Press Room
Corporate Backgrounder
Company
Advisor Software is a leading provider of wealth management solutions for the advice market. Founded in 1995 by Andrew Rudd, co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Barra, the company provides solutions that allow financial institutions to provide financial advisors with the technological innovation and analytics that have long been available in the institutional arena. As a result, advisors are able to deliver more personalized, insightful advice.
Based in Lafayette California, the privately-held company has a number of industry visionaries at the helm. The company's experienced management team includes executives that have come from Morningstar, Wells Fargo, Bloomberg and Financial Engines.
Leveraging this legacy of innovation and research, Advisor Software has pioneered the first independent, enterprise-level portfolio rebalancing solution in the industry and the first goal-driven, end to end technology platform for delivering a dynamic wealth plan that addresses an investor's entire financial life and evolves as market conditions and personal circumstances change over time. It is the first solution that integrates financial planning and investment management into one coherent framework -- a straight-through process -- that ties the wealth management process together from end to end.
Advisor Software's track record of enabling financial institutions and advisors to improve client relationships, offer more personalized advice and increase assets under management has been proven via successful deployments by leading financial services firms. These include TD Ameritrade Institutional, Charles Schwab Institutional, First Trust Portfolios, PowerShares Capital Management, State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), Barclays Global Investors (BGI) and Russell Investments.
Market Facts
Competition for assets is increasing along with the need to streamline manual processes and scale for growth. Demand is high for solutions that drive this efficiency and scalability. To be competitive, financial institutions and their advisors must also take a much more holistic approach to wealth planning.
- In a January 2005 report, "The Future of Advice", Tiburon Strategic Advisors, L.LC. cites that for each of the 400,000 advisors in the US as of 2004, there are only 14 households with over $100,000 in investable assets.
- The 2005 Tiburon Strategic Advisors report states that advisors who spent over 60 percent of their time with clients earned an average of $160,000.00. In comparison to this, advisors who spent 30 to 60 percent of their time with clients earned $50,000.00 and those who spent under 30 percent of their time with clients earned less than $30,000.00.
Products
ASI Wealth Manager is the first end-to-end application for goal-directed investment management that couples institutional caliber analytics and holistic management of the household balance sheet. Leveraging a patent-pending process, ASI Wealth Manager uniquely enables advisors to address what were previously a series of disjointed, manual financial planning and investment management tasks via a single platform. Advisors can then deliver a dynamic wealth plan that considers changing personal circumstances and market conditions.
ASI Portfolio Rebalancing Solution is an enterprise application that streamlines portfolio rebalancing, enabling advisors to significantly cut processing time. Advisors can then run a more cost-efficient back office and spend more time focusing on client relationships.
ASI Client Acquisition Solution is an institutional-caliber portfolio construction and proposal generation solution that allows advisors to create more personalized investment plans, deliver more consistent advice and convert more prospects to clients. A highly flexible, web-based application, ASI Client Acquisition Solution provides support for a wide range of investment products. The application can also scale across the enterprise, supporting multiple advisors and accounts.
ASI Portfolio Diagnostic Tools is a suite of web applications offering robust diagnostics, simple workflows and affordable deployments. Each application can be deployed internally or on public-facing advisor and investor sites to drive site usage.
Key Benefits
- Enable more personalized, consistent advice delivery across multiple delivery channels.
- Create a dynamic wealth plan that considers changing personal circumstances and market conditions.
- Increase assets under management and plan for long term growth in a highly scalable way.
- Understand the entire household financial picture to determine an investor's risk tolerance, bridging the gap between financial planning and investment management.
- Deliver an optimal, lifetime investment strategy that leverages a goal-driven approach.
- Ease data migration and integration to configure around trading platforms and other back-office systems.
- Track the portfolio construction process and more closely follow investment policy guidelines.
- Ensure cost effectiveness, ease of use, and ease of support for advisors while enabling consistency of data and service delivery.
- Streamline portfolio management tasks for advisors, enabling them to increase efficiency and spend more time building client relationships.
