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The wealth management industry is changing fast, but many financial advisors are still using the same old playbook. Join hosts Sean Allocca and John Manganaro, along with leading industry expert guests, as they break down the trends shaping your business.
Each week, we'll cover critical topics while also having a little fun. It's all on the table, from retirement income planning and Social Security to the behavioral side of investing and what clients are hearing elsewhere. We've created The Advisor Upside Show because staying informed isn’t enough anymore. You need to stay ahead.
New episodes every Wednesday.
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Nick (00:00)
I think people want to work for longer, they can work for longer. You know, that's part of the opportunity. But there's also a concern that people do need to work for longer because most people will live till they're close to 90 and retirement savings won't necessarily help them through that.
John (00:17)
Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Advisor Upside Show. This is your co-host, John Manganero. I'm a senior reporter here at the Daily Upside. I'm kicking off this episode solo, but Sean will join us for the first segment in just a moment. We're having a ton of fun doing this podcast. It's really become the highlight of my weeks here at the Daily Upside. planning the episodes alongside Sean has been a ton of fun. It's been really awesome getting all of the feedback from the community.
And you know, suggestions for guests. We're we're almost getting too many suggestions, which is a wonderful problem to have as a as a podcast host. So please, if you're out there in the industry, some of the PR folks who've been making recommendations, we love it. Keep it coming. we're trying to include as many people as we can. And with weekly episodes, you know, we'll we'll include a lot of folks. It may take us a little while to get the episodes scheduled, but we're really thrilled with the you know the energy and the enthusiasm that's coming to us from our readership.
just really quickly, I want to suggest that if you're not already subscribed, please check out our newsletters. We have the flagship daily upside newsletter that really kicked everything off. We're proud to say we've got over a million subscribers to that publication. On the business to business side, we have the advisor upside, which this show takes its name from. We have the retirement upside, which is the newsletter nearest and dearest to my heart, being a retirement reporter. And finally we have the ETF upside, which brings a market focus through the lens of ETFs.
It's a really great suite of products. If you subscribe to all of them, you'll get a a holistic view of what you need to know about in the wealth management industry every day of the week. if you have feedback or ideas for the podcast, you can reach out to us directly by emailing podcast at the daily upside.com. There we encourage you to share your ideas, as I said, your ideas for guests. Please go ahead and subscribe to the podcast as well on your preferred platform. And finally, if you're not aware, we're
doing a video podcast. So we're also available on YouTube if you want to see Sean and I, as well as our guests. This week, we're honored to be joined by Nick Good, who's the CEO at Assensus. It's one of the largest record keeping companies in the 401k plant space here in the United States with a focus on the small employers and and mid sized employers. Of course they they serve larve large employers as well. But we go through a couple segments with Nick. It's it's a lot of fun as as you'll see here shortly. He's
A proud Brit who's lived here in the United States for some time, but we're here in the midst of the World Cup and we recorded with Nick just after a victory for his his squad in a very exciting game over the Democratic Republic of Congo. So anyway, I'll go ahead and bring on Sean now and and we'll introduce Nick and and get going.
John (02:54)
So welcome, Nick. How are you doing today? And congrats to England winning a a recent World Cup match.
Nick (03:00)
Thank you. Certainly on the edge of my seat throughout the whole of that.
phenomenal game and definitely enjoyed it. It's been quite the World Cup and it's been nice to see the US showcase so well among so many different countries.
John (03:13)
this episode may come out a little bit later, but yeah, folks will know we're we're loving the World Cup here. We've mentioned it a few times. Sean Huven got to go to a game as well.
Sean (03:20)
I went to a French Senegal game at Math Life. It was fantastic, beautiful weather. The atmosphere is amazing. But I was gonna say England always liked to leave it to the last the last minute, don't they?
Nick (03:29)
certainly keep us on the edge of our seats.
