Brooke’s Note: I’ve been writing profiles of the various RIA custodians and using a similar format for each of them. I’ve called it the Asset Custody Project. Now RIABiz will apply a similar approach to some of the technology companies that RIAs use most. This profile of Orion Advisor Service is the first one that I’ve completed in that format under the RIA Technology Project banner. By the way, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services is next up to be profiled among the custodians. It makes a compelling case for having a unique value proposition that extends beyond what I’ve heard before.

When Eric Clarke founded Orion Advisor Services in 1999 it was more an act of frustration than of entrepreneurial vision.

At the time he was running his own RIA, and the firm was managing about $800 million of assets using dbCAMS software.The portfolio management software wasn’t geared to what he was trying to accomplish. His RIA practice was a sizeable turnkey asset management program.

Clarke says he turned to the leading technology company in the industry — Advent Software of San Francisco — but its salespeople told him that he would have to pay $100,000 to make a bid – an amount that was too big for his small company at the time.

Some RIAs may be interested in what their closest 239 friends are doing in their spare time, and they use Facebook to keep up.

Orion Advisor Services is betting that many finacial advisors would be even more interested in keeping better contact with their own practice.

With that thinking in mind, the Omaha-based portfolio management software outsourcer will create a page in its portfolio management system that promises to borrow the bells and whistles of the famous social media website. The page will be modeled after Facebook’s News Feed and “Wall” and will roll out in June.

“There’s something to this,” says Eric Clarke, CEO of Orion. “I think there’s something we can learn from social media.”

Brooke’s Note: I’m finding that every breakaway is like a snowflake. The timing, circumstances, personalities and future ambitions all vary. The one common denominator is the zeal of the converted and this team is no different. Ever wonder what words advisors choose to let their clients know about their plans to run an independent RIA? Pointe Capital Management shared the letter it wrote after its breakaway from UBS and it’s appended at the bottom of this article.

Grosse Pointe, Mich., is graced by boxy Tudors and neo-Georgians with large backyards and leafy old-growth trees. There are mansions down by the town’s lake.

The Ford-driving Detroit suburbanites are not generally thought of as rebels.

But by the standards of these environs, Charles Huebner, 64, and John P. Jagger, 68, are taking radical action. The two 30-plus year UBS veterans left their comfortable wirehouse circumstances on Feb. 12 and bring “several hundreds of millions” of assets under management with them.

The Senate financial services reform legislation released yesterday would move regulation of RIAs managing less than $100 million from the SEC to the state level, delay regulatory action on applying the fiduciary standard to broker-dealers and layer in some new investor protections that could ultimately reign in some broker-dealer practices.

The reform bill contained few surprises for RIAs. The most clear-cut change – shifting oversight of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 advisors, or about 75% of the SEC-regulated advisors, to state regulators – was also contained in the House version of reform. If financial services reform ultimately passes Congress and is signed by the president (still a big uncertainty) that provision seems likely to be contained in a final draft.

The cause nearest to the hearts of many RIA advocates – extending the fiduciary standard to broker-dealers – faces an uncertain future in any final reform measure.

The reform bill released by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Monday requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to study regulation of brokers and advisers and report to Congress within a year. It also requires the SEC to adopt rules in two years to address regulatory gaps between brokers and advisers.

Brooke’s Note: For much of the advisory industry, it takes days or weeks to get to the nub of what new proposals relating to brokers and Wall Street mean to the average consumer. Fortunately for us readers, Ron Rhoades is not one of those people. After taking a short time yesterday to read over Senator Dodds’ proposed bill on regulatory reform, he churned out this thorough and highly analytical piece. The news looks bad for fiduciary advocates but Rhoades is no pessimist. He offers some consoling thoughts toward the column’s end relating to how the Department of Labor could still prove to be a saving grace.

Wall Street, FINRA, and SIFMA are on the path to “success” with Senator Dodd’s bill, as it was released today. Consumers lost big today.

SEC PROVIDED AUTHORITY TO EMPOWER FINRA AND LOWER STANDARDS OF CONDUCT FOR THE DELIVERY OF INVESTMENT ADVICE. There are many aspects of financial services reform being addressed in Senator Dodd’s “Chairman’s mark-up” of the financial services reform bill which are praiseworthy.

