In this episode, David Armstrong is joined by Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Services (now Edelman Financial Engines) and the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals. Edelman discusses how he founded his firm with a focus on middle class savers when every other advisory firm was only looking for HNW clients, and grew the business $22 billion in AUM before merging it with Financial Engines. Stepping away this year from the firm he founded, he is now focused on investments based around technologies that he says will transform our lives, including blockchain, genomics and artificial intelligence, and is on a mission to educate financial advisors about cryptocurrency.  

Ric discusses:

• How his earlier career as a journalist helped set him up for success as an advisor and entrepreneur. 
  
• His views on the “holier-than-thou” critics of advisory fees based on AUM. 
  
• Why he thinks this is the right time to step away from Edelman Financial Engines, even as he remains the largest individual shareholder. 
  
• Why he convinced Morningstar and Blackrock to partner with him in launching the iShares Exponential Technology ETF (ticker: XT), the first of the thematic ETFs focusing on transformative technologies. 
  
• How most financial advisors are failing in their fiduciary duties by ignoring the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a new asset class. 
  
• Why he created the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals.
  

Connect With Ric Edelman:

• Ric Edelman
  
• Edelman Financial Engines
  
• Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals
  

Connect With David Armstrong:

• david.armstrong@informa.com
  
• WealthManagement.com
  

About Our Guest:

Ric Edelman co-founded Edelman Financial Services with his wife Jean in 1986. He sold a majority stake to Sanders Morris Harris Group in 2005 and merged the firm with Financial Engines, to become Edelman Financial Engines, in 2018. He helped Morningstar create the Morningstar Exponential Technologies Index from which iShares launched the Exponential Technology ETF (ticker: XT). He founded the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals to educate the financial services industry about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.