John (03:32)
Well, Nick, let's get into it. The as I said, we want to, you know, lessons in leadership because you you joined a census in twenty twenty three, I believe, after serving in various leadership roles. I mean, you were the CEO of the active investment management firm Pendle Group, and then chief growth and strategy officer over at State Street. Before that, you had, you know, important roles at BlackRock, kind of working internationally. So I'm just curious, you know, in your time working in the wealth management and investment industries.
You know, how how have things changed? You know, what what are some of the big trends you've seen in your career and and what's it like being at the helm of a census at a time when, you know, retirement reform has been front and center here in the United States?
Nick (04:09)
the biggest single trend through all that time has been the sort of democratization of wealth management for your average investor and the range of options that are available to them. If I think about when I first started getting into this industry, it was really with iShares. I was based in San Francisco. I had the fortune to get to know some of those folks and I joined iShares as soon as I got my green card.
watching the sort of evolution of wealth management, the improvement of the offerings, the reduction in fees, the quality of advice that's gone on, you've just seen that continual evolution through the last sort 20 plus years. And as you think about it, that only benefits investors. allows them to feel confident in terms of where they're investing, keep more of their money, and ultimately save for a
great retirement and for the things that matter, is what we really care about.
From a retirement perspective, I'm relatively new to retirement and I think I was drawn to a census much in the same way I was attracted to iShares in the early days. There's a real sense of mission about how do we help investors save more and I think that's something that I find really powerful and really makes me come into work every day.
John (05:28)
Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you've, you know, bring lessons forward from some of those earlier roles. and I just think it's it's interesting. I've never been to the CEO of a company, Sean. I don't think you have either. So, you know, but being at the top, you you have to make decisions, you have to set a tone, you have to really make sure the team's working together, kind of looping back to the World Cup metaphor. what have you learned there in in your time just kind of being a leader?
Nick (05:50)
Yeah, I think there are a few things. First, obviously, you have to walk the walk. I believe in setting out a real vision and making sure people feel excited and positive, but you also have to be honest and transparent about where we can improve, how we can do better without ever pointing blame. It's about how do you bring the team along? think finding that path that...
creates excitement and belief, but at the same time doesn't gloss over the things that you need to improve. You know, choose the World Cup theme. No team wins by thinking everything is perfect. You win by figuring out how you can do things better each time and how do you bring the whole team along so that you perform, you know, beyond where you're capable.
other thing I find
really powerful is we really treat every single client like they matter. And I listen to a lot of participant calls. So I spend probably a couple of hours a week listening to people who are calling in. Half the time they're just calling in to get their passwords reset. But
you hear differences when you're listening to our clients calling in and struggling through some of the terms that we use or how do we understand, you know, understanding their financial future. And I think for me, one of the biggest things I feel like bring is that focus on the end customer, really trying to put ourselves in their shoes, really trying to understand the problems they have and just spending time with our customers and understanding those challenges. And I think that that to me is one of the most powerful things a leader you can do is
is really get your team to sort of step away from the day-to-day of their jobs and actually think about what they're trying to achieve and who they're trying to help at the end of it.
Sean (07:27)
how about during periods of change and transition and maybe when things are kind of tough and you're trying to make sure that that message you know stays with with the team, you know, through for advisors, a lot of a lot of them are entering periods of like transition and succession planning and trying to change leadership or a new owner comes in and there's new CEOs. You know, you worked closely with the former CEO David Musto to to ensure that smooth leadership transition.
Are there lessons there for any recommendations for for industry peers or like I said, advisors who as as they're kind of moving on and heading towards retirement, trying to kind of make sure the ship is is steered appropriately as new leadership comes in?
Nick (08:07)
I think the census did this exceptionally well. wasn't just in our transition. So the prior transition from Bob Gier Show to David went extremely well. This transition has been six months now. It's gone extremely well.
One of the mantras I have for all of our business decisions is start with the end in mind. Think about what's the purpose? What are you actually trying to achieve? And how do you think about what the customers need? And in our industry, people care about stability. That is a big part of it. So David hired me, the original intent was to bring me in to have me learn retirement, which was a new industry for me, and lay the path for me to grow into the role.
