Business was booming at the 2024 InvestmentNews Awards last June, a month in which both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 hit new all-time highs. Howard Morin, whose Helium Advisors won RIA Team of the Year for the Under 10 Advisors category, recalls the “surreal” moment of hearing his firm’s name called at 583 Park Avenue in Manhattan.
“When we finally heard our name called, we were just blown away,” says Morin. “I did some speaking, I thanked Nvidia for everyone’s mortgage payments and college tuition payments at the time last year. That made everyone chuckle a little bit.”
Morin was joined at the event by Helium’s COO, Stephanie Ridley, and co-founder Gary Russell, who was tasked with bringing the “big-ass trophy” through airport security back home to Seattle. Morin stayed a few extra days in New York to travel north to Lake Placid for some hiking with his son.
The trio of Helium executives were seated at the awards ceremony at a table alongside Dimensional Fund Advisors, who engaged in some friendly wager chatter before the award announcement.
“We’re all making bets, like, ‘hey, if we win this, we’re going to send $100 million dollars.’ It was a good camaraderie. When we finally heard our name, I jumped up with a fist pump and muttered some profanity-laced terms, and everyone was really jacked,” Morin recalls. “It was very buzzy; it reminded me of looking at the ESPYs. I think it was a complete home run, whether we won or not, it was a great experience.”
In the year since Helium’s win, the firm launched its own private equity division and has grown to roughly $308 million in assets under management, according to the Washington-based RIA’s latest form ADV from March 2025.
“We took in a lot of money in Q1. I don’t remember the exact figure, but I think we [added] half of last year just in the last quarter,” Morin says, attributing growth to referrals and hosting webinars. “A lot of it was a result of us publishing more content.”
Content is also key for Julie Penwell, assistant vice president at Wealthspire Advisors, who won last year’s NextGen Advisor of the Year category. She recalls the humor of videos shared at the awards ceremony, which parodied scenes from Hollywood films such as Men in Black, Star Wars, and Top Gun.
“It kind of felt like a dream, and it felt a little bit like the Oscars for financial advisors,” says Penwell. “A lot of the sponsors and the nominees made promotional videos. I thought it just brought this really fun, bright levity to the event, which I think in finance, sometimes it’s important that we smile and we laugh a bit.”
Penwell, who hails from Seattle, launched an Instagram page last year to create financial literacy videos that target young professionals. Her videos cover topics such as building emergency funds, managing a credit card, discussing finances with your friends, and navigating how to combine finances with your partner.
“People that are watching my content and content like that − those are the clients of the future,” says Penwell. “We see today that people are starting to build trust online. I’m developing a library of content that’s just financial education that’s really accessible. I think as an industry, there’s a lot of folks that are thinking about that in the context of next-gen clients.”
The fellow nominees for NextGen Advisor of the Year keep in touch with Penwell today. “We were in a room together one day, we’re still connected, we’re still talking. And I think it’s really exciting to be part of this cohort of people emerging in our industry, doing interesting things.”
Jim Wessels, who won last year’s Advisor of the Year for the Midwest region, also appreciates how the in-person awards gathering fuels personal and digital connections. Wessels’ Iowa-based Vision Financial Group was part of three Midwest RIAs that merged in January to form the Des Moines-based Financial Integrators.
“One of the things that I thought came about more from the event, was I was surprised that from accumulating contacts on LinkedIn for over 20 years, there were people I hadn't talked to in over 20 years that reached out just from recognizing [our award], which tells you that InvestmentNews gets out there pretty broadly,” says Wessels. “There were a lot of people that I hadn't talked to in a while that I ended up reconnecting with.”
The 2025 InvestmentNews Awards will be held June 24, 2025, at the Edison Ballroom in New York City.
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