And as the new head of digital advisor solutions at Schwab Advisor Services,
"I'm really proud to say that despite a couple of stints elsewhere in the organization, I've spent my entire career really in and around registered and independent advisors. So supporting the Advisor Services business and that I've seen mature over time really means a lot," Dooher told Financial Planning.
Slated to be completed sometime between April and October 2023, Charles Schwab's integration of TD Ameritrade's brokerage and custody businesses has been in the works since the
Along with the question of "when," the thousands of advisors impacted by the deal are also working through the "how." By the latest company counts, TD Ameritrade provides custodial services for more than 6,000 independent registered investment advisors, and Schwab supports a network of more than 7,000.
The digital advisor solutions team Dooher now leads is responsible for the tech platform suite empowering RIAs that custody assets with Schwab. Her team also has a hand in advancing the overall custody, trading and support services Schwab provides to independent investment advisors.
Dooher's previous roles at Schwab include leading teams that craft digital onboarding and account servicing experiences for advisors, and being one of the minds tasked with launching Schwab's robo-advisor, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.
Financial Planning caught up with Dooher this week to discuss her movement through the firm; her team's top priorities on the road to integration; and the big ask her team has for advisors as they continue to prepare.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Financial Planning: After so many years with Schwab and all the personal and professional growth you've experienced, how does it feel to be at the helm of digital advisor solutions at such an important moment for the organization?
Alison Dooher: I could not be more excited about this. It's an opportunity to bring both what I've lived and learned to the role, but also I'm excited to be in such a high learning moment. There's an incredible pace of change happening right now internally at Schwab and externally within the industry, so it's a pretty bright future as far as I can see. I couldn't gush more about this opportunity.
FP: Staying on the topic of change, what are you seeing that is different both within Schwab and the industry at large?
AD: Well, nothing has changed from our top-line objective. Our goal is to help advisors of all sizes, and it's really important to say the "of all sizes" part. We want to help them succeed through both people and technology.
And I think the thing that we've really observed over the past couple of years is this trend of advisors really leaning into digitization and more automated workflows for how they drive scale and efficiency. Some of this was driven by necessity due to the pandemic. But it feels like the advisor industry is viewing this as one of the silver linings of the pandemic cloud. We see them leaning much more into this space, and we're driving very hard to meet expectations and meet them where they want to do business. But also this concept of the ability to be able to get things done, particularly transactional activities … to be able to do them in the most streamlined, efficient, accurate, secure way is unbelievably important for advisors because it gives them time back.
Our recent RIA benchmarking study (shows) the top-performing firms are observing 20% give back in time. When you think about the annual hours spent with clients, that doesn't mean they're reducing the actual time spent with clients. It means they're pivoting that 20% to be much more value-added interactions, and internally, we think about it the same way. So the more that we can actually streamline and automate processes through digital capabilities and workflows that we offer to our advisors, as well as the matching efficiencies on the actual processing side, it gives us that same time back to be talking more to advisors around how we can create more value in their practice.
FP: It's interesting to hear automation and AI being so widely accepted by the advisors you interact with, and we've seen a lot of the same at Financial Planning.
AD: I think there's two angles to this, which I'm kind of encouraged to see. One is just pure automation. We often say there's no better status than "done." Or rather, there's no better status than "real-time done," I should say. And the flip side of that, when you see wealth managers leaning into this AI space … we're seeing them a little bit more driven from a client insight perspective. So, how do you actually intelligently trigger that next value-add conversation with your client? And this is why we're going to continue to invest and grow our third-party integration model.
When we think about data that we share with advisors and how important it is, we (think about) how they can ingest that data and drive insights from it around their clients and then potentially utilize some of the really interesting solutions that are out in the marketplace today. Some of the fintech providers that are really focused on AI and machine learning in terms of looking at looking at certain triggers to suggest an upcoming event that might be possible for a client, which would then suggest what's the prime time to really be reaching out to the client so that it's well received, feels like a value add. I think that's some of the really interesting stuff going on in the marketplace.