That was a couple of years in the making. And David sort of had this plan in place. And this was the same playbook we had with Bob. But equally, it put a lot on David to make that decision and to decide, actually, you what?
I'm going to I'm going to actually make sure that I think about my clients first and I'm to make sure I have the right succession. If you think about a lot of a lot of departing leaders, they they struggle to let go. They really struggle to let go. And one of the things I think both David and Bob did extremely well was recognize that if you're going to maximize the outcome for clients and for your employees, who we all deeply care about, when you hand over, you need to hand over. And David's an incredible partner. He's very active in the business. We speak at least daily.
very, very much engaged, but also has taken a different role in the organization and given me the freedom to operate. And that's something, you we built trust over many years, over a couple of years, and then he felt good about handing the reins over to me and has made it really easy for us to deliver for our clients and for our associates.
John (09:57)
It's a very cool story. And and I was curious about that because every every firm is unique, of course, but you know, this relationship between the CEO and the executive chairman, I I've always found that to be sort of an interesting thing to think about. I again I've never never been the CEO of a company. I haven't had to navigate that. But for folks who are maybe preparing to take on a leadership role or maybe it's going to be their first time directly interfacing with a board of directors, what are some tips there and how can you get the most out of those relationships?
Nick (10:24)
So I will say I had the opportunity to witness this done well a little bit when I did a lot of work for Intuit. I was a consultant in my prior life and I thought the way.
into it handled the transition through various CEOs where the founder and chairman Scott Cook remained very engaged but in a very specific role and allowed space for the CEOs to do that thing. was the opportunity to watch other people and take those lessons and say, do you see doing it well? I think that's always important in life and I think that was important here. Amusingly Bob.
We have three CEOs on our board right now. So myself, David and Bob, and Bob referred to me as his grandson. So, you know, three generations of CEOs.
Sean (11:06)
Mm-hmm.
Nick (11:09)
your listeners who are starting to think about how do you handle boards, you know, as a CEO,
That's one of the most important things you have to think about. The role of the board and how do you make sure it's working. I've certainly had opportunities where I've been concerned about the nature of the board interaction. I've chosen not to accept them. And I do think it's an important consideration if you're being offered the role or if you're stepping into that, how you manage the board is key. My approach, frankly, is to be transparent.
And I think that's, you you already heard me mention that, but it's the case in most things. If you're transparent about the challenges you face and you actually have them help you with them, then you're actually getting a supportive board that can help you move forward. If you tell them everything's fine or
overemphasize the problems on the other side, you're not really bringing them along. it's that sort of sense
opening up to them, but then also showing up with a plan, saying, I've thought about it, this is what I want to do, I want your advice, and really helping them be part of the solution. The other piece of advice I'd say is make sure you're really clear about where the board starts and stops. You know, the board's job is not to manage the company. And I've definitely seen that challenge where sometimes with the best intentions, boards will step in, they will want to help, but they will end up...
starting to get involved and that's not helpful for the board or for you as management because the board's role is to act as a a as check to give you advice to make sure you're doing the right thing and and if you blur those lines too much it ends up you can't actually get that support from your board but you also fail to have your role as management as a manager. one of the things that I find in many companies
As you get this question, what will the board think of that? And my general answer is,
don't care. What do we think of that? Because what we think of that should be what the board thinks of that. So if we think it's a bad idea, let's not defer it to the board to make that call. Let's deal with it. If we think it's good idea, let's figure out how we...
John (13:00)
Mm-hmm.
Sean (13:01)
Mm-hmm.
Nick (13:11)
make sure the board feels the same way and we get their opinions and we test it.
I do think as management you really need to take that fiduciary responsibility that you're responsible for the company, for its employees, for its clients and you need to use the board to help you and to act as a check.
