The future is up for grabs, shaped by innovators, renegades and entrenched players finding new areas of endeavor to mark as their own. Every year, REP. magazine surveys the landscape to find the 10 individuals whose names may be unfamiliar to you now, but who are poised to shake up the industry.
Coming up with a list like this is admittedly a subjective process, and one that lasts all year. We talk to some of the smartest people we know in the industry, save articles that mention a promising candidate or simply note the players who are starting to make the most noise.
Sometimes we get it right: Nicholas Schorsch was on this list just before he began his acquisition spree of broker/dealers. Joe Lonsdale was here last year, nine months before his firm Addepar raised $50 million for its data aggregation tool for wealth advisors. Sometimes we get it wrong: We were intrigued enough with SIFMA’s appointment of former U.S. Senator Judd Gregg last year to put him on the list. He stepped down from that position four months later.
The people here bear watching closely, if only because they represent the kind of sweeping changes transforming the wealth management industry, almost always for the better.
Read on to find out more about who you should keep an eye on.
Illustrations by Ivan Canu