The wealth management industry has more innovation, more capital, and more sophisticated capabilities than at any point in history. More than 450 wealthtech solutions. Private markets growing at 15% annually. Portfolio models proliferating across every strategy imaginable. Everyone talking about AI.
Meanwhile, clients are demanding more holistic advice – portfolios that blend public and private markets, planning that integrates tax and estate, experiences that feel coherent instead of cobbled together.
The industry is converging. Public and private markets. Planning and execution. Data and intelligence. But here's the problem: Convergence without coordination creates gridlock.
The average RIA now uses a hodgepodge of disconnected systems, hacking workflows to make things work, spending their time in the cracks between systems instead of serving clients. As a result, advisor productivity is declining despite better tools. It's like logging onto Amazon without a search function: Everything you need is there. You just can't find it.
We've built extraordinary capabilities. We just haven't connected them. Abundance has created a coordination trap.
I've seen this pattern before. I know how it ends.
When I was in fourth grade, my dad told me that one day soon I would be able to send mail to a friend who lived down the street in less than a minute.
He explained what he was building: switching infrastructure that would let fax machines talk to each other. (Stay with me – this matters.) Xerox couldn't communicate with RCA. RCA couldn't talk to IBM. Each manufacturer had built closed systems. His breakthrough wasn't building a better fax machine – it was making them interoperable.
I didn't fully understand it, but what he described felt impossible – time and distance collapsing, the fences between houses disappearing. Impossible things seemed reachable.
Twenty years later, starting Envestnet on a 28.8 modem (yes, really), I recognized the same pattern. Independent advisors had capability gaps. The infrastructure existed – separate accounts, institutional research, sophisticated tools – but advisors couldn't access it. We didn't build new capabilities. We built the horizontal layer that connected what already existed and made it work better than ever before.
It became the largest wealthtech in the industry not because we had the best features, but because we solved the right problem.
By now, I recognize the pattern. Here it is again.
There's a predictable rhythm to how industries evolve when they mature.
In the 1990s, vertical portals like AOL and Yahoo dominated until horizontal infrastructure – HTTP, TCP/IP – enabled the open web. In the 2000s, closed enterprise systems ruled until horizontal platforms like AWS and Salesforce enabled the cloud. In the 2010s, walled garden apps controlled distribution until horizontal layers like Stripe enabled composability.
The pattern is consistent: When ecosystems mature and the problem shifts from building capabilities to coordinating them, the connective layer unlocks the value.
Wealth management is at that inflection point now.
The ecosystem is mature. The tools exist. What's missing is the intelligent infrastructure that makes them work together, the horizontal layer that turns fragmentation into orchestration.
McKinsey estimates $6-10 trillion in "money in motion" as portfolios blend public and private markets – structural transformation on the scale of the mutual fund boom or ETF revolution. Independent advisors are ascendant but operationally constrained. As one Morgan Stanley study diplomatically noted: "No single firm can organically build all required capabilities."
Meanwhile, for the first time, technology can actually solve coordination at scale. Not hype cycle stuff, but real orchestration. Systems that connect intelligently, and not capabilities that sit behind siloed fences. It is time the industry live up to the hype chamber
The components exist. What’s missing is someone to wire them together.
What if the next chapter isn't about building more platforms, but about intelligent fiber between them?
What if winning firms aren't those with the most features, but those who make the entire ecosystem work better together?
This isn't primarily a technology question – the technology exists. It's an architecture question. How do you connect without controlling? Enable without constraining? Make every participant more valuable without creating dependency?
And there's something interesting here about reversing the economics entirely. If the ecosystem benefits from deeper connectivity, what if we collectively invested behind it? What if advisors and clients weren't the ones paying for everything? What if the model aligned around unlocking growth and operating leverage for advisors? Wouldn't everyone benefit?
I believe the answers to these questions will unlock the next decade. If we get the answers right, the current projections for the entire ecosystem will seem modest.
After I stepped away last year, I filled a notebook with thoughts, research nuggets, a complete review of Michael Kitces’ amazing work of art (The Financial Advisor Technology Map) and started testing this thesis with a network of people I deeply respect. What I found was pattern recognition – and impatience. A lot of, “WE NEED THIS.”
The industry is facing the same structural challenge we solved 25 years ago. But this time the solution requires even more collaboration, more horizontal flexibility, more intelligence.
That's why I'm joining iAltA – convergence is coming. How do we collectively create leverage for the industry versus hacking our way through all the complexity?
The advisors who thrive will deliver truly integrated experiences. The ecosystem participants who win will be connected to those advisors. And the connective infrastructure that makes it work – the invisible fiber most people won't even notice – will elevate the value of all the extraordinary progress our industry has made.
I didn't understand the implications of that conversation with my dad; the magic and the mailbox. It occurred to me somewhere along the journey creating Envestnet: the most valuable infrastructure is invisible.
I see the same pattern now. The pieces exist. The breakthrough is making them talk to each other.
I know this one.
History repeats.
More soon.
Bill Crager is a founding partner of iAltA, a private markets infrastructure company founded by industry leaders who believe in solving systemic challenges with operator-caliber precision. Crager been a prominent figure in the wealth management industry for more than 20 years.
For business owners, the company is often more than an income source. It becomes their largest asset, their retirement plan, and in many cases, part of their identity. Advisors who understand that dynamics can deliver far greater value than traditional financial planning alone
John S. Winslow, 57, was indicted just over a year ago for his scheme to steal from an elderly client.
Hamachi's new model portfolio partnership and an industry-first solution from Vestmark join the growing wave of AI tools for wealth managers.
Meanwhile, LPL attracted a five-advisor team managing $380 million in Kansas, while a veteran with stripes from Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Fidelity has joined Prime Capital Financial.
At Goldman Sachs’ RIA conference, Dynasty’s Shirl Penney said an AI clone trained on his emails and speeches could be the first of “hundreds of digital employees.”
As technical expertise becomes increasingly commoditized, advisors who can integrate strategy, relationships, and specialized expertise into a cohesive client experience will define the next era of wealth management
Growth may get the headlines, but in my experience, longevity is earned through structure, culture, and discipline
