirement Management Advisor.

Once known as the Investment Management Consultants Association, with roots in the wirehouse firms, the IWI has been on a tear since rebranding itself in 2017 and establishing itself as the next step for professionals to take after obtaining status as a CFP and/or CFA.

“Our No. 1 initiative is to help serve those practices focusing on HNW investors,” said Sean Walters, the organization’s longtime CEO. “These advisor teams are seeking advanced content and education to help them better serve their clients, which is a key area that we have invested in through our tiered membership approach, massive content library, and highly desirable, advanced certifications.”

IWI has been aggressively expanding its membership base outside of the traditional wirehouses and asset managers, to encompass independent advisors.

“Over half of our membership is now independent, with much of that growth coming from our CPWA designation,” Walters noted.

He points to several large broker-dealers, both traditional and independent, that are investing in providing advanced training and education from IWI to raise their advisors’ competency and skill levels to better serve the more high-net-worth segment.

Particularly now that the baby boomers are retiring in record numbers, the recent IWI Experience conference focused on advanced wealth planning issues, such as retirement income planning.

“The biggest investment anyone will make in their lives is retirement,” noted Joe Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab. “As a result, clients heading into retirement need to be supported with a team of both investment, tax and financial planning experts to make it all work.”

Accordingly, IWI is seeing strong growth in its Retirement Management Advisor certification, with a majority of that interest coming from the RIA segment.

“The RMA and CPWA certifications are a great supplement to general financial planning designations, as they cover so much more of the complexities in wealth management and retirement planning than those other designations don’t really delve into,” one advisor told me at the Las Vegas conference. “To be competitive today as advisors, we really need to have that advanced training and knowledge.”

Tech Tradeoffs

Another key topic area at IWI Experience was technology. A panel discussion led by Shannon Rosic of Informa included Clayton Chandler, chief data and analytics officer at Osaic, and Rashmi Badwe, chief operating officer for wealth management at TIAA.

These tech pros serving thousands of advisors noted many of the tradeoffs necessary to provide workable solutions.

“There is such diversity across our advisor base, that there is no single tech stack that will work,” Chandler said. “As a result, we need to be very flexible and evolutionary in our approach.”

Badwe agreed.

“We find that our best use of our technology budget is in the front office,” she said, “where we can differentiate and really add value vs. investing in the back and middle offices, where those solutions are mostly commoditized.”

Artificial intelligence also plays a key role in how the big wealth firms are investing in new technologies, but it is still early days, Badwe said.

“Generative AI is new,” she said, “so we need to identify the areas to capture potential, yet at the same time, minimize risk.”

According to Chandler, AI is also starting to show up in cybersecurity.

“Cyberattacks have increased over 80% in just the last couple of years,” he said. “It is really becoming an AI arms race as the bad guys also have access to these technologies and new attacks such as ‘AI phishing’ and ‘deep fakes’ are very hard to detect.”

AI Optimism

Along these AI lines, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, provided a compelling keynote address on the state of the world.

“AI is driving globalization vs. nationalism, which is a very good thing,” he said. “When big technology enhancements appear, they tend to disenfranchise powerful movements, while removing inward focused thinking. This results in a new wave of globalization, diffusing conflicts everywhere.”

In the meantime, Bremmer was concerned about the conflicts happening concurrently around the world, including in Europe, the Middle East and also in the United States, as the nation remains divided on so many fronts. Despite this doom and gloom, Bremmer was optimistic about U.S.-China relations as communications have become more frequent, leading to a more cooperative environment. 

Throughout the conference, it was very apparent that IWI is feeling its momentum, growth and success by taking advantage of the Las Vegas location and the total solar eclipse happening during the event. Attendees enjoyed several eclipse-themed receptions, with IWI welcoming everyone inside the Sphere, the music and entertainment venue, for its opening night celebration.

(Credit: Adobe Stock)

Timothy Welsh

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