Sean (13:25)
John said he's not never been a CEO just yet. I'm never gonna be a CEO. And I can't imagine having five thousand employees, So how do you make sure that people feel like they're part of the of the mission and the success of the organization? And what's it like been just traveling around the country, listening to different staff, management since becoming CO, I guess in in January?
Nick (13:48)
it's very humbling. You realize that...
We've got 5,000 employees there from all walks of life. They've got different backgrounds, different experiences. And again, one of things I try to do is put myself in the shoes of staff. I do a lot of round tables, small groups, 10, 15 people. I try and answer every question that I get. My first town hall in January, I was asked some pretty tough direct questions about why
you
know why our 401k wasn't better as a 401k plant company for example and and I try and address as much of them as I can and and my view is that I
may not be able to solve every challenge we have but at least if I know about them I can try and address them I can prioritize them and I can really sort of work on them.
broadly I think it's about communication. It is about striking that right balance of giving people a sense of...
purpose and a sense of mission, but also being honest about where things are with the business and what's working and what's not working and what you're doing to fix it. I don't think people expect a leader to work miracles. I think there's probably a lot of skepticism in leaders right now in this country and globally. But people still look to me and my leadership team to make decisions and to give them a sense of purpose and to feel that they're doing something worthwhile.
I'm a big big believer in the Japanese concept of Ikegai. If you've come across that, whether you're good at your job, whether it has a meaning in in life and whether you can get paid for it. And if you can do all those things, that's a pretty perfect sort of place to be. And so, trying to get that balance for as many of our employees as can, having them
feel there's a purpose in what they do because of our mission to help more savers save more. And, you know, I hear that when we talk to our participants and savers and, you know, we have 16 million savers.
understanding at the end of the day, there is a real person with a real need that we're trying to help, but then also giving people a sense of career progression and how they can grow and develop as an individual and learn.
and have a community.
are a lot of things I think about a lot and how we create that culture and community.
Sean (16:06)
was very zen of you.
I'm gonna look up that that Javanese serum. I think I actually did run into it recently,
'cause when you were saying it it does it does sound familiar. You have to find it trying to strike that right balance. So I was thinking about that a lot a couple of weeks ago. But thanks for those insights. I I learned a lot.
John (16:19)
Sean, it reminds me of the conversation we had recently with with Danny Fava over at Carson Group. She shared some some similar insights. I I think that that touch of humility is important, the willingness to to listen to folks, whatever level they are at in the organization. These are core core principles.
Nick (16:34)
if I ever wanted a dose of humility, about three weeks in, we sat down with some of our associates in Dallas. So we have 100 associates in Dallas. And I was sitting at the table with one of them and someone goes, what was the name of the old CEO again? And I'm like, the guy from three weeks ago?
So, okay, so, you know, because they have lives, they care about their manager, they care about their career, they care about the message, but I'm just part of, you know, broader system. So the more we can do to make the system work for people, the better.
Sean (17:04)
That's I think.
Nick (17:05)
Exactly.
John (17:07)
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Sean (17:45)
All right, welcome back, everybody. We're here with Nick Good. And as we can see from your apparel today, you grew up in the UK, but you spent much of your career here in the US. We're all assuming we know who you're rooting for for the World Cup, so we don't have to go there. But what was the biggest surprise for you when you s came here about how Americans think of retirement compared to what people think in the UK?
Nick (18:11)
think a lot of people assume there's a lot of similarities and there are. We see the world in very similar ways and as a Brit, it was very easy to assimilate with the US and I've loved living here for the last 30 years. And I do have a strong second team that I'm supporting as well, which I'll be watching later this evening along with my
But against that,
The UK is a, you know, the government plays a heavier hand and you know, I think there's this history of, you know, government support that's believed in the UK, Europe, Australia, compared to this sort of sense of individualism. You know, I had the opportunity to work in Hong Kong and you saw a very different balance there as well where the family was the unit of support. So people would not really invest for retirement because your family was supposed to support you.
