Guest: Ainslie Simmonds, President of Pershing X.
In a Nutshell: For decades, technology has promised productivity boosts that would shorten work weeks and increase leisure time. But despite all the computing power at the heart of a modern financial services tech stack, I don’t think the typical advisor is working any less than he or she was 10 years ago.
Perhaps more importantly, I don’t think tech has freed the typical advisor to focus more of their time on building client relationships and delivering human advice.
Instead, what tech has done is enabled financial advisors to do “more.”
More analysis, more data, more “what ifs,” more scenarios, and more communication.
The fact remains that no technology enables two humans to increase the speed at which they’re having an in-depth conversation.
And ultimately, it’s the human to human conversation that generates the true value in a financial advisor-client relationship.
But we need technology. Technology is a means to an end and Ainslie Simmonds and her team are hard at work at BNY Mellon | Pershing X building an interconnected suite of financial applications that will respond to your most challenging needs, so that you can spend more time focusing on helping your clients thrive and running your business your way.
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Ainslie Simmonds and I discuss:
- How Ainslie Simmonds filters a variety of experiences — including Harvard Business School and stints at Molson Coors, Campbell’s Soup, and LearnVest — into her approach to developing financial advisory tech.
- Balancing a company’s need to innovate with its need to turn those innovations into profit.
- How working in startups gave Ainslie an appreciation for servant leadership.
- Using big goals and aspirational leadership to attract and retain top talent.
- Why Ainslie Simmonds believes successful startups need to harness “the power of velocity.”
- The typical tech challenges that Ainslie Simmonds believes advisors are spending too much time on.
- Ainslie’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to get out in the world and build new things.
