Marianne Caswell is president of Park Avenue Securities at Guardian Life. InvestmentNews had a chance to catch up with her to reflect on the state of the wealth management industry, the value of InvestmentNews' Women Advisor Summit and Women to Watch Awards, and how she uses her leadership approach to drive the company forward. Park Avenue Securities is an awardee for 'Employer of Choice,' and Caswell is an awardee for 'Executive Excellence.' This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MARIANNE CASWELL: My career has primarily been in wealth management. I started my career in Buffalo, NY, over 25 years ago in financial services. I grew up there and I had an opportunity to come to New York and it was at "Y2K" time. So, it was a lot of work in user acceptance testing when we thought the world was going to blow up.
It was always about continuing to grow in the organization by being able to use my skill set to help others. What could I do day in and day out to meet the needs of our clients, whoever our clients were, whether our clients were internal or external? I've never worked directly with the end consumer, but I've always supported advisors.
I've been in New York for over 20 years now, and you know, my role in leadership has always been about serving the purpose of helping others. Always.
What I love about being at Guardian and Park Avenue Securities, because Park Avenue Securities is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian, is we're champions of well-being. Our purpose is simply to serve more families, to be able to give them financial confidence so that they can live out their dreams. And doing that through holistic planning I think is something really amazing and that's what drives me day in, and day out is helping advisors to be able to deliver for clients and the entire team getting behind that that purpose.
CASWELL: I think one thing that's really important for firms like Park Avenue Securities and others in wealth management - it's about connecting with the client and supporting the client and their needs specifically and giving them financial confidence to be able to live out their goals.
And with InvestmentNews, I think a combination of both the awards and what you guys do allows us to stay connected in the industry. What I think is great about it is its connection to the firms and advisors.
CASWELL: It's two-fold from a female perspective. One, you have an industry where what we do as advisors is extremely noble, and the work that they do with their clients is so important and we need to have a diverse set of advisors. So not just women, but diversity across the board to be able to meet the needs.
So to bring more women into the industry and to help shepherd them through the process. Listen, it's hard. Being an advisor is also very hard. It's hard work, prospecting clients, meeting their needs, continually servicing while bringing in new clients. So the Women to Watch Awards really puts a spotlight on that for us and it creates a spotlight not just for the women who are in the business, but for the women who aren't in the business to see what's possible.
It's also about the great wealth transfer that everyone is talking about. We know that women are going to inherit a good amount of the wealth. And not all of them, not every woman says, "I want a woman advisor." So that's not what it's about. A woman wants someone who's going to listen and understand, but we're going to need more advisors to be able to support them.
CASWELL: I think what's really important, not just for female advisors, but for advisors alike, it's about them forming relationships with the beneficiaries. We all take a very strong stance in working and creating a relationship with our clients. That's what's really important that this is a relationship business. As we think about what's going to happen, I sometimes joke and say it's not going to be the great wealth transfer. It's going to be the great advisor swap.
I think there are a couple of key things that are important to advisors in the industry. I think it's about having access to products and services to meet their clients needs. A competitive platform has to be easy to do business.
So what are we doing as a firm to make sure that we're creating an environment for our advisors so that they can serve their clients? And in today's world, AI is going to become a big part of that. How can we create more efficiency? So if you think now flip to retaining the client, it's about spending time with them.
And it's about giving them access the way they want access and meeting them where they want to be met. Technology is going to play a huge part in all of this from an advisor perspective - how we can create efficiencies for them so they can be working with their clients? From a client perspective and retaining them, it's meeting them where they want to be met and giving them the access.
CASWELL: You can only focus on what you can control. I can't control the markets. I can't control what's going to happen with interest rates. So what I need to focus on is, "what can we be delivering?" Our outlook is very bullish for our organization in terms of continuing to grow.
Our firm technology is moving faster than we can even keep up with, but making sure we're looking really closely at that experience for our advisors and our clients, rolling out new technology for both of them, looking at how AI can help them in three areas - from an efficiency play perspective for our productivity, efficiency from an operational perspective to be able to gain scale, and then of course revenue insights. How can we provide our advisors with insights?
CASWELL: Historically, change management was extremely important to technology. Whenever you made a major technology change, you had to have really tight change management. You still need that. I will tell you a couple of things. At Guardian, the average age of our advisor is younger than most firms - we're in the mid-40s. They're asking for this technology, they're clamoring for it. They're demanding it, in fact, because they know that it's going to make them more efficient.
From a client perspective as well, advisors want to be able to put something in front of their client that is that is best in class. But the key though is you still have to make sure you train them and you educate them from a practice management standpoint.
The Women Advisor Summit is on October 21, 2025, at Tribeca 360 in New York. The Summit will be followed by the Women to Watch 2025 Awards. Caswell, Park Avenue Securities, and the rest of the awardees can be found here.
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