\Recognizing the need to utilize more methods of communications with clients, a Cleveland-based registered investment advisor has signed a deal to utilize a communication platform developed by another RIA firm using it with its own clients. 

Communicating with clients is an essential part of an RIA’s business. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, more companies and individuals turned to video conferencing to stay in touch and keep working. After the pandemic, many did not wish to return to the hassle of in-person meetings and saw the convenience of remote communications. 

Mike Shebak, head of Institutional Consulting and senior managing director at Cleveland-based Clearstead Advisors, said his firm realized the need to improve its online communications during the pandemic.

“My team and myself went from years and years and years of getting in the car to drive to have to see clients in person … now all of a sudden we were Velcroed to our seats at home,” he said.

Prior to the pandemic his advisors met with clients in-person four times a year. Now they still meet four time a year, but two of those meetings are virtual. The firm has gotten by with video conferencing software, however it needed a more long-term solution. 

Last month, Clearstead signed a deal with Madison-Wis.-based eCIO, which is another RIA that created its own proprietary virtual communications platform, called eVestech.

The firm, which launched in 2019, created eVestech, to act as a proprietary communications hub for clients to communicate with their advisors and preserve important documents. Its RIA business consists of institutional nonprofit investors with investable assets of $1 million to $10 million.

Rob Roquitte, CEO and founder of eCIO, said his firm originally intended eVestech to be used by its own RIAs for quarterly investment committee meetings, performance reports, as well as performance and investment program progress, and storing essential fiduciary documents and records. 

However, the onset of the pandemic pushed the platform to grow and expand and become a software as a service (SaaS) venture for the firm.

“[The pandemic] really accelerated in two years what probably would have taken a decade or longer to happen as far as digital adoption and the desire for clients to want to interact on a virtual basis,” he said.

The two sides have agreed to work together where eCIO will provide its communication services to Clearstead.

“We are providing the eVestech platform and that is designed to help facilitate all communications with their clients,” Roquitte said.

The platform has the ability to push out a variety of communications to Clearstead’s institutional clients. Those communications can be emails, reports, or even news items.

The platform is also a document vault maintaining investment reports and governance documents. Those documents can remain on the platform even if there are personnel changes with the institutional clients or its supervising committees, Roquitte said. 

In addition, eVestech creates a virtual meeting space that incorporates Zoom. It can record and store meetings on the platform so if someone shows up late, they do not have to miss anything. 

“It really supplements what Clearstead is doing on a day-to-day basis in the normal delivery model, which is typically in person,” Roquitte said. 

Roquitte  explained that the system is fully secure and each client will have their own dedicated portal that will be password-protected. Each one can be customized so that only specific members can see certain documents. Finally, all email communications will be secured and searchable so that clients can easily search past communications.

The two sides are working together to develop the platform currently. Shebak said it will be branded with the Clearstead name and be highly customizable. One aspect that he said his firm’s clients can expect will be access to two branches of information. The first will be the firm’s own proprietary investment research including newsletters, quarterly reports, and others.

The second branch will be those deliverables that are customized to the specific client. This will include account statements, investment reports, and policy statements. 

Clearstead will launch the platform on a preliminary basis to up to 25 of its institutional clients by the first quarter of next year. The goal is to roll out the system to all of Clearstead’s 150 institutional clients within 12-18 months, according to Shebak.

In addition to the deal for a customizable communications hub, the two firms also agreed for Clearstead to take on the role of subadvisor to eCIO.

“We are there as support on any number of things they may need to win business or to service their clients,” he said.

As a subadvisor, Clearstead will provide investment research as well as model portfolios, ongoing monitoring of those portfolios, capital market assumptions, and due diligence on investment strategies, Shebak said.

Finally, in select situations Shebak said Clearstead could provide performance reports for some of eCIO’s clients.

“They go from a pretty thin investment team that’s doing a lot of things to now being able to tap into over 100 plus investments professionals at the firm,” Shebak said.

The two firms initially touched base due to a connection between Roquitte and Aneet Deshpande, Clearstead’s senior managing strategist and chief investment officer. The two worked together years ago. According to Roquitte, Deshpande saw a social medial post about eVestech, which prompted a conversation between the two. The timing of when this conversation began is unclear, however the end result became an arrangement between the two firms. 

As for the Clearstead arrangement, Roquitte is excited to have the deal with the firm, which it sees as its biggest relationship.

“We view the Clearstead relationship as the model relationship,” he said. “We think there is pretty big opportunities [out there for our platform].”

With the Clearstead deal, eCIO is now working with five different financial advisors and is in talks with others. Roquitte could not say how many talks were ongoing or when the next deal would be struck, but said there were several pending in the pipeline.

The firm’s target firms are those with about $3-$100 billion in assets. Although its longer-term goal is to create a more turnkey suite for the market just below that level. Roquitte anticipates rolling that out within the next 18-24 months.

As for Clearstead, Shebak said he also sees the relationship with eCIO as mutually beneficial. He said using its technology will make the firm more efficient when it comes to its communication and delivering reports to its clients. 

“The technology that they’ve developed to interact with their institutional clients is state-of-the-art, progressive and it’s something that we see can be very additive to our consulting practice,” he said.