Like other sectors, the wealth management industry also felt the impact of the massive outage that hit Microsoft 365 services around the world Thursday, with the fallout continuing.
The outage struck a swathe of Microsoft services, including Outlook, the Teams messaging platform and the CoPilot AI tool, the Associated Press reports.
Advisors told InvestmentNews how they have been handling the epic outage. Liz Miller, president and founder of Summit Place Financial Advisors explained that quick onset of COVID-19 in 2020 taught valuable lessons about being prepared for flexible and changing work habits.
“The past 24 hours, we recalled that lesson a bit – email was down, but we have multiple ways to communicate with each other and our clients,” she said. “I was proud that our team first confirmed the challenge with each other and then quickly started finding workarounds with each other.”
“That is the sign of a trusting and well-run team,” added Miller, who is one of InvestmentNews’ 2026 5-Star Financial Planners and is last year’s CFP board chair.
Carolyn McClanahan, founder of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Life Planning Partners, said that the outage also affected her firm. “We sent a Constant Contact out to clients letting them know alternative ways to communicate,” she told InvestmentNews. “Thankfully, all of our other systems are functioning.”
“This is a perfect example of why there should not be monopolies in tech and why no advisor should have their entire tech stack with one provider,” added McClanahan, who was awarded the Alexandra Armstrong Lifetime Achievement Award by Investment News in 2024,
In a statement released on X early Friday, Microsoft said that it is seeing “encouraging recovery progress,” with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure.
“Some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue,” the tech giant added. “We’re focused on recovery for the remaining affected environments while prioritizing email queue and backlog reduction.”
Microsoft explained that an extended 48-hour email timeout window remains in place to help protect delayed messages as delivery catches up.
With elder scam losses near $3 billion, 52 groups urge senators to pass H.R. 9500 before a new Congress resets the clock
White House also sends two CFTC commissioner picks to the Senate, marking the first Democrats tapped for either Wall Street regulator under Trump's second term
Record quarterly sales and 450 advisor hires in 18 months signal a wealth management transformation underway at Prudential
From managing embedded gains to diversifying concentrated wealth, NTAM's Ken Lassner examines how technology is making individualized portfolio construction more practical for advisors.
Thrivent Investment Management Inc. in May fired Nicholas Hale, according to his BrokerCheck profile.
Growing wealth, evolving priorities, and untapped opportunities are reshaping how women approach long-term investing.
Knighthead Life entered the market with a competitive MYGA. A strong launch earned advisor confidence and paved the way for FIAs.
