By Vasyl Solushchuk/Insart

Site: www.jemstep.com
Significant dates: 2008—Silicon Valley-based firm Jemstep was founded2016—Jemstep was acquired by Invesco Ltd.
Clients: Banks, credit unions, broker-dealers, insurers and RIAs
Value proposition: To assist firms and their advisors in growing and serving clients through an integrated digital platform that enhances advisor engagement with clients and prospects.
The executive team: Simon Roy, President and CEO Bryan Perryman, COO, Jemstep and Head of Digital Strategy, Invesco Suresh Iyengar, VP of Sales Matthew Rennie, VP of Engineering Mark Richards, VP of Products Marla Sofer, VP of Strategic Partnerships Jennifer Valdez, VP of Client Services Cliff Schoeman, Director, Investment Solutions

Established in 2008, Jemstep is one of the first companies to offer a digital platform focused on helping advisory firms and their advisors deliver quality digital advice to clients. Its platform, Jemstep Advisor Pro, is an innovative technology that enhances the way financial advisors run their business. It allows them to service current clients and prospect for others more efficiently by using the latest digital technology to deliver valued financial advice.

I had a chance to talk to

Simon Roy

and

Matthew Rennie

about Jemstep and its offerings.

Simon Roy is President and CEO of Jemstep, responsible for overall business strategy and management. In this role, he has direct responsibility for functions including strategy, corporate and business development, sales, services and investment systems.

He has a strong background in the FinTech space. Having earned his MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined McKinsey where he worked with financial services and technology firms completing projects with wirehouses, money center banks, and insurance companies. For over 22 years, Simon has been focusing on technology firms, including building an early internet analytics firm.

Matthew Rennie is VP of Engineering at Jemstep, responsible for managing teams who develop sophisticated computer applications, forecasting tools, and statistical modeling systems that support investment decision-making. Prior to joining Jemstep, he was Director of Engineering at IT Platforms where he led an international engineering team developing specialized business systems.

He has a strong technical background and earned a Master of Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and Bachelor of Information Technology from Bond University in Australia. Matthew has worked in various verticals, ranging from electronic billing to wealth and enterprise resource planning software.

Value proposition: Experience and understanding

Jemstep is a dedicated B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) service provider. The firm helps banks, credit unions, broker-dealers, insurance companies, and RIAs better connect with their clients by bringing quality advice to a wide base of investors.

The company focuses on building a world-class digital advice platform, and expanding its capabilities on behalf of three constituents:

  • Advisor: “An advisor is the individual serving the investor, and helping add value to that investor, with the support of the technology.
  • Home office: “It is critical for us to help home offices grow robust businesses, while reducing their cost to serve clients and maintaining compliance.
  • Investor: “Ensuring the investor is well served is the true north for us.

Simon says that Jemstep brings deep experience in adding value to the consumer.

“Part of the value we bring to our customers is an understanding of how to have a goal-based financial conversation online with the end investor, and ensuring that our platform not only supports the investor, but also helps them access the advisory service by easily transitioning into an AUM-based client.”—

Simon

He feels that such experience was learned through Jemstep’s initial business as a direct-to-consumer provider, and subsequently strengthened through investment in understanding the ways in which banks, insurance companies, and their advisors work, and the systems and processes that are applied to support them.

“You can think of Jemstep as providing a highway that enables advisors and their clients to get from Point A to Point B. Point A being the initial offerings and discovery conversation, and Point B is ultimately the point where that client is a happy consumer of the advice and the investment-management services that the business provides.”—

Simon

Jemstep Advisor Pro is an innovative technology that enhances the way advisors connect with their clients and prospects. The platform allows advisory firms to configure the Jemstep service to ensure that the firm’s value proposition is clearly conveyed. For example, the mix of digital and human advice can be configured by client tier and investment models can be designed to differ by client segment. Open investment architecture allows home offices and advisors the flexibility to use their own asset allocation models — providing access to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and other investment vehicles. Home offices and advisors also can choose from a range of available asset allocation models curated by industry-leading investment managers, like Invesco.

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