FP: Switching gears, what's next on the Schwab Advisor Services technology roadmap?
AD: So, it's hard not to talk about the roadmap without talking about the (TD Ameritrade) integration. We're very invested currently in preparing for the upcoming integration. Part of this effort has offered us the opportunity to probably 3x our investment in our platform. And the objective between now and when we finally bring the two client bases together is, first and foremost, around how we position a single best-in-class platform for advisors.
Those are the things that we're really working on in the short term. And then we talk about being the best of both. I always like to say one plus one in this case equals three. Because we do think that we're actually bringing together the best from the Ameritrade platform and we're augmenting it with some of the things that we know Ameritrade was probably going to do, but Schwab might have been a little ahead. So we're continuing to enhance those features. Scale and efficiency and driving workflows is still primary.
On the trading and wealth management side, when we talk about what we're really excited to bring to the Schwab platform from Ameritrade, it's hard not to talk about
FP: The wealth management business is increasingly becoming a technology business industry as reliance on digital tools increases. But the sheer amount of choice can be overwhelming, and clients also have to be on board with what you select for your stack. Any advice on successfully striking that balance between the right tech and too much tech?
AD: We prioritize the win-win scenarios because we find removing friction for them is often the same work that removes friction for us. So some of the stats that we like to share is that if you think about digital workflows and the rate of rework that happens, and that means both digital on the advisor side and digital on our side, it's like 30% in your more analog channels. And it's sub 5% in digital channels. Everybody wins in that scenario. I will say one of the things that we're also kind of waiting and hearing from advisors — and it's kind of why I go always back to the "advisors of all sizes" — is we feel in certain cases the full solution from the custodian, in this case Schwab, does offer what the advisor needs. It gives them a full end-to-end solution and also reduces cost on their end because it's not another third-party provider that they might choose to use or integrate with, and it becomes a great solution. Then you have another segment of advisors that, due to more complex needs or more complex business models, really warrants a more sophisticated and potentially more complex tech stack. And we feel really strongly about being able to integrate on both sides of that coin and being able to serve those needs. So that's why I always kind of harken back. Yes, we're going to build it on our side. But that doesn't mean we're going to hold it hostage. And we will continue to build out our third-party API Integrations so that we reinforce the open architecture nature of the platform.
FP: Last week Schwab held its annual SOLUTIONS conference to give attendees a closer look at some tools and services that can help advisors accelerate growth. What were some of the hottest topics at this year's event, and how did participants take to the all virtual format?
AD: So SOLUTIONS was great … It's been at least 20 years, maybe even 25-plus years that we've been holding this conference for advisors. And traditionally, it has been held kind of across two months in different cities across the country. And this year we did a fully virtual engagement. Record attendance. I don't have official stats, but some of our highest-attended sessions when you think about a hotel conference room, you're maybe hitting a couple hundred people. Some of our highest attended sessions (this year) were upwards of 7,000 attendees. It was really reinforcing that this kind of model works and that people are really engaged with it. The chat and the Q&A was so active, we've got teams stacked against answering back because we're committed to answering every one of the thousands and thousands of questions that were submitted over the course of two days.
Not surprisingly, some of the biggest topics were around integration. And one of the things that we think about as part of our roadmap in particular and with our advisor services business partners is, how do we get advisors ready for the integration? So SOLUTIONS is one of the first ways. There was also a webcast held recently for Ameritrade advisors on the integration. Those types of engagements will start happening more frequently and more actively. They'll get into deeper detail so we can really help advisors plan for the change. Whether or not you're an advisor who was solely using the Ameritrade platform and plans to solely use the Schwab platform next, or you're an advisor who needs to plan against third-party integrations that will also need to make that transition, all of that will happen across the board.
FP: Anything else you want to share with readers and advisors about the integration?
AD: The one thing I would say is keep looking forward to more. We regularly publish what's new and what's launching on the platform, but we're going to be continuing to share news about the integration and suggestions and planning techniques. So I think the big ask that we have is, help us help you while we're planning for this big event. And help us help your clients plan for this big event.
