Name: Randy Lambert
Title: Chief Operations Officer
Company: Orion Advisor Solutions
Web Address: http:// www.orion.com
How did you personally become involved in fintech?
It started back when I was a senior in high school. A financial planner came to speak to my class and piqued my interest in becoming a financial planner. So when I went on to college, I decided to pursue a degree in Finance. Immediately following college, I took a job with a small RIA called CLS Investments run by Patrick Clarke at the time. Eventually, Orion came about following the need for a new technology and my vision slightly changed. I took on an operational role in the tech side of our business and felt fulfilled by using my role to help firms implement technology for advisory firms with all types of business models, so that they could fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities.
What is your role within your firm and what do you do there on a given day?
I have three primary areas that I lead our operations team in each day:
- Supporting the growth of our company by helping advisors not yet using our platform see how Orion delivers best-in-class technology empowering advisors to innovate, disrupt, and win!
- Providing an excellent customer experience through our data reconciliation processes, personalized service engagements, and interaction within our technology.
- Achieving operational efficiencies by aligning our people, processes and technology to support our advisors’ unique visions.
What do you believe the next major innovation in financial technology will be and why?
I’m personally focused on Robotic Processing Automation (RPA). I think that this technology could have profound impacts on making our company more efficient and thus provide a greater service capability to our advisors. Further, I believe that the RPA/Machine learning capabilities will yield positive outcomes for investors. Automated workflows will also allow clients and advisors to connect at critical times with ease and that timeliness and surfacing of important conversations will produce great outcomes for clients. It is less about robo-advisors replacing advisors and more about automated processes being delivered by the advisors’ value proposition in real-time and in the best interest of the client.
What fintech leader do you admire the most and why?
I’d like to mention two leaders that I admire: Mark Tibergien, Chief Executive Officer of Advisor Solutions at BNY Mellon and Michael Kitces, Head of Planning Strategy at Buckingham Wealth Partners. I always find that when I read their content or hear them speak, I learn something new.
When Mark discusses industry topics, not only does he highlight key insights but he has a really great way of focusing on how the advisor adds value to the client. Michael Kitces offers perspective from an advisor’s standpoint and finds great ways to highlight how firms can turn to tech solutions to add value to clients and grow the advisor’s business.