Management
Andrew Rudd, Ph. D. — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Andrew Rudd founded Advisor Software in 1995 to deliver world class analytics to the retail financial services market. He is an expert in asset allocation, modern portfolio theory, risk management, and performance measurement. Mr. Rudd is also a co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Barra, Inc., where he served as CEO from 1984 to 1999. He is the co-author of two industry-leading books on institutional investing: "Modern Portfolio Theory: The Principles of Investment Management" and "Option Pricing". Mr. Rudd was also Professor of Finance and Operations Research at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In addition, he has written numerous journal articles and research papers on a wide range of domestic and international investment practices and theories. Mr. Rudd received his Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Mathematics and Physics from Sussex University in England, and earned a M.Sc. in Operations Research, an M.B.A in Finance and International Business, and a Ph.D. in Finance and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley.
Neal Ringquist — President and Chief Operating Officer
Neal Ringquist oversees all aspects of Advisor Software's operations and is responsible for setting and driving the overall company strategy. Most recently, Mr. Ringquist served as vice president of sales and marketing for Morningstar Associates, LLC, a registered investment advisor and wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. Prior to Morningstar, Mr. Ringquist was executive vice president of sales, marketing, and client service for mPower.com, Inc., a privately held San Francisco-based investment advisory firm that was acquired by Morningstar in July 2003. He earned a Bachelor's degree in economics from Middlebury College and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Nicolo G. Torre, Ph.D. CFA — Head of Research, Advisor Software, Inc.
As Head of Research for Advisor Software, Nicolo Torre is responsible for all of the company's financial engineering, research and analytics capabilities. Prior to joining Advisor Software in 2003, Mr. Torre spent 10 years with Barra, where he was the managing director of research. He also spent two years as senior vice president of algorithmic trading with Greenwich Capital Markets. Mr. Torre earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University.
Michelle Farmer, Esq. — Vice President, Administration
Michelle Farmer is responsible for overseeing the legal, financial and administrative affairs of Advisor Software and directing its regulatory strategy. Ms. Farmer has worked in the financial services industry for over 15 years including positions as general counsel for mPower.com, Inc. and general counsel for Wealth Management Systems, Inc. She is a member of the California and Massachusetts Bar. Ms. Farmer earned a JD from Suffolk University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Deepak Choudhury, Ph.D. — Vice President, Engineering
As vice president of engineering, Deepak Choudhury is responsible for Advisor Software's engineering efforts, including software development, systems architecture, quality assurance and IT. Mr. Choudhury brings over 20 years of engineering experience, including 10 years in the IT industry, to Advisor Software. Prior to joining the company, he implemented and led enterprise software development projects at PeopleSoft and Extensity. Mr. Choudhury received his Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
Michael Granger — Vice President, Implementation and Client Management
As Vice President, Implementation and Client Management, Michael Granger is responsible for management and maintenance of all of Advisor Software's products and solutions, including client implementations and support. Mr. Granger has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, most recently holding positions at Barra and as VP Systems Director at Bank of America. Prior to Bank of America, he was Operations Director for CIBC World Markets in London. He also held trading positions at institutions including Standard Chartered, a London-based, international bank.
Daron Smith — Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Daron Smith is responsible for Advisor Software sales, business development and marketing. Leading the direction of the company's sales organization, he has been instrumental in securing a number of top financial industry leaders as clients for Advisor Software. These leaders include TD Ameritrade Institutional and Schwab Institutional. Mr. Smith has over ten years of sales and sales management experience in the software and financial arenas. Prior to joining Advisor Software in 2003, he held various sales and sales management positions at Bloomberg, Clarify and Merrill Lynch. Mr. Smith earned a Bachelor's degree from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.
Drew Noone — Director of Product Management
Drew Noone directs Advisor Software's product management and development team, guiding the company's product vision, strategy and roadmap. He brings to this role more than 20 years of experience serving financial services institutions in business development as well as product, operations and project management capacities. Prior to joining Advisor Software in 2004, Mr. Noone was chief operating officer for FIRE Solutions Inc. in San Francisco where he was responsible for all aspects of building the internal operations of the organization and creating demand for its products. He also served in other executive level and senior technology management roles at major investment management firms including Charles Schwab & Company and Robertson, Stephens & Company. He began his career in financial services as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch. Mr. Noone earned a Bachelor's degree from Albright College.
Media Contact:
Andrea Corry
Advisor Software, Inc.
3675 Mt. Diablo Blvd., #300
Lafayette, CA 94549
(925) 444-1306
acorry@advisorsoftware.com |