However, in the final analysis the average consumer of financial services and products will see little added protection from the abuses which continue to occur at the hand of Wall Street’s large financial behemoths.

Brooke’s note: The first time I heard a Fidelity Investments executive talk seriously about improving service was when the company hired Jack Callahan as president of its RIA custody business in 2006. He brought a new level of accountability by, for instance, having Fidelity employees call clients of RIAs that were referred by Fidelity to ask them about their satisfaction level. Then it hired Charles Goldman to oversee its advisory service, and Fidelity’s mission to ramp up service levels began to take on a Manhattan Project-like feel. Goldman was instrumental in launching the service pods in September that now serve the company’s most elite RIAs. Now Fidelity appears to be moving to the third, high-stakes phase of this effort as it gives Maggie Serravalli an exceptionally broad oversight of service and client experience.

If Fidelity Investments cracks the service code and becomes as well-known for the way it treats financial advisors as the way it delivers 401(k) plans and mutual funds, Maggie Serravalli will no doubt get the credit as anybody should who makes good on the big promises Fidelity has made to its clients.

In a bold move announced by the financial giant today, Fidelity Institutional is giving Serravalli virtually total control over all aspects of the service and relationship management experience for National Financial Services, Institutional Wealth Services, Fidelity Capital Markets, Fidelity Family Office Services and Personal and Workplace Investing.

In an interview with RIABiz, she said that her company will — in the relatively near future — restructure its service offering to broker-dealers through NFS. Last September FIWS rolled out a new team-style strategy for elite RIAs. Serravalli says the new plan through NFS is intended to make the same kind of quantum advance though the service structure will be quite different.

Brooke’s Note: The last couple of years have been tough because the economy and the markets have been unforgiving. Into the teeth of this headwind, Black Diamond is growing with a vengeance. It now has 190 clients with 115,000 accts and $40 Billion of assets under management. Read: Black Diamond is winning big accounts from Advent at an impressive clip. Now it’s quietly deepening its talent pool.

Black Diamond Performance Reporting hired another RIA custody veteran in a bid to create a staff that fulfills the company’s promise to provide a consultative approach to selling technology.

The Jacksonville, Fla.-based maker of portfolio management systems announced today that it made Karen Lisowski its vice president of sales for the western third of the United States.

The hire follows closely on Black Diamond’s addition of Schwab Advisor Services executive, David Welling, who joined as chief solutions officer earlier this year. He oversees sales, marketing and product management for Black Diamond. See Former Schwab veteran lands with Black Diamond

Brooke’s Note: On Friday morning Heather, Nevin and I all participated in a demonstration of the Orion Advisor Services software used by 200 advisory firms that control 350,000 accounts. I was grateful that Eric Clarke, CEO of the Omaha, Neb.-based firm took the time to walk us through the demonstration. He takes an unassuming approach and I had the bonus of asking him questions for a more in-depth article about the company for later this week. I had been meaning to catch up with Eric for a while because his company’s software has definitely made its way onto the short list of many an RIA seeking an alternative to the bigger names in portfolio management systems. Impressive was that Clarke, an ex-resident of the Bay area is — from his new domicile in Omaha — bringing a decidedly Silicon Valley flair to his technology. Further down in this review you’ll read how he’ll be releasing a concept that borrows heavily from Facebook to help financial advisors better manage their practices.

Ten years after leaving the RIA business to focus on the technology side of portfolio management, Eric Clarke, CEO of Orion Advisor Services is continuing to develop a custom web-based system that competes effectively in today’s RIA software market. In our demo of Orion’s technology last week, Eric gave us an inside look at some of the things that differentiate his company as well as some of the new features that will be rolled out in the June quarterly release.

We began the demo by looking at Advisor Desktop, Orion’s “home page” for advisors. In contrast to FinFolio’s use of the Microsoft Office Suite’s ribbon strip navigation and easily-recognizable icons, the interface for Orion’s Advisor Desktop parallels the Window’s Operating System to the extent that I half expected the animated XP search puppy (similar to, but less annoying than Microsoft Office’s Mr. Paperclip) to pop up and ask if I needed help managing my accounts. Similar to FinFolio, the familiarity of the Orion’s sidebar navigation and overall look-and-feel makes the system intuitive to any Window’s user and provides a clear picture of the functionality Orion has to offer.

