The industry’s best and brightest celebrated, laughed and wept at the inaugural InvestmentNews Awards at 583 Park Avenue in New York City Thursday night.
The glitzy awards gala celebrated its first year in style, with some of the industry’s leading names in hot competition for the top prizes, which included Regional Advisor of the Year, WealthTech Provider of the Year, Top RIA firm of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award.
InvestmentNews’ Excellence Awardee finalists flew in from across the country to toast each other’s talents and achievements, recognizing the winners across 22 categories. The biggest highlight of the evening came from the Oscars-styled gala which was decked out with a Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here, advisors strutted across a red carpet and on a 360-degree camera. The Awards were presented in true Oscars fashion, with video footage featuring Excellence Awardee winners and their firms even parodying scenes from beloved Hollywood films, from Top Gun to Star Wars.
Lifetime Achievement Award winner Bill Crager, CEO of Envestnet was not in house to accept the award but his colleague, Rich Aneser, chief strategy officer at the firm, accepted it on his behalf.
"It's a celebration of the value we provide to our advisors and to the clients that we serve," Aneser said. "Bill has been building something great for the industry. He cares deeply about it and the advice that we all can deliver. It's a meaningful award that Bill has won and important for all of Envestnet for the work we do to support our advisors and our clients."
Other winners included Marianne Caswell, president and CEO of Park Avenue Securities, who won the CEO of the Year award, while Sibyl Slade of IntegriVest Wealth Advisors picked up the Commonwealth Financial Network's Award for Excellence in Philanthropy and Community Service.
"It feels really wonderful to know the work that I've done and the work that my firm has done has been making a difference and that we're being recognized for it. What we've done is focus on what's important for our advisors and for our clients. It's all about making a difference for them so that our advisors can go out and inspire wellbeing with their clients, and that our clients can live out their financial dreams," Caswell said.
Julie Penwell, assistant vice-president at Wealthspire Advisors, was awarded the NextGen Advisor of the Year award and Benjamin Ola Akande, senior vice president and chief corporate responsibility officer at Stifel Financial took home the DEI Trailblazer of the Year award.
"I'm really excited to be honored but I think the honor goes to our organization, Stifel and all the wonderful people there, including our leader, Ron Kruszewski, for giving me the opportunity to play a role in our journey to have significance," Ola Akande said.
"We really believe in the golden rule that you treat everybody as you would like to be treated. That's the very essence and the beginnings of what diversity, equity and inclusion is all about," he added.
Peter Krull, founder and partner at Earth Equity Advisors, won the ESG/Responsible Investing award and was quick to highlight the importance of sustainable investing.
"We really do a good job of educating and communicating and making sure people understand the importance of investing with your values. We're really proud of what we do," Krull said.
InvestmentNews would like to thank everyone who made the event such a roaring success: everyone who attended, our sponsors of the event: Bentley, Lanvin, Commonwealth, Cambridge, Raymond James, Calamos Investments and The American College of Financial Services, as well as our supporting organizations, our independent judging panel and our illustrious winners. Congratulations again!
Full list of winners from the inaugural InvestmentNews Awards 2024:
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