And so when you look at some of the balance of almost gambling in terms of playing the market rather than long term investing, it was because there was another safety net that was expected. In the UK, that safety net historically has been the government, although increasingly more and more people rely on their savings and their retirement accounts.
difference in the US is you're expected to look after yourself. You're expected to save your own retirement. Yes, you have family around, but there's not the same expectation on your
you you brought a family to look after you in your old age and you're expected to think about that for yourself. And there's also not the same, you know, the source of retirement comes from the workplace, that that is the vehicle for creating retirement savings. And that's a big shift.
John (19:50)
For sure. Yeah. I think it's interesting, you know, if if we ask a a typical American, you know, who's responsible for my retirement, a lot of them will answer that it's a personal responsibility thing. Maybe in the UK there is a little bit more of a sense that the government pension is is very important. So do you think that that sort of perspective is is continuing or are the countries becoming more similar? And 'cause I know there are just like the social security system, there's pressure on the pension system in the UK. What is is that changing attitudes at all?
Nick (20:19)
Yeah, I mean, it has to ultimately. You know,
system works in certain balance of payments that ultimately strains the resources of the country if it gets too unbalanced. And so I do think you're seeing increased focus on individual investments and individual retirement accounts. You are seeing that whole side of it start to grow. Likewise, in the US, you're seeing increasing legislation or the concepts of increasing
legislation
to improve access to retirement accounts for workers. And we're big supporters of that. We believe everyone should have the opportunity for a safe retirement that they should be able to save for the things that matter to them. so expanding the availability of retirement options is really positive. But it is sort of a...
shift in both directions to expand coverage in the US. You hear about some of the examples of could we be more like Australia or equally put more individual responsibility or more responsibility on individuals in places like the UK.
Sean (21:29)
just a follow up on that, are there certain areas that you would like to see here in in America that that maybe the government could improve on? Or I know there's been some automatic enrollments and some new things that have shown a lot of success and a lot of growth in some of those accounts. Are there things that you're looking at specifically or?
Nick (21:44)
Yeah, look, I think that the core system works. It just needs to be expanded. So you think about some of the secure bills, secure 2.0, I think it was the only piece of bipartisan legislation that was passed in the last few years. So there's a broad bipartisan support for this. I think the more it is done through the existing vehicles, the better and it's about expanding exposure.
Overall, think the there are two broad issues. One is access to retirement vehicles and the other is participation.
And if you're working in a large Fortune 500 company, you've got access to a vehicle, you're almost certainly participating. At our end of the scale, we tend to support small and medium businesses. That's where we focus. We've built our business primarily as a champion of small and medium businesses. And not only do lots of those not have retirement options, they can't necessarily afford them, but even when they do,
the participation rates
are often very low. And so one of things we're working hard to do is to drive up that participation. The more I think legislation can help, you know, increasing the accessibility, increasing auto options, making it easier for people to save, creating offsets like some of the ability to offset the student loans or, you know, hardship loans, things like that. Those things are really powerful and I think help more people
save for the long term if they also know that can help them save for the short term.
John (23:16)
I'm curious. I I just had two quick follow on questions, maybe we could run through. one is, you know, does this concept, you know, exist equally in the UK as in the United States of like of the golden years and and leaving work behind and and living off the fruits of your labor, or perhaps is there more of a a culture as there seems to be increasing here in the US of like a transition to retirement and maybe staying more active and 'cause I think just the whole understanding of retirement is changing here in the States.
Any sense of whether that's happening in the UK?
Nick (23:47)
Yeah, look, it's been a long time since I lived there, but there's certainly a shift. You know, I think people want to work for longer, they can work for longer. You know, that's part of the opportunity. But there's also a concern that people do need to work for longer because they, you know, most people will live till they're close to 90 and retirement savings won't necessarily help them through that. So, there still is very much a golden year sort of expectation, but I do think it's shifting.
