As Absolute Engagement prepares to launch its own financial technology for advisors, founder and CEO Julie Littlechild is bringing in another big name in wealth management.
Matt Brinker, the managing partner for Merchant Investment Management and a 25-year industry veteran, is joining Absolute Engagement’s advisory board. The company primarily uses surveys to generate feedback from prospects and clients about what they're thinking and feeling as they work with financial advisors.
At Merchant, Brinker works extensively with registered investment advisors to identify new investment opportunities and help them grow, giving him a strong understanding of the challenges advisors face, Littlechild said. It’s this experience she wants to bring to Absolute Engagement.
“There’s a number of reasons [we wanted to add Brinker], and one is the depth of his expertise. We do a lot of work with RIAs and he just understands the business,” Littlechild said.
Before joining Merchant in 2020, Brinker spent 14 years with United Capital Financial Advisors as chief business development officer and head of acquisitions. He also sits on the board of several other growth-stage fintech firms, such as Lumiant and Zoe Financial.
Absolute Engagement plans to launch some new technology — which Littlechild said will broaden its ability to capture feedback beyond surveys and help advisors tap into client expectations, feelings, needs and concerns to have better conversations — and someone like Brinker knows what exactly advisors are looking for.
“The work he did at United Capital, and the work he currently does with fintechs, is incredibly powerful for firms like ours, which is in the process of launching new tech,” Littlechild said. “This particular add is about ensuring that we’re surrounding ourselves with really smart experts to help us grow the business and help us move into new places.”
Brinker said his team at United Capital used Absolute Engagement's client surveys.
"I had front-row seats to watch the impact of those client surveys," Brinker said. "We learned which clients are at risk, which clients were predisposed to [recommending] friends and family, and learned which things they wanted from us, such as the frequency that they wanted to meet."
He plans to draw on this experience to help the company move from an analogue survey process to a digitized, automated one.
Brinker joins a board that includes Brian Portnoy, founder of fintech company Shaping Wealth; Craig Iskowitz, founder and CEO of consulting firm Ezra Group; and Megan Carpenter, founder and CEO of advisor marketing firm FiComm Partners.
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