FintekNews is pleased to publish the fourth interview in our new series – #FintechSavvy. The series has a two-fold purpose: 1) To feature ADVISORS who are successfully using financial technology in their practices and profiting from it, and 2) To feature FINTECHS who are helping advisors grow their practices with their unique product offerings.
This week we'd like to introduce you to Christopher Giles of Chalice Wealth Partners, a technology driven financial services company formed to create a cloud-based, best in class advisor services platform delivering a fully integrated suite of products, services, and support critical to running, growing, and managing an advisors’ (member) wealth management business under software-as-a-service (SaaS) membership model through our FinTech platform.
NAME:
Christopher GilesTITLE:
PresidentCOMPANY:
Chalice Financial TechnologyWEB ADDRESS:
www.chalicewealthpartners.com1)
What services does your wealth management firm offer & what is your AUM (if you wish to share the latter)?
Chalice Wealth Partners provides a broad shared services platform to independent wealth advisors nationwide focused on streamlining and growing their businesses. The Chalice Financial Network, enabled through the Chalice Advisor Exchange fintech membership platform, offers access to an independent broker-dealer, a corporate RIA, enterprise services for wealth advisors (e.g. group medical insurance, digital marketing, and outsourced financial management), capital raises and alternative investments, and retirement plan services for small to medium sized businesses.
The Chalice Financial Network is committed to helping advisors with between $50M and $250M in AUM leverage the scale of the network to gain access to technology, programs, and services that drive their business forward and help them create an extraordinary client experience.
The firm’s AUM is $1.2B.
2)
What was the personal motivation for you to join (or launch) your firm? Please share some details if you wish, such as the age of the firm, partner info, location/s, investing emphasis, etc.
I have led advisor technology at two very large broker-dealer/custodians over my career and delivered great technology to advisors. However, these technologies were focused on enabling only core investment/financial planning related processes and not the entirity of an advisor’s business.
The Chalice Financial Network offered me a real, tangible opportunity to tackle something I’d been interested in for years – building a complete fintech platform for wealth advisors. I saw the opportunity of joining Chalice as a way to broaden advisors’ services and truly enable their businesses.
Two concepts are of paramount importance to me: holistic business enablement and advisor adoption. The Chalice Financial Network embraces the breadth of an advisor’s small- to medium-sized business and understands the need for resources and consulting to help advisors derive real, quantified ROI.
In addition to myself, Chalice is headed by Keith Gregg, Anthony Nanula, Derek Bruton and Stephanie Holly. Gregg is Chalice’s chairman and CEO, he is a 30-year industry veteran who uses his experience at institutions like Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network (formally First Union/Wachovia Securities) to assist financial advisors in their process of becoming independent business owners. Nanula, Chalice’s President, has a rich history in leadership positions having served as a New York State Senator, he is also currently a member of a prominent family office in Buffalo, New York. Bruton is Chalice’s managing partner and COO and is also the president of Chalice Wealth Advisors (RIA) and Chalice Capital Partners (Broker/Dealer). Holly serves Chalice as the CFO and president of Chalice Enterprise Solutions, she brings over 12 years of corporate finance experience from LPL Financial as well as a middle-market private equity firm. Our executive suite brings a wealth of experience that is instrumental in serving our advisors and their clients.
3)
What is the average age/gender/financial demos/social composition/geographical location of your client base?
Chalice’s advisors typically have between $50M and $250M in AUM; however, because we provide advisors with a wide breadth of opportunities and services, this advisor base is quite diverse. Advisors interested in using Chalice have the option to use our capabilities to expand their current RIA’s service offerings, launch a new RIA built out with Chalice’s technology, or join our RIA, Chalice Wealth Advisors. We specialize in serving independent advisors who are looking to tap into our full suite of technology capabilities. Many advisors that we serve are breakaways from traditional wirehouses who are looking to transition to a fee-based business model. Our advisors serve more than 30,000 clients covering a broad spectrum of age, gender, geographical, and financial/social demographical segments.