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The 74 firms that make up InvestmentNews’ Fastest-Growing Fee-Only RIAs of 2024 oversee a combined $212 billion in assets under management (AUM).
None of them receive commissions or are actively engaged in business as broker-dealers, meaning their sole motivation is overseeing clients’ best interests. However, what earned them their prestigious place on the list was their eye-catching three-year growth rate (from July 2021 to July 2024). The average growth rate across all winners was 210.3 percent while the average number of accounts rose to 3,103.
These indicators illustrated how dynamic and driven IN’s winners are, as many outperformed data reported by Schwab’s 2024 RIA Benchmarking Study.
Talent is another focus for growth across the industry.
Schwab’s analysis reveals that over the past five years, roughly three-quarters of firms have hired each year, and that the RIA industry will need to hire 70,000 new advisors and wealth management industry professionals over the next five years to handle growth.
RIAs have faced a series of challenges since 2021, such as:
Cybersecurity/data privacy – bad actors seeking to harvest client data and information
Evolving marketing and advertising rules – SEC guidelines, which became effective in 2023, permitting the use of testimonials, endorsements, and performance advertising but only with strict adherence to disclosure requirements and compliance safeguards
ESG – investors and regulatory bodies intensifying their focus on its role in investment strategies
Latest technologies – upsurge in AI and demands from clients on being able to access their accounts and contact advisors instantly
Interest rates – the highest rates for two decades which only now are beginning to cool
The Investment Adviser Industry Snapshot 2024 also noted key findings on market trends:
Continued growth – The number of advisors climbed for the 12th year in a row to another record high.
Individual investors value fiduciary advice by investment advisors – During the past six years, over 24 million more individuals have engaged an investment advisor for asset management, a 12.8 percent rise per year in the number of individual clients and a 15.1 percent increase in assets managed for those clients per year.
Common among IN’s Fastest-Growing Fee-Only RIAs is a forward-looking strategy emphasizing deliberate and structured growth. According to Schwab’s analysis, this is more prevalent among firms with larger AUM totals and also the top-performing RIAs.
InvestmentNews sat down with George Webb, CEO of Pension & Wealth Management Advisors (PWMA), to understand how the Waltham, MA-based firm has made meteoric strides and earned a spot on IN’s Fastest-Growing Fee-Only RIAs list.
Between 2021 and July 2024, the company’s AUM:
grew by 135.3 percent
reached $301.26 million
However, PWMA has surpassed this and, by the end of 2024, had already reached $475 million AUM. This relentless pace is part of the firm’s seven-year growth plan, which is halfway through.
“Our goal was to scale up from approximately $75 million to $1 billion and we remain right on track,” explains Webb. “We felt that an independent boutique wealth management firm needs to have a minimum of $250 million AUM to have the proper scale to be competitive over the long run. Once we reach our goal, we will ‘soft close’ so that we maintain the same high level of client service and engagement.”
Having a plan is only part of the operation. The execution is what delivers results and determines success or failure. To grow, PWMA has targeted a typical client base of highly educated professionals and business owners who value holistic advice and a long-term investment approach.
Webb says, “We come in every day trying to make the client experience better by constantly looking for ways to enhance operations and do things more efficiently. The more efficiently we can execute basic tasks, the more time we can spend on thinking about value-added solutions for our clients.”
And he continues, “Our investment team has been successful in navigating increasing interest rates with floating rate, credit, and lower duration positioning and have now moved toward being more duration neutral with slightly higher overall quality.”
The rapid rise in AUM has been driven by the average engagement size of clients increasing substantially due to having a team of experienced advisors that can skillfully manage the complexity of those relationships. The remainder has come from existing client referrals and a small acquisition of a quality independent firm where the advisor retired.
Fundamental to PWMA's growth has also been its policy of not requiring advisors to chase clients. This has contributed to the firm's success in recruiting and training advisors from the institutional side of the business.
“We have found them to be very good team players, highly professional, and they come with decades of investment management experience and advanced degrees and certifications,” says Webb. “These highly skilled professionals often have a difficult time transitioning into wealth management because the industry has typically taken the approach of requiring them to have a client base or offering them a success-fee-only arrangement. This places the emphasis entirely on new business generation rather than taking advantage of their real strengths.”
The situation that PWMA has avoided is working with successful investment people who are not natural salespeople.
Webb, who took over as CEO in 2019, adds, “Our referrals have been substantial enough to provide them with a client base to service and grow through the quality of the work they are doing for the clients. Firms are often looking to carve a niche or specialty in this business, but we have always believed that quality professional advice is its own differentiator, and the volume of referrals has validated our approach.”
As part of the firm’s growth plan, PWMA has ensured there is always additional talent to absorb additional capacity, with its employee count going from four to 14 during Webb’s tenure. In addition, the firm practices in teams where clients have a lead and secondary advisor, so every client has multiple contact points.
“I focused on building the backbone of our operational team. You can’t scale a business unless you have high-quality people providing the operational and client service expertise. We hired a head of client service, an assistant to that person, and another mid-level client service person,” says Webb.
Regardless of whether the role is in operations or advisory, PWMA takes between 12 and 18 months to get the person up to full speed.
“We start with a 100-day onboarding plan, and then have weekly mentoring meetings to help move each colleague along their path. As their skills grow, they naturally assume more responsibilities, and when they are fully functional, we conduct formal reviews twice a year and provide both a mid-year and a year-end bonus,” says Webb.