Brooke’s Note: This was a fun story to report on because it has a surprising twist. It involves one of the fastest-growing RIAs, Rehmann Financial, and a broker-dealer, Royal Alliance, that seemed to be more likely to lose a hot RIA than to gain one. It’s about how these two companies seemingly headed in two different directions formed a promising marriage. The two articles that I wrote previously about the AIG Advisor Group subsidiary seemed to fit with statistics showing steady attrition of advisors from the company. These articles included: New RIA with a Royal touch about Barry Glassman taking his assets to Schwab Advisor Services and Why a Royal Alliance champion gave up the cause after AIG made changes which was about Jim Warren moving his practice to Geneos Wealth Management, following in the path of other Royal Alliance advisors. Elizabeth MacBride wrote an article about a loyal Royal Alliance advisor, Steve Cassaday, entitled: A breakaway story, old-school style

The last few times Royal Alliance landed in the media spotlight, it was for the kinds of news stories make executives cringe: several big advisors — and dozens of smaller ones — departed Royal Alliance for other broker-dealers in recent years.

The departures were helped along by the turmoil surrounding Royal Alliance’s parent company, AIG. Some advisors said also that the culture of Royal Alliance had grown too corporate under the big insurer’s ownership.

Through this period of attrition, New York-based Royal Alliance stuck by its guns, with a message that it is, for instance, the broker-dealer to go to for forming a large branch office.

Summit Alliance Investment Group is a perfect example of the kinds of firms that are joining the explosion of signatories to Broker Protocol. The number of signatories to the document, which is essentially a no-fault recruiting tool, grew by 19 between Feb. 4 and March 8. The total now numbers 443, as you can see here.

Dallas-based Summit joined because it anticipates growth in its independent broker-dealer and, even more so, in its RIA. A broker who leaves one Protocol member company to join another Protocol member company is permitted to take his or her client list along, as long as certain strict rules are followed.

By joining the Protocol, Summit is opening the door in advance for high-producing brokers, most likely from larger companies, who want a new home.

“We just wanted to market ourselves in that way,” said Stan R. Hall, chief compliance officer for the two firms.

Elizabeth’s note: The assets in target date funds will grow to $7 billion in 2020, from 2.5 billion in 2005, thanks to a 2007 ruling by the Department of Labor that made the plans one acceptable default choice for employer plans, according to 401(k) research and rating company BrightScope. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro remains suspicious. In a speech in early February, she noted that she has asked SEC staff to prepare a rule proposal to provide additional information to investors when a fund includes a date in its name. “Not all target date funds are created the same, and some with very near-term target dates lost substantial amounts of investors’ money in 2008,” she said. The SEC aside, Rob Isbitts lays out the reasons to steer clear of target date funds.

Target Date Funds are sold to investors as all-in-one investment portfolios in that they allocate amongst the broad stock and bond markets.

They are designed to adjust the allocation based on how many years remain until the investor’s target retirement date. This is not necessarily the date when the investor will stop working, but it is the date to which the fund is managed.

In other words, the target dates are set with the masses in mind, and the investor may choose a fund that is aiming to reach its objective at a point close to when they expect to use the money.

Fidelity Investments has launched a major reorganization of the company’s RIA business that includes folding relationship management and sales into one unit.

As part of the changes, Joe Giordano, executive vice president of relationship management at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management, and Mike MacWade, senior vice president of client service and operations, are leaving.

The changes are being made in order to improve customer service, according to a memo obtained by RIABiz.

“I would like to thank Joe [Giordano] and Mike [MacWade] for their service to IWS and wish them well,” wrote Mike Durbin, president of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management, in the e-mailed memorandum written to some RIA clients. “These changes are reflective of the evolution of the marketplace in which we are all operating, and I believe they will position us to provide you with the best experience for your clients and your business.”

