By the end of this year's Fearless Investing Summit,
The summit celebrated its sixth year this week with a gathering in Miami, Florida that put financial advisors, behavioral finance experts, marketing gurus and
In May, the firm Klein co-founded in 2011 as
Already thinking about ways to make the event bigger and bolder when it hits Nashville next fall for round seven, Klein wasn't ready to take a complete victory lap as the dust settled on Fearless 2023. But he was proud of Nitrogen's "reintroduction" and expressed excitement about the next step in what feels like a new beginning.
"We are so grateful to have more than 900 people here this year," he said. "The Fearless community is just something else. And we are incredibly humbled and grateful to be the guardians of this movement, and to have the opportunity to serve all of these amazing advisors."
The 2023 Fearless Investing Summit also brought news from the firm handling the hosting duties. On day one of the event, Nitrogen announced enhancements to its growth platform and provided a roadmap of its AI-powered future.
Klein believes that the industry is at an inflection point and that generative AI is beginning to power a "massive revolution that will allow advisors to work a fifth of the time, go five times deeper with their clients, become five times as profitable or dramatically lower their minimums to exponentially multiply the number of people who can access their advice."
Lead management is one aspect of the Nitrogen platform that is primed to get an AI remix. Arriving later in 2024, Nitrogen will leverage AI-driven predictive analytics to change how advisors turn leads into meetings.
That includes leads that flow in from key integrations like FMG,
Other announced upgrades include a new portfolio management experience that uses heatmaps to illustrate risk, reward and tax drag, and a new report builder that allows advisors to mix and match report elements in the order they choose to create one-click templates for quicker report generation.
New Nitrogen partnerships announced this week include Auxilium by Aptus, an outsourced CIO service; and insurance discounts for firms using Nitrogen compliance tools from RIA insurance provider AiK2.
"These major platform updates and focused innovation for advisors demonstrate why it is so critical for top-tier firms to invest in best-of-breed technology to drive their growth and achieve their strategic goals," Tricia Rothschild, board member at Nitrogen and a speaker during Monday's Fearless keynote, said in a statement. "The fastest-growing firms simply do not use second-tier tools bundled in for free with all-in-one solutions, and I'm so thrilled to watch the Nitrogen value proposition exponentially grow for everyone from solo advisors to 1,000+ strong enterprises."
As Fearless 2023 came to an end, Financial Planning caught up with Klein at the event to get his post-show thoughts and discuss a major win for an organization that has nothing to do with wealth management.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Financial Planning: Before we talk about the conference, let's talk about a big number shared on screen during your recap for
Aaon Klein: Yes. More than $50,000 was donated this week to help found a sustainable leather-working business that is going to employ aged-out orphans and vulnerable kids in Ethiopia. So it's pretty cool. And to turn it into a sustainable business that is going to forever be able to create jobs for aged-out orphans and vulnerable kids. It's so important. We're excited and so grateful to the Fearless community for all of that support.
FP: It's been a busy year for you and your team, with the rebrand being the biggest change. With the year winding down and Fearless 2023 in the books, how are you feeling now? Do you think you set off the Nitrogen era the right way?
AK: I think so. You know, I will say there was one advisor. I walked off the keynote stage, and he said, "Let me tell you, when I first heard about this rebrand, I said that is the dumbest name I've ever heard in my entire life. Nitrogen, I just don't think that's a smart name. But now that I heard you explain what it is and why this name is about us, I get it. I'm all in." And it was great to hear that. It's all about growth. It's about advisors. So, mission accomplished for that keynote. And that's what we want people to know.
FP: As the agenda shows, there was a lot of variety on the Fearless stage this year, from voices like
AK: We've always brought a very diverse group of speakers to the Fearless stage. And I'm so proud of that, because I'm also just really proud of our track record of just elevating some of the voices that are underrepresented in our profession. We need our profession to look more like our population, so that we can expand access to advice to more people. And one of the big ways that you do that is you elevate underrepresented voices. I'm just so grateful to our conference team for just being so committed to that. And always doing that every single year.
FP: You've been pretty hands-on at the event. Jumping in. Helping out speakers. Taking photos for guests. It looks like you're having a blast. How do you keep that energy up?
AK: I mean, that's our culture as a company. We believe that advisors do heroic work. And this week, every week, every year at Fearless, we get to spend a week just serving the advisors that are heroes in our world, because they're the ones who make sure that world-changing nonprofit work happens. They're the ones who make sure that people get to retire with dignity and security. And we're just so grateful to have the opportunity to serve them.
