Jack Sharry: Hello everyone, and welcome to WealthTech on Deck.
Since we started this podcast five years ago, we have been talking about the confluence of digital and human advice. I have been noticing advances across a variety of enabling technologies that are winning in the marketplace. One of those firms is GeoWealth.
GeoWealth has been scoring many wins as it plays a vital role behind the scenes in the advisory industry, helping firms scale investment management models and unified managed accounts, or UMAs, while navigating a lot of operational complexity.
My guest today is Jack Hannah. Jack is President and Chief Operating Officer at GeoWealth. He brings a true operator's perspective to WealthTech. We are going to dig into how firms can grow without breaking their back office, since he knows so much about that.
Jack, welcome to WealthTech on Deck.
Jack Hannah: Thanks, Jack. I appreciate the intro and am looking forward to the conversation today.
Jack Sharry: Let's talk about you. You did not come into this business through sales or products, which are more conventional paths for many of our guests. You came up through operations, which is somewhat unique.
Talk through your career path and how those early RIA experiences shaped the way you think about growth today. We would love to hear what you learned early on and what you are focused on now.
Jack Hannah: Absolutely. I was lucky enough to join the industry during a very exciting time - 2007 and 2008. To say I started with a bang is an understatement. I learned a lot very quickly.
Right out of college, I joined an RIA based in Kansas City, working in the back office. Back then, advisor technology was not what it is today. Things have changed a lot since that timeframe.
My job centered on PortfolioCenter. For those who know, it was the old technology we ran the practice through, and it was really the biggest piece of technology we used. I handled reconciliation, billing, reporting, trading, and a lot of manual Excel work.
At this point in my career, I tell everybody it was the best background I could have asked for. We had several advisors at the firm and completed a couple of acquisitions, so I learned a lot about different practices and how every advisor operates differently.
I also operated a little as a junior advisor. I sat in on client meetings and listened to senior advisors make their pitch and work with clients. That gave me a unique perspective and allowed me to learn the business from the ground up.
I still tell people we hire today on our operations team that this is how I started. No matter where you end up, operations is one of the best places to build a foundation for your career.
Jack Sharry: How long were you in that rookie phase, and how did things evolve from there? You are now sitting in the President's chair, so fill us in on that progression.
Jack Hannah: I felt like a rookie for a long time. I worked my way up and ultimately became Director of Operations at that RIA.
The unique part of the story - and this is where GeoWealth comes in - is that the RIA was purchased by GeoWealth in 2010. That RIA ultimately grew with GeoWealth, and GeoWealth later divested the RIA, but it gave me a great opportunity to work across both sides.
In 2013, I moved from the RIA to GeoWealth and brought my operational background with me. I joined GeoWealth very early in its journey, and when a company has only a few people, you wear every hat.
I handled operations, trading, reconciliation, billing, reporting, sales, marketing, advisor servicing, and at one point served as Chief Compliance Officer. Wearing those different hats helped build the foundation that led me to where I am today.
Jack Sharry: Talk about that transition from the RIA to GeoWealth. Were you a customer of GeoWealth at that point? Tell us what GeoWealth looked like then and how things evolved from there.
Jack Hannah: When the RIA was purchased by GeoWealth, GeoWealth did not have any other clients. It was essentially a captive client, and there was very patient capital behind GeoWealth at that point.
We were not being forced to grow at all costs. We were able to build the technology using that RIA as a real-life use case. That relationship was great, and I am still close to many of those individuals today.
That experience paved the way for us to begin commercializing the business in 2015 and 2016. We have been on an upward swing since then. It was a fantastic experience because we were able to work so closely with those advisors.
Jack Sharry: Let's bring in organic growth, because that is fundamental to what your firm does and what the industry is focused on. From your vantage point, why do operations so often become the limiting factor for advisory firms trying to scale? What are the common bottlenecks firms need to address?
Jack Hannah: You used the word scale, and I probably overuse that word myself. At GeoWealth, scale is what we are designed to provide. We want to give advisory practices the opportunity to scale, no matter their shape or size.
