Tuesday, February 5

4:00 pm Registration Opens

5:00 pm Networking and Roundtable Reception

6:30 pm Dinner on your own or Meet-and-Greet at Choice of Restaurants

Wednesday, February 6

5:30 am Optional Group Networking Run or Walk

7:30 am Networking Breakfast

8:15 am Forum Welcome and Program Overview

8:30 am Industry Leaders Panel

Dan Seivert, CEO, ECHELON Partners, Moderator

Mark Tibergien, Pershing Advisor Solutions

Jon Beatty, Schwab Advisor Services

David Canter, Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions

Leaders from three of the major custodians will share their insights on the state of the financial planning profession, and identify areas that will require particular vigilance over the coming 5-10 years.

10:00 am Networking Break (Sponsored by TD Ameritrade Institutional, exclusive sponsor of the NAPFA Large Firm Forum)

10:15 am Credible Leadership and Lessons Learned from a Combat-decorated Navy SEAL

John Choate, SA-720TM

Janus Henderson Labs™ partnered with a team of former U.S. Navy SEALs to find answers. Is your team ready for the challenge? Expand your team’s capacity for trust, dynamic communications, mission execution and stress control. Learn from a combat-decorated SEAL to gain insight into the SEAL organization and how his experience can help you and your team thrive.

11:45 am Networking Lunch and Table Discussions with LFF Participants, Speakers and Sponsors

12:45 pm Risk Management Planning and What is Happening in the Industry

Michelle Thetford, Schwab Advisor Services

Michelle’s discussion will focus on key issues affecting firms on an enterprise-wide basis:

  • An overview of the current external fraud trends targeting investment advisors
  • Best practices to detect and prevent external fraud including suggestions on polices, procedures, systems, employee training, and compliance program requirements
  • An overview of fraud trends within a firm (risk and common techniques of internal fraud committed by employees and other advisors – how to implement policy/procedures to detect and prevent them.)
  • Expanding your value proposition to clients through fraud prevention including suggestions on training clients, techniques for putting together client events, suggestions on getting your clients to go digital and other selling propositions that make the most of a firm’s investment in cybersecurity and fraud prevention technology/policy. How to make clients value you as the “safest” place to invest their money.
  • How to tie your cybersecurity program with fraud prevention as part of a sound compliance program, and suggestions on where to invest in technology, people and resources.

12:45 pm The Interplay Between Valuation Drivers and the Health of Your Firm

Dan Seivert, CEO, ECHELON Partners

A firm’s valuation comes from the core of its various functional areas (human capital, legal, marketing, etc.) and firm development priorities such as continuity planning, succession planning, and equity transfer. Entrepreneurs should recognize that a firm’s valuation drives, or challenges, success in these areas, and the welfare of these areas also drives a firm’s valuation. Join Dan Seivert, CEO of ECHELON Partners, as he leverages extensive industry research and valuation experience to guide you on an entrepreneurial self-reflection to understanding your firm’s value.

2:00 pm Break

2:15 pm Mentoring the Next Generation of Financial Advisors

Michelle Donovan, Productivity Uncorked

With the next generation of financial advisors already among you, the time is now to shape the future of your firm. Leaders who play a key role in preparing young advisors for a career in wealth management stand a better chance of retaining young advisors, capturing wealth transfer of client AUM, attracting the next generation of clients and guaranteeing the transfer of institutional knowledge. In this session, participants will:

  • Understand the career needs of millennial financial advisors
  • Learn how to create S.A.F.E.T.Y.™ in your mentoring program
  • Engage in peer discussion to develop mentoring guidelines
  • Create an action plan for implementing a mentorship program
  • Recognize when to consider a coach vs. a mentor

3:30 pm Panel Discussion with Firm Mentors and Mentees

Michelle Donovan, Productivity Uncorked, moderator

Eric Hehman, CEO and Principal, Austin Asset

Courtney Weber, Wealth Advisor and Principal, Truepoint Wealth Counsel

Michelle will lead a panel discussion of leaders and future leaders who will share their stories and best practices.

4:45 pm The Tyranny of Conventional Wisdom

Mark Tibergien, Pershing Advisor Solutions

It’s common to seek “best practices,” to benchmark against peers, to repeat what we’ve read as if it’s an original idea. The risk is that, as leaders, we become so consumed by conventional wisdom that we leave the critical thinking to others. In this session, Mark Tibergien will highlight examples of conventional wisdom that guides many leaders in their decision making. He will then challenge participants to re-examine their assumptions. He will provide examples of where practice leaders need to set their own priorities, and create a plan that helps them navigate the headwinds and tailwinds that the advisory profession will likely experience over the next decade.

5:45 pm Relax and Refresh

6:30 pm Off-property Dinner at Il Fornaio Cucina Italiana and Table Discussions with Steering Committee Members, Industry Leaders and Sponsors. (Sponsored by TD Ameritrade Institutional, exclusive sponsor of the NAPFA Large Firm Forum)

Thursday, February 7

7:00 am Coffee Meet-and-Greet

7:30 am Optional Group Activities - (Information and Registration Forthcoming)

9:00 am Networking Breakfast

9:30 am Benchmarking Panel - Benchmark Survey and Trends Panel

Anand Sekhar, Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions

Tony Parkin, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

Experts from three leading firms discuss how their benchmarking surveys helped to identify advisory firm market trends, and how large firm executives can use benchmarking in strategic planning efforts.

10:45 Networking Break

11:00 am Leading Firm Leaders Panel

Anthony Cecchini, Chief Executive Officer, JMG Financial Group

Yonhee Gordon, Chief Operating Officer, JMG Financial Group

Principals from top wealth management firms will share their challenges and success stories on talent acquisition, business development and growth.

12:15 am Lunch and Roundtable Discussions

1:15 pm Do You Have a Grip on Your Business or Does Your Business Have a Grip on You?

Gregory Cleary, Get Traction MN

presented with Steve Condon, Truepoint Wealth Counsel, LLC

Even the most successful entrepreneurs occasionally find running a business more challenging than they expected. Many work longer hours and get less return on their investment of time and money than they would like. Most entrepreneurs regularly grapple with one or more of the following challenges:

  • Lack of control . . . over time, the market, or the company
  • People . . . don’t listen, understand or follow through
  • Profit . . . there's not enough of it
  • Growth . . . is okay, but they just can’t seem to break through to the next level
  • Magic Pills . . . lots of remedies and quick fixes have come and gone, but the wheels are still spinning

If these problems seem all too familiar, you’re not alone. It doesn’t have to be that way. For over 25 years, Gregory has been helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams gain traction. In this dynamic presentation, Gregory will introduce you to the Six Key Components™ of successful businesses. He’ll arm you with a set of simple, practical tools you and your leadership team can begin using right away to get better results.

2:45 pm Break

3:00 pm The Speed of Trust

Stephen Covey, CoveyLink and the FranklinCovey Speed of Trust Practice

Trust is hard, real, and quantifiable. It measurably affects both speed and cost. A function of character and competence, trust can be created and destroyed, effectively taught and learned. In most cases, lost trust can even be restored. This fast-paced and engaging presentation dramatically reveals TRUST as the hidden variable that will become your most leverageable tool, giving you a distinct strategic advantage. We call it “Leading at the SPEED of TRUST.”

By framing trust in a new light, this presentation will:

  • Make the business and economic case for trust.
  • Show how the ability to generate trust is the critical leadership competency in this new, global economy.
  • Demonstrate how to master the skill of creating trust—both personally and in your organization.

4:30 pm Relax and Refresh

6:00 pm Closing Dinner and Continued Conversations