Probably not quite as quickly as in the US. My wife asked when I'd retire and I said, well, don't know, 75, something like that. She wasn't too happy.
think a lot of people do want to keep working.
John (24:30)
Yeah, for sure. And last last question to close out, what I'm thinking about our sort of cultural corner episode. And we and we appreciate you like talking about this from your personal experience, Nick, but what about the the question of of managing taxes and and sort of thinking about the minimization of taxes as part of a retirement planning strategy? That's that's all the r the rage here in the US, I would say. I I write a lot of articles about tax mitigation strategies and retirement. What do you you know and obviously painting with a broad brush, but
What is sort of the perspective in in the UK? I I imagine people gripe about paying their taxes there as as much as they do here. Yeah.
Nick (25:05)
I think everyone writes about paying their taxes.
Although I do have friends in Sweden who have told me that the tax authority has the best rating of any government authority. And interestingly, it's because it's simple. You can pay it in like five seconds using a phone. government tax authorities are required to calculate your taxes for you and propose recommendations to reduce your taxes. So guess what? Everyone loves them.
You know, I think everywhere taxes are a consideration. There's always a thought to how you do that. And I think the complexity of the US tax system encourages people to spend more time worrying about how they minimize their taxes or sort of looking at options. But you know, it's a thing everywhere. So probably a bigger thing here, but it's a thing everywhere.
Sean (25:50)
How about for for our last one, we'll do if you could import one feature of the British financial mindset into America, what would it be?
Nick (26:01)
Look, think people are probably more conservative in terms of how they invest in general. And I think whilst you don't want to give up gains and excess conservatism can be problematic. I do worry about the sort of sense of a gambling culture starting to come in. And I see it with some of my kids and they think about investing, but they also think about investing almost like, what's the hot stock?
What's the hot dot? What can I do? And everything and every piece of research I've ever done pretty much indicates that being thoughtful, thinking thinking about the long-term investing, dollar cost averaging, keeping on doing it, steadily putting money away, that's how you generate a long-term return. so I think just that a little bit more conservatism has probably been my ask.
Sean (27:01)
Well said, yeah. That's that's been a growing sentiment I think here here as well. Where we've seen a lot of these companies and a lot of these predictions and all we we all know the names and and the players, but yeah, it's something we're all keeping an eye on for sure.
John (27:12)
Thanks, Nick. Appreci appreciate you. I know that was kind of a pr a personal topic, but I I think that was pretty fun.
John (27:17)
Anyway, thanks, Nick. We'll we'll close it there and and thank you so much for being here. hope you have a a great day and and we'll talk again soon, I hope.
Nick (27:24)
Yeah, thanks so much, John.
John (27:26)
Sean had to jump, so I'm closing out the episode myself here. But as I said at the top of the podcast, we're having a ton of fun doing this. The community that we're already kind of building around this podcast, even just, you know, six or seven episodes in, has been really it's really awesome, really, is the word to use to describe it. Humbling as well. We've gotten a lot of great feedback and many suggestions for guests, many of whom we're planning to bring on in the coming weeks. So
If you're a PR person out there who's been making pitches, keep them coming. If you're an executive that maybe happens to listen in, reach out to us directly. We'd we'd love to have you. We we really enjoyed hosting Nick on the podcast. As I said at the top of the call, you know, if you're not subscribed to our newsletters, please go ahead and do so. We got the daily upside, advisor upside, ETF upside, and the retirement upside. If you subscribe to all of them, you'll get a holistic view of what's happening in the wealth management industry. And I think this podcast complements those.
newsletters very well. this was a a fun opportunity for us to get get to know Nick's personality a little bit, talk about some fairly offbeat topics that aren't necessarily a great fit for the newsletter, but are are still important and interesting and and we hope entertaining. please reach out with any feedback at podcast at the dailyupside dot com. Please rate and review us on your preferred podcast application. Please subscribe as well as on YouTube.
So with that, we'll close the episode and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Take care, everybody. Thanks so much.