Editor’s note: The story was updated, midday on Tuesday, in the fifth paragraph, to better explain that the language of the draft amendment is ambiguous on the question of what actions or business models would trigger oversight by the new board.

A fiduciary standard is becoming the phoenix of financial service reform.

This time, it’s rising in the form of legislation floated late last week by Senate Banking Committee member Herb Kohl, D-Wisc. The draft amendment to financial services reform legislation would require brokers, RIAs or planners who perform financial planning duties to be regulated by a new board that would promote adherence to a fiduciary standard.

The legislation, which is generating opposition from many quarters, faces an uphill battle. Still, it represents a triumph for the Financial Planning Coalition. The group, which was formed last year, includes the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., the Financial Planning Association and the National Association of Personal Financial Planners. Together, they have been pushing against all odds for creation of an oversight body to regulate financial planning. They also are strong supporters of the fiduciary standard.

Elizabeth’s note: This guest column, by Janelle Sallenave, vice president of client experience at Schwab Advisor Services, offers a path for advisors eyeing the multifamily office bonanza. Definitions of ultra-high-net-worth vary, but for purposes of this column, it’s $25 million or more in investable assets. The path to serving the ultrarich is more or less clear, but once you’re on it, you might find it a little strange. The super-rich demand another world of service beyond the traditional strengths of many RIAs. Do you know a party planner who can reel in Madonna’s makeup artist for a teen-ager’s birthday party? Have a line on an appraiser willing to accompany an Imari collector to Europe? Are you equipped to cope with the disputes that arise as the scion of a wealthy family takes a greater role in a family business? One of the most important takeaways from this column is how much time you’ll need to spend considering exactly which clients your RIA is equipped to serve.

These days, a growing number of RIAs are looking more closely at the multifamily office (MFO) business model as they strive to move up-market and serve ultra-high-net-worth families. The appeal of working with affluent clients is obvious — and thanks to RIAs’ skills in client relationship management and investment management, and their reputation for transparency, RIAs are definitely suited to address the needs of multiple generations of highly affluent families.

That said, the challenges involved in transitioning an advisory practice to an MFO structure can be immense. If you’re considering entering this market, you should ask yourself these six key questions to determine if it’s the right move for you:

1. Who will you serve?

When identifying an ideal MFO client, it’s imperative to look beyond a simple asset target. The reason: Two ultra-affluent families with the same net worth could face extremely different challenges that require vastly different services. Consider, for example, how the needs of a family with a young entrepreneur patriarch might differ from the needs of a large, geographically diverse family with inherited wealth. It’s important to look for prospective clients who are highly aligned with you in terms of their overall approach and philosophy. Virginia-based Signature Financial Management, for instance, seeks to work primarily with highly successful business owners and executives who possess certain characteristics, like the willingness to delegate and a desire to use their wealth to achieve meaningful goals. According to co-founder Susan Colpitts, “We want to be the trusted advisor to people who view wealth and its potential as we do. It’s important to work with like-minded people.”

Constellation Wealth Advisors announced yesterday that it hired a former football star to join the firm as a principal. It hopes Steve Bono, working from its Menlo Park office, will bring aboard ultra high net worth clients.

The firm already manages about $4 billion, but in the contest for clients with $10 million or more in assets, the firm’s leadership thought that having NFL star on the team would help.

Bono spent fifteen years as an NFL quarterback, playing for seven teams, including in two Super Bowls and one Pro Bowl. He spent five years with the San Francisco 49ers. He retired in 2000.

“Steve is a California sports icon, an active member of the Bay Area community and a proven talent in the financial services industry,” said Jon Goldstein, co-CEO of Constellation. “He represents a tremendous resource to help fuel Constellation’s growth.”

Brooke’s Note: As part of the Asset Custody Project, I am speaking to leaders of the various asset custodians in the RIA industry to learn more about how they are trying to distinguish their services and products from competitors. In my interview a couple of weeks ago with Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, we discussed the thorny issue of the custody of alternative assets. It’s a subject that most custodial executives prefer to say little about at all. What Tibergien had to say on the subject was detailed and complex enough that I pulled those comments out of the Asset Custody Project profile of Pershing that RIABiz ran last week. From the comments, I wrote this article.

