A Bright Future

In this month’s cover story, associate editor Christopher Robbins takes our fourth annual look at young advisors to watch.

As Financial Advisor has discovered since we embarked on this project, there may be a shortage of young advisors in the aggregate, but there is no shortage of talent among those who are in the business. This raises as many questions as it does answers.

While custodians and broker-dealers express their fears about the aging advisor population and expend great energy to encourage young people to consider this profession, several upcoming chapters of this story have still to be written.

This is the first generation of advisors who decided to choose this profession when some were still in college. Unlike many of their classmates with other majors, aspiring advisors are graduating with multiple job offers.

If past generations of advisors are any indication, the profession may remain a second career choice for many future ones. Research indicates that most clients first seek out an advisor when they are in their late 40s or early 50s.

Because so many issues advisors and their clients discuss address concerns that arise in middle age or the second half of people’s lives, many clients look favorably on younger advisors who will outlive them. As someone with a great, wonderful doctor in his 70s, I intentionally chose to work with an advisor and estate planning attorney more than a decade younger than me.

What is clear is that the demand for financial advice is outstripping the advisor population. And that’s just for baby boomer and Gen X clients.

When millennials hit their mid-40s, the demand for financial advice is likely to go vertical early in the next decade. More forward-looking advisors already are building their own robo-advisors to on-board younger clients and expand their appeal to the next generation of clients.

These young advisors and their clients may be wrestling with the same issues that challenged previous generations, but their approach often is quite different. When you read Chris’s series of profiles, you’ll get some intriguing perspectives and some interesting ideas for your firm. Sometimes the best ideas come from those with few preconceptions.