One area where scale often breaks down is operations. I have a soft spot for operations because that is where I started. When we look at why a practice is not growing, we often ask whether they are having to add one or multiple employees for every incremental amount of AUM they add.
GeoWealth was designed to reduce those operational burdens. We work with firms to help them become as efficient as possible so they can grow.
Things like reconciliation and billing are important, but they are not usually the reasons a firm wins new business. We want to handle those pieces so advisors can focus on growth and client service.
Jack Sharry: Imagine I am a buyer and I have been hearing a lot about GeoWealth. Give me the pitch. What does GeoWealth offer, and what is your unique value?
Jack Hannah: When we started commercializing the business, we did a lot of soul searching around what GeoWealth really was. The word TAMP has been around the industry for a long time, and we have leaned into that, but we think of ourselves as a modern TAMP or unified managed account platform.
Historically, TAMPs were clunky, expensive, inflexible, and built on old technology. We are a TAMP, but we are designed to be the opposite of those things.
We talk about GeoWealth as an advisor operating system. Whether you are a relatively small firm or a corporate RIA with many billions in assets, we want to be the centralized operating system that allows your firm to do what it does best: work with clients, deliver financial planning, and service relationships.
The things that do not differentiate you should be left to GeoWealth. An RIA is not likely to win business by telling a client how great its reconciliation process is. If those functions are not where the client value is created, firms should consider outsourcing them to a platform like ours.
Jack Sharry: Talk about the user experience. I assume much of it is with the advisor, but perhaps it extends to the client as well. Where do you fit in the ecosystem, and what do you connect with - planning tools, rebalancing, custodians, and the rest?
Jack Hannah: Almost everything we have, we built ourselves. That is one of the unique things about GeoWealth. We have not bolted on a lot of acquired tools or forced square pegs into round holes.
Trading and rebalancing are built internally, which allows the system to work well. We spend a lot of time on portfolio accounting - what happens pre-trade and post-trade, how trades reconcile, which sleeve they belong to, the billing rate on those sleeves, performance, and how everything ties together.
Financial planning is one of the few areas we have not built ourselves. There are already many great planning tools in the market, so we allow advisors to use the tools they prefer.
We connect to the major custodians, can trade through them, and receive primary and secondary data feeds. We also support account aggregation.
When an advisor logs in, we want them to see each client's complete financial picture in one place. They can handle billing, reporting, and trading from a single interface.
Jack Sharry: GeoWealth has attracted well-known investors and raised significant capital. Talk about the funding, the opportunity for scale, and how those investors have helped shape the business.
Jack Hannah: We are fortunate to have an incredible cap table at GeoWealth. The primary and majority owner is still a family office based in Wichita, Kansas, and that has been important to us from day one.
Along the way, we have added exceptional partners. At different points in time, each has helped us grow up at the right moment.
When a private equity sponsor or strategic investor comes in, they add value. They help make sure we have a strong operating agreement, the right equity incentive plan for employees, and the discipline needed for the stage we are in.
Several of our more recent investors are also commercial partners. They provided capital because they believe in what we are building, they see the future of the RIA space, and they are working closely with us as we continue to evolve the investment management offerings and advisor tools on our platform.
Jack Sharry: You work with asset managers, custodians, fintech providers, and private equity firms across the industry. How do you think about partnerships - not just as integrations, but as part of your long-term strategy? What makes a partnership actually work versus just looking good on a pitch deck?
Jack Hannah: If a partnership ends on a slide in a pitch deck, it is not a partnership. We have seen those before, and we have even done a few that looked good in a board or investor presentation but did not go much further.
A true partnership has to be much deeper. We do not take that word lightly.
Whether it is an asset manager or another fintech provider, we work closely across sales, marketing, on-site prospecting, and roadmap planning. We share ideas and roll up our sleeves together.
It is not just signing a piece of paper and going separate ways. A real partner can speak to GeoWealth, and we can speak to them.
Jack Sharry: It sounds like you have the back office nailed, which is no surprise. Now talk about how you bring that to the marketplace and help firms embrace, understand, and use the platform.
Jack Hannah: That has been the design from day one. We want to meet advisors and firms where they are. That phrase is overused, but we really mean it.