In a recent interview, Mark Tibergien drew a distinction between Pershing’s approach to the custody of alternative assets and that of its rivals, saying that Pershing’s approach is easier for RIAs to deal with but still will be secure enough to satisfy regulators.

The Jersey City, N.J.-based asset custodian established nine requirements in September that alternative investments, such as private equity, hedge funds or private placements, must meet in order to be considered suitable for custody.

“We’ve developed a list of requirements consistent with where regulators are going,” says Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions.

Ben Valore-Caplan, CIMA, is a registered investment advisor who broke away from UBS in 2008 to provide a higher level of counsel to his clients under Syntrinsic Investment Counsel, LLC. He writes out his thoughts about matters relating to investments and sends them to his clients in periodic e-mails. When I read this essay sent out last week, I asked if I could re-publish it for readers of RIABiz and Ben kindly agreed.

The Egyptian Nobel Prize winning novelist, Naguib Mahfouz, once suggested that, “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” Being in the business of asking and fielding questions, I agree.

People reveal their hopes, dreams, biases, and fears through what they want to know. The questions we ask reveal our intelligence, capacity for learning, and, yes, our gullibility. These truths are particularly relevant in the investment world where so many behavioral factors such as emotion and personality influence how people evaluate economic decisions.

The questions we ask as a society also reveal broader social trends and shifts in conventional wisdom. Now two and a half years into one of the most intense global economic crises in modern history, certain questions have become increasingly common from investment committees, boards of directors, and individuals throughout the country.

Elizabeth’s note: I e-mailed Ron Rhoades for his thoughts on the New York Times story, Trusted Adviser or Stock Pusher? Finance Bill May Not Settle It. He sent me this response, which covers a lot of ground. It lays out the depressing reality for advocates of the fiduciary standard in the 1940 Investment Advisers Act. Despite the fact that consumers are waking up to the importance of the fiduciary standard, as evidenced by the Times story, special interests are likely to prevail in Washington, D.C.

After decades of refusal by the SEC to apply the Advisers Act’s broker-dealer exemption narrowly, as Congress intended (and their continued inexplicable interpretation of when investment advice is “merely incidental” to a sales transaction), it’s no wonder that consumers are worried — as evidenced by the New York Times piece. (For RIABiz’s post on the story, click here). Now, it appears to me …

The Johnson amendment Is highly likely to be part of the Dodd Bill

It is highly likely that Dodd’s bill, when it finally gets released, will come out with the Johnson amendment included in it. The amendment, put forward by Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., charges the SEC with conducting a study of the regulations governing brokers and advisers within 18 months. The agency would have to issue new regulations within two years. The Johnson amendment, in the eyes of many, leaves the “status quo” as to broker-dealer (BD) and registered investment adviser (RIA) regulation, as it calls for a further study of the issue. But – does the Johnson amendment really leave things status quo?

The “danger” of the Johnson amendment

The Johnson Amendment could be construed to give the SEC authority to “harmonize” and/or undertake another exemption from the definition of Investment Adviser Act. Consider this language from a draft of the amendment released a few weeks ago. The study referred to is the one authorized by the amendment to examine the regulations applying to broker-dealers and investment advisors.

In the past few months, the phrase “fiduciary standard” has migrated from trade publications to business weeklies to – yesterday – the front of the business section of the New York Times.

An article in the paper highlighted the difference between the image that wirehouses seek to project in advertisements, and the reality.

It also posed the twin questions of whether a fiduciary standard that applies to all investment advice would help bring reality in line with illusion, and whether that standard has any chance, politically.

In short, the story seemed to be all that any advocate for the existing fiduciary standard that RIAs now operate under could hope. The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, an advocacy group formed last year, e-mailed it to its 700-plus members. Still, Ron Rhoades has his doubts whether even the nation’s most potent newspaper can make a dent on the fiduciary issue against the political steamroller in Washington. To read his reaction,click:Why the New York Times fiduciary article won’t deter the special interests in Washington

The SEI Advisor Network signed on 250 new registered investment advisors, increased assets under management to nearly $30 billion and generated $4.5 billion in new assets in 2009, according to a release from the company.

