The final nudge to going indie

Trying to make sense of 9/11 confirmed for Kathy Roth that it was time for a new way of thinking.
“I was with a traditional brokerage firm at the time, and I was looking for guidance on what message to give to my clients,” said Ms. Roth, a certified financial planner at Waterstone Partners in Pittsford, N.Y., 325 miles northwest of New York City.
Instead of insightful analysis, she was given a generic message to pass along.
“‘This is not what I’m looking for,’” she remembered thinking. “In fact, one of my clients even said to me, ‘Don’t give me that crap — it tells me you’re not thinking.’”
“The firm was using tools that were historically based, and not taking into account the new realities of globalization and technology. I realized then that I wanted resources that could help me access future-minded assessments,” Ms. Roth said.
The experience was the final nudge to make her decide to go independent.
“I felt like I was figuring this out on my own, so I might as well be on my own. Going forward, I wanted to know — where would I best find the support to help me navigate the future for my clients? I knew I needed to build my own core of information and analysis resources that I could be confident in,” she said.
She turned to the Genworth Financial Wealth Management platform to provide that core.
“They allowed me to expand my access to deeper and broader sources of analysis and perspectives,” Ms. Roth said.
“After going through the tech bubble, Y2K, the bursting of the tech bubble, 9/11, I realized that change is the way of the world. We need to be forward-thinking.”