Years ago, when GeoWealth was first starting, our investment management offering was more narrow. We had some capabilities in-house, but we did not yet have advisor-managed models or a third-party model marketplace.
As we grew, we realized that a narrow offering limited us. Not everyone wants to be told exactly what to do on investment management. Advisor-managed models are now a huge part of our business.
A firm coming onto our platform can decide where it wants to sit on the wealth management spectrum. If it wants to build its own models or UMAs, it can. If it wants half of its own models and half of what GeoWealth helps build, it can do that. If it wants to rely entirely on third-party managers, we provide the tools to do that too.
That flexibility comes from knowing RIAs well. Many people at GeoWealth, including our CEO, started in the RIA back office. We understand that advisors are different, and we are agnostic on investment management. Our job is to provide the tools to implement what best fits the firm.
Jack Sharry: UMAs, models, and the capabilities you support are at the center of attention right now. Where does GeoWealth go from here? What is next?
Jack Hannah: We have been doing UMAs almost from day one, even before the industry talked about them the way it does today. Everyone defines the term differently, but for us, a unified managed account is a single account with multiple models, managers, sleeves, strategies, and goals inside it - essentially a model of models.
When we started, the construct was more basic. You could have a single model in an account, or a UMA with more traditional components like ETFs, mutual funds, individual equities, different managers, and different mandates.
Over the last several years, we have leaned into the reality that investment management is changing rapidly. We believe we are at the forefront of how UMAs are evolving and how they should function within a client account.
Today, we are adding alternative investments, semi-liquid interval funds, subscription-document-required alternatives, fixed income sleeves managed by third parties, and direct indexing sleeves - all inside one client account.
The goal is to bring a level of sophistication that used to be available only to clients with $10 million or more down to the mass affluent level. That has resonated very well with our client base.
Jack Sharry: There is a lot of buzz around unified managed households, or UMH. Is that in your future?
Jack Hannah: We have done UMH in some ways from day one, depending on how you define it. We have actually moved a bit away from emphasizing the term.
On paper, the academic merits of UMH make a lot of sense. The practical application can be very different.
Our platform still allows advisors to look at the household level and at individual accounts. For example, a client might have growth assets in a qualified account and more fixed income in a non-qualified account.
But when we launched this in 2010, advisors liked the idea on paper, while the real-world application could become burdensome - especially with distributions, journaling, rebalancing, and mismatched expectations between advisors and clients.
We are not against UMH. Conceptually, it makes a lot of sense. It is just important that advisors understand what actually comes out of UMH versus UMA.
Jack Sharry: Before we wrap up, we always like to end on a personal note. When you are not thinking about operations, models, platforms, and everything else, how do you spend your time outside of work? What do you do for fun?
Jack Hannah: As I mentioned before the call, I have three little girls, and that takes up a lot of time. That is the expected answer, so I will give you a more fun one too.
The first thing I did this morning when I got out of bed was check the weather. I have a gravel bike race this coming Saturday in the Flint Hills of Kansas, and it looks like rain may be coming into Emporia.
Gravel bike racing is a hobby I picked up where you ride your bike on dirt roads. I am a Kansas City guy and have spent all my life here, so we have a lot of dirt roads. The race this weekend is one of the biggest in the world, with thousands of people coming in. I am very much in the recreational category.
You have to watch the weather - rain, heat, humidity, cold, and especially mud all matter. I also love the outdoors and do a lot of hunting and fishing when time allows. I enjoy the great outdoors and everything it has to offer.
Jack Sharry: That is great. Good for you.
Jack, this has been really enjoyable. You bring an important perspective to our industry, and I appreciate you sharing it.
For our audience, thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed our podcast, please rate, review, subscribe, and share what we are doing here at WealthTech on Deck. We are available wherever you get your podcasts. You should also check us out at our dedicated website, wealthtechondeck.com. All our episodes are there.
Jack, thanks again. This has been enjoyable, and I appreciate you being on WealthTech on Deck. I am sure we will be talking down the road.
Jack Hannah: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Jack.