The number of new advisors that joined the turnkey asset management program of SEI represents a more than 40% increase from 2008. Assets increased from $28 billion at the end of 2008.

Most of those new advisors came to the Oaks, Pa.-based TAMP in 2009 because another advisor referred them.

But in 2010, SEI is hoping that a new program it launched in January will drive business from the industry’s most important centers of influence – the independent broker-dealers where most of its advisor clients are affiliated.

Brooke’s Note: This is the fifth article in the Asset Custody Project series.

To some financial advisors, it seems like Pershing LLC made its big move into the mainstream of the RIA custody business in 2007 — and then nothing much happened.

The company caught the industry’s imagination that year by hiring Mark Tibergien away from consulting firm Moss Adams LLP of Seattle. He arrived on the heels of the company creating Pershing Advisors Solutions in 2006, which had formerly been known as Investment Manager Services.

Tibergien had made his name as the top management consultant at Moss Adams, and some people believed the new CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions could wave a wand to make Pershing’s assets balloon.

Brooke’s Note: You can’t hang around in the advisory community for long without hearing talk about the great opportunity represented by Baby Boomers rolling over their 401(k) plans into IRAs. Now imagine being a broker counting on that inevitable flow of assets and realizing that new rules could prohibit managing them. If the Department of Labor has its way, that appears to be the tectonic shift that is taking place. If you wonder why some brokers speak of “getting ahead of the curve” by breaking away to become an RIA, this turn of events would help to put their caution into perspective.

New regulations proposed by the Department of Labor could give fee-only RIAs a big leg up in serving the $4.1 trillion IRA market by, practically speaking, excluding dual registrants from giving advice on IRAs.

Most of the attention to the proposal has been devoted to its potential impact on advice for the $2.7 trillion 401k market. Read: Why the DOL’s proposed 401(k) rules could ding brokers and leave the spoils to RIAs.

That misses the point, some say.

Brooke’s Note: This article is about the potential for a big-time setback for securities brokers from a regulatory development in Washington. For years wirehouses have maneuvered past various SEC threats to getting paid for providing advice that didn’t meet strict fiduciary standards. Now it appears that a new less foreseen threat — new DOL regulations — could shrink the potential assets that brokers employed by big firms advise on. This article elucidates how independent advisors — and in a separate development index funds — may be well-positioned to capitalize on this potential upheaval.

At first glance, the aspects of the regulations proposed by the Department of Labor that apply to the 401(k) market don’t change the picture much for RIAs. The rules are aimed at eliminating advisors’ conflicts of interest, and would apply to brokers, including hybrid advisors, who give advice to 401(k) plans and earn any commissions from companies whose products are held in the retirement accounts.

It would also effect IRAs. Read: IRA assets could be ripped from the grasp of brokers if DOL has its way

But some independent advisors say the complex rules may benefit them in the long run if more advisors affiliated with big companies — who are the most apt to have such conflicts of interest — opt out of the $2.7 trillion market.

I’m happy to report on several changes at RIABiz over the past few weeks.

You may have noticed a new byline on our site. Sara Hansard, who covered Washington for InvestmentNews as Washington bureau chief and Washington reporter since that publication’s inception in 1997 until early 2010, has joined the RIABiz community as an occasional contributor.

We are happy to have her bring her deep reporting experience to RIABiz.

Prior to working at Investment News, Sara covered financial services and other Washington policy issues for the former Bridge News and Knight-Ridder Financial News as well as Dow Jones’ Federal Filings News Service. She has been a journalist covering industry news for nearly 30 years.

Brooke’s Note: When I learned yesterday that Nick Georgis was returning to Schwab to take on – in many ways – a more impressive job than the one he left, I began to make phone calls to people who knew him. It was a happy task. The surprise and pleasure at the other end of the line was of the kind you wish you got when you gave those books to your family for Christmas. But besides these emotions I also got the sense that people believed that Schwab had scored in luring Georgis back to downtown San Francisco after most of six years elsewhere. And Georgis is excited about his latest career move: “I felt like I was going back to school,” he says. “I had trouble sleeping and I was concerned about what tie to wear.” This article looks at this interesting turn of events.

