Turnkey asset management platform SEI Investments is shaking up the executive leadership of its independent advisory business as it pushes past its TAMP origins to offer more services to RIAs.
Five new managers will lead a reorganization of SEI Independent Advisor Solutions, which provides outsourced investment management, technology and practice management resources for RIAS. Senior vice president Erich Holland will lead distribution and engagement; SVP Stephen Onofrio will head advisor sales and relationship management; J. Womack is managing director of investment products and personalization; Allie Carey is the new managing director of digital experience and collaboration; and managing director John Anderson will oversee practice management.
The addition of the distribution and engagement team will better align IAS with advisors’ business goals and emphasize faster, more impactful customer service, says Holland. The team will also prioritize providing technology that helps advisors collaborate with clients and offering personalized services. The TAMP recently
“Our focus is on putting more tools into advisors’ hands, and putting them there faster, so that they can amplify their advice to even more people,” Holland says.“So that's technology. And now it's content, both for their clients as well as to simplify advisors, business operations, so they can spend more time with their clients and attract new clients,” he says.
Turnkey business support and asset management choice has always been part of SEI’s offering foundation, but now the company will evolve its advisor custody platform to further open up investment choice and automate tasks through a fully-digital interface.
Additionally, SEI has broadened its asset management lineup with a range of ETF strategies, the SEI American Fund Strategies, direct indexing strategies, and a growing separately managed account platform. It’s also doubled-down on its commitment to engaging end-investor content, so advisors can deliver more in their client relationships, according to Holland.
SEI was already rethinking how it could provide better technology to advisors when the pandemic hit. COVID-19 accelerated its timeline due to increased consumer demand in choices, competition and regulations and the need to do things faster, Holland says.
Historically, SEI has developed educational material for investors that advisors can repackage and deliver to clients, or use as lead generation for prospects. Now, IAS has a greater focus on the advisors’ clients’ needs, according to Holland.
“It's still business to business, but with a much deeper lean into how their clients are going to consume what they're delivering. So that we can make sure that we're flexible in terms of what we're enabling advisors to deliver,” he says.
The team’s reorganization doesn’t have anything to do with what wasn’t working per se but rather an expansion on what was, says Holland. But Dennis Gallant, senior analyst for Aite Group, says the restructuring is just SEI’s latest attempt to keep pace with growing competition.
Over the past several years, SEI has attempted to reinvent itself and move away from its TAMP perception. And so while SEI is still a TAMP in the traditional sense, Gallant says the company has expanded by unbundling solutions.
“The firm’s been doing well, but there's a lot of competition out there for advisor assets and for space on the advisors tech stack. And so the firm's had to learn sort of how to be part of that ecosystem now through unbundling, and I think it takes time,” he says.
SEI’s reorganization is also in line with what other wealth managers are doing, especially coming out of the pandemic, according to Gallant.
This greater need for more business development has prompted more firms across the industry to promote model portfolios and investment management consulting to stay competitive, Gallant says.
“You're incorporating more solutions and more capabilities, but at the same time, you're trying to figure out how to also grow your business and be more productive and more efficient,” he says.
