What happens when a mega-RIA loses its highly influential founder and namesake in the middle of a pandemic?

For $241 billion AUM Edelman Financial Engines, it’s meant continuing to evolve as a firm that combines professional fiduciary financial planning with technology to deliver advice relevant for any kind of consumer.

After handing off his leadership roles, Edelman stepped back from his chairman of financial education and client experience position at the firm in the summer of 2021. While he still remains active as a board member, a strategic advisor and as Edelman Financial Engines’ largest individual shareholder, most of the strategy and operations of the firm now fall under the supervision of Executive Vice President and Head of Wealth Planning and Marketing Jason Van de Loo, who is a member of CEO Larry Raffone’s leadership team.

Van de Loo worked his way into his position after serving as a marketing executive with Financial Engines, a workplace retirement business that merged with Edelman Financial Services in 2018. At that time, Financial Engines had 1.1 million workplace retirement clients, many of them working at the 122 Fortune 500 companies it boasted as clients. Following the merger, he was named Chief Marketing Officer before adding wealth management to his plate in 2020.

“We’re at an interesting point in our evolution as a firm,” said Van de Loo. “Part of that is Ric’s transition as he heads to the next chapter of his career. We’ve come through two years of integration, and any time you integrate firms as large and successful as Edelman and Financial Engines, that’s hard work. Now we’ve had a chance to reset, take a break and reconsider our focus.”

The now combined firm has a total of 1.3 million clients, including 95,000 individual and household investor clients served comprehensive financial planning services by a team of 340+ advisors from over 140 offices around the country.

In other words, it's not the easiest ship to steer.

Van de Loo has developed the following three-part vision for Edelman Financial Engines that he says is designed to modernize the brand, deepen its value proposition and develop the next generation of talent.

Modernization
The legacy Edelman Financial Services business was built from the ground up almost exclusively through organic growth via 30 years of AM radio programs and face-to-face seminars, said Van de Loo. Covid-19 forced the firm to change directions and think differently about how it attracts clients. [Note: “Everyday Wealth” launched in January 2022, to replace the company’s former radio program “The Ric Edelman Show.”]

The workplace business is a potential goldmine of financial planning clients that Van de Loo wants to tap. He imagines Edelman Financial Engines becoming a brand that can help people from their very first job when they first enroll in a 401(k) all the way through retirement when they need retirement income, estate and tax planning questions answered.

“We can help employees with interactions at one brand that create a single experience throughout their entire financial journey,” said Van de Loo. “The workplace is our largest single source of new clients, and that business is a great asset for us. The first thing we’ve been investing in is bringing more value into the workplace so we can open up more introductions from employees in workplaces to our wealth planners.”

Under Van de Loo’s vision, Everyday Wealth was designed to be a branded content platform that includes not only terrestrial radio but also podcasts and integrated content made available through online channels and through the firm’s workplace business.

Edelman Financial Engines is also making “heavy” investments in digital advertising, said Van de Loo, including affiliate partnerships, search engine marketing efforts and mar-tech.

Value Proposition
“Historically, our value proposition was anchored in the mass affluent space,” said Van de Loo. “We’ve seen slightly more affluent clients with more complex needs coming to us in the last few years, and now 50% of our business is with investors who have more than $1 million invested with us.”

That puts Edelman Financial Engines in an interesting position, as Van de Loo also wants to harness the firm’s workplace retirement business as a source for wealth management clients.

But over time, the firm is moving to add more sophisticated service offerings around estate planning, tax advice and insurance with an eye towards clients with $1 million or more in investible assets.

“We’re also doing interesting things around the workplace to expand our value proposition, including delivering financial wellness services and more pathways for employees to meet our advisors and wealth planners,” said Van de Loo.

Expect changes to be carefully thought-out and measured. Van de Loo was critical of the expansive service offerings of some financial firms, arguing that it’s better to offer clients a simplified experience than a vast menu of options.

Growing Talent
Edelman Financial Engines intends to continue to add leaders, planners and client service resources at an “aggressive clip” over the next year as it continues to grow organically, said Van de Loo.

The best source of talent for Edelman Financial Engines is within, said Van de Loo, who advocates for developing and promoting internally.

“We aspire to develop an apprenticeship for talent within our organization that wants to grow into the planner role,” he said. “Considering how we grow the next generation of talent creates interesting challenges for us.”

Gradual Inorganic Growth
Don’t expect Edelman Financial Engines to become a big merger-and-acquisition powerhouse or an aggregator of RIAs.

“We think of M&A less transactionally and more strategically,” said Van de Loo. “We’re looking for the right client, capability and culture.”

Over the past 18 months, the firm has made its first handful of acquisitions, starting with Viridian Advisors, a Washington state-based RIA and tax planning firm, which Edelman Financial Engines acquired in May 2021.

More recently, the firm acquired $680 million AUM Smart Investor and $490 million AUM Herrmann & Cooke Wealth Management, both northern California-based RIAs.