There are at least two reasons to think that it was unlikely that J. Nicholas Georgis would have returned to Schwab Advisor Services after a six-year hiatus. See yesterday’s article: Nick Georgis returns to Schwab Advisor Services

First, the former sales chief of the big San Francisco-based asset custodian came to the company in 1991, when it was still in the entrepreneurial mode. What was then Schwab Institutional had only $8 billion of assets in custody at the time.

Often when companies grow from such a fledgling state into the dominant players in an industry, a whole new generation of executives takes the place of the original leaders. A new mindset and a new set of skills is required as a small battalion becomes an army.

Brooke’s Note: The on-site reporting for the this story was generously provided by Timothy Welsh, principal of Nexus Strategy LLC of Larkspur, Calif., who kept notes and gave me a report by telephone from the front lines.

The FPA Business Solutions 2010 conference kicked off yesterday in Dallas with a solid crowd, some big name speakers and lousy weather.

The fifth annual technology and practice management event of the Financial Planning Association doubled the size of its crowd to 300 attendees and sold out the exhibit hall.

The event featured Eric Haseltine as a speaker and Aaron Patzer as head of a breakout session. Patzer sold his company, Mint.com, to Intuit in September for $170 million before he turned 30.

J. Nicholas “Nick” Georgis has rejoined Schwab Advisor Services today as vice president, strategic business.

Georgis was hired by Bernie Clark, head of Schwab Advisor Services, and he will report to him.

Georgis, 55, worked in a variety of roles at Schwab between 1991-2004 and he was the company’s national sales director for RIA custody at the time of his departure. He worked for Russell Investments of Tacoma, Wash. as the managing director, wealth management, for its U.S. Individual Investor Services group in 2005 and 2006.

Georgis was responsible for building and managing Russell’s relationships with wealth managers, including RIAs. He was also part of that group’s senior management team.

Jennifer Chatman sat on a table at the front the lecture room of the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, with her legs dangling.

Silence. The 35 attendees from United Capital – a roll-up that’s looking to make a decisive move toward becoming a more cohesive RIA in 2010 – waited to hear what the professor of business management would say that to help them achieve their goal.

To create the moment of anticipation, Joe Duran, CEO of United Capital, spent more than $100,000 and for his investment, he expects big returns.

His stated goal for the conference was to teach the skills – and instill the culture — necessary for RIAs in cities around the country to acquire and assimilate other advisory practices the way that United Capital’s executive management does from the company’s headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif.

Brooke’s Note: A slide show of the conference can be seen on the jump page of this article.

In off years, a compliance conference might be considered, well, less than lively.

This year, with the RIA regulator world threatening to spin off its axis in Washington, D.C., the Investment Adviser Association’s annual compliance conference was abuzz with questions about the future of RIA regulation.

Will FINRA succeed in its bid to regulate hybrid RIAs, or even all RIAs? Are any ears on the Hill open to the RIA argument that a strong fiduciary standard is crucial to protect consumers? And everyone was listening to SEC Commissioner Elisse Walter for clues about what the SEC might do, in addition to or in lieu of legislation. And then, there were all the post-Madoff, post-crisis regulations that are taking effect no matter what happens on the Hill.

Attendance at the conference, co-sponsored by ACA Compliance Group, was up about 25% over last year, to about 200 attendees. About a dozen vendors filled a large alcove in the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va.

Check out this RIABiz slide show of the conference:

Brooke’s Note: Nobody likes lawyers until they need one. The same can be said for lobbyists who also tend to talk fast, eat in better restaurants and — according to Ross Perot — wear alligator shoes. RIAs could use a few more right now in Washington. As the only recognized lobbyist for RIAs, Neil Simon is almost singlehandedly taking on lobbyists representing scores of brokerage firms and insurance companies. Here are some of his words on the matter from a luncheon speech on Friday.

The most powerful lobbyist in Washington working for the interests of RIAs believes that the insurance industry now has the upper hand.

But Neil Simon, government relations vice president for the Investment Adviser Association, told about 200 attendees of the IAA’s annual compliance conference Friday that time may still be on the side of advisors who believe in a stringent and universal fiduciary standard.

“There’s still months and months of opportunity for us to fix this thing.” he said.