This allows PWMA to pivot and make course corrections during the year rather than waiting for a single annual review. The majority of client interactions flow to the operations and client service teams for reports, cashiering, capital calls, and scheduling meetings, resulting in them being relied upon heavily.
This presents a positive problem for Webb.
“We have to balance keeping them busy, but not too busy so that they overload. We have found that most client service professionals will not want to add another resource until it is too late as they are naturally geared toward working harder to make things work,” he says. “Unfortunately, by the time they say they need some help, it is likely months away before we can hire and train the right resource.”
To combat this, PWMA tries to hire one-half of a full-time employee ahead of the current workload.
Webb shares, “This ensures that we build the infrastructure out ahead of the actual business needs. It is slightly more inefficient, but it provides the capacity to grow while keeping our service standards exceptionally high.”
Having a blueprint for growth and the necessary talent to execute also requires an infrastructure. The firm has invested heavily to drive growth across:
systems
technology
compliance
digital strategy
Webb says, “The digital strategy we have been using has enhanced our ability to communicate and engage with clients, and that has been driving additional business either directly or indirectly by supporting our brand awareness. All these marketing tools and resources are important to invest in and to use intelligently, but the core of the wealth management business is and will always be relational.”
PWMA also launched its own bespoke app, Pension & Wealth Mobile, which allows clients to access the tools, reports, and content most relevant to them.
“The main goal was to help manage the client experience so that they felt we were the service provider rather than custodians. It’s also a channel for clients to request meetings and to easily access basic service information,” Webb says. “It has not been a driver of new business, but it does provide the brand separation and access point for clients, particularly younger ones who do everything on their mobile devices.”
Another investment has been a top-tier client relationship management system with Wealthbox over the past year.
“This has enabled us to develop even more efficient workflows as a team and be more anticipatory in serving our client’s needs,” reveals Webb. “We invested a substantial amount into client dashboards, and advanced planning software, as technology has been important in terms of operational excellence.”
Despite having all this in place, the tech innovations are support elements to the core ethos at PWMA.
“While those investments have helped build a rock solid and scalable business platform, it has not been the main driver of our success,” says Webb. “We need all of those resources to practice at the highest levels, but the most important alchemy to growth has always been the quality of our advice and the trust that our clients have in our relationship.”
The rate of growth at PWMA doesn’t seem to be slowing down. By the first half of 2025, the firm expects to reach $600 million AUM and closer to $700 million by year end.
“All of that is based on our projected organic growth and current opportunities in process. Being an independent RIA allows us to be one of the purest forms of fiduciary because we don’t have any bank, broker-dealer, or insurance company affiliations. We’re not selling our clients anything; we’re perfectly aligned in terms of serving them and if they do well, the firm will do just fine,” adds Webb.
Webb reveals what he sees on the horizon over the next 12 months.
“If you look at equity valuations, there’s no doubt that the markets are not cheap, and they’ve had a nice run up over the last 12 or 18 months. The majority of the appreciation has come in just a handful of stocks at The Magnificent Seven, but that’s started to broaden out, and it’s been a healthier market for clients.
“What we’re likely to see is a rotation in the markets and diversifying, but in terms of whether they are correct, we don’t know; the momentum still seems strong with the whole artificial intelligence theme,” he says. “In terms of absolute performance for the equity markets, we’ll have to see; they’ve come a long way in the last 24 months, and we haven’t had a correction of any meaningful sort. Markets could probably benefit from that correction to re-price and get fundamentals back under their skis.”
Webb adds, “We had a very slight case for a recession in 2025, but with the new administration coming in that’s clearly pro-business, we’ve taken that case off the table due to some of the liberalizations we may see in terms of policy, regulation, and tax policy, which certainly looks like it’s going to be extended and made permanent.
“There are things that do look favorable from an economic perspective. Whether it translates into substantial, additional equity returns remains to be seen, but it does seem to be setting up for a period where bonds and fixed income, which have underperformed for five years, may find a place in the portfolio again in 2025.”
InvestmentNews selected the second annual Fastest-Growing RIAs based on data reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission on form ADV.
To qualify, firms must have met the following criteria: (1) latest ADV filing date is either on or after July 1, 2023, (2) total AUM is at least $100 million, (3) does not have employees who are registered representatives of a broker-dealer, (4) managed assets for individual clients during its most recently completed fiscal year, (5) no more than 50 percent of amount of regulatory AUM is attributable to pooled investment vehicles (other than investment companies), (6) no more than 25 percent of amount of regulatory AUM is attributable to pension and profit-sharing plans (but not the plan participants), (7) no more than 25 percent of amount of regulatory AUM is attributable to corporations or other businesses, (8) does not receive commissions, (9) provides financial planning services, (10) is not actively engaged in business as a broker-dealer (registered or unregistered), (11) is not actively engaged in business as a registered representative of a broker-dealer, and (12) has neither a related person who is a broker-dealer/municipal securities dealer/government securities broker or dealer (registered or unregistered), not one who is an insurance company or agency.
To be considered for the list of Fastest-Growing RIAs, firms must have met the criteria in each year (ending July) between 2021 and 2024. In cases where a firm filed more than one annual update to their ADV, the latest filing for the year was used.
