The need for chief executives of RIAs to be supported in order to meet leadership challenges at a time of great change in the wealth industry has never been more apparent.

Dynasty Financial Partners and MIT Sloan School of Management are launching an executive education program aimed at fully-independent advisors leading RIAs.

Entitled the ‘Advisor to CEO Program,’ the offering includes a three-day event scheduled for May 2022 on MIT’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In addition to the MIT on-campus event, Dynasty network CEOs will engage in: CEO-only roundtables to encourage relationship building and peer-sharing, interactive fireside chats on key leadership topics; optional self-assessment on personal leadership and work style; and voluntary one-on-one follow-up coaching to reinforce learnings.

The program comes at a time when a slew of new RIAs have been built by breakaway teams from banks and wirehouses. Disruption caused by COVID-19 has also put a premium on developing new ways of growing business pipelines, building brands and planning for changes such as eventual succession. 

“Our goal is to help these leaders transition from being a top advisor within a larger organization to a CEO of a top RIA with potentially multiple business lines and offices,” Gordon Ross, director at Dynasty Financial Partners, said. “Dynasty chose MIT amongst the top American business schools because they have a deep understanding of the wealth management industry and a proven track record of imparting transferrable CEO skills that benefit clients and employees.”

“Clearly, successful financial advisors understand the wealth management space, but once they launch and lead their own RIA, they are confronted with the need to create advanced signals of value and develop new ways to get their businesses discovered - things they never dealt with before at their previous financial institutions. It’s also their first time managing people and navigating a much broader product and service solution universe,” Court Chilton, MIT Sloan Business School, said.