Solutions · Advisor Succession

A book is changing hands this year. We help firms turn that transition into a trust-building moment.

A senior advisor retires. A successor steps in. The transition plan covers the paperwork, the overlap, the introduction, and the calendar. It rarely covers the question the client is actually asking. Does the person across the table know us, or are we starting over?

Meeting Intelligence gives the successor what they need to know about each household, what to ask, and where trust may be built or lost, before that first meeting. It draws on the notes and history your firm already holds.

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The part of succession that shows up in the numbers later. Most firms plan the account transfer. Fewer plan the trust transfer.

110,000advisors expected to retire this decade

The people who hold the relationships are leaving.

Roughly 110,000 advisors are expected to retire this decade. They manage about 42% of industry assets. The accounts sit on your systems. What each advisor knows about their clients sits in one person’s head, and it leaves when they do.

McKinsey

32%of affluent investors switch when their advisor leaves

When an advisor leaves, the client decides again whether to stay.

An advisor change reopens a question the client thought was settled. Nearly a third of affluent and high-net-worth investors answer it by leaving. The rest answer it without saying anything, and the firm finds out months later.

McKinsey

44%of Canadian advisors have no succession plan at all

Fewer firms have a plan than you would expect.

31% of Canadian advisors plan to retire within ten years and 44% have no succession plan of any kind. 52% rate their own firm’s support for managing client transitions as fair or worse. The plan usually arrives late, and when it arrives it covers the book rather than the relationships.

IG Wealth Management and Environics Research, 2026

The transfer the firm plans is the account. The transfer the client notices is whether the new advisor understands them.

When that understanding does not arrive, the client rarely says so. They keep the account where it is, bring new money somewhere else, and refer less often.

That is why the loss is hard to see early. The accounts look fine long after the relationship has changed.

Documentation can transfer an account. Client understanding transfers their trust.

From the sample brief

Gene and Ellen spent eighteen years with Tom. Tom has just retired, and their first meeting with his successor is on the calendar. They are a sample client scenario, built the way a real one would be.

The brief tells the successor what this family is likely carrying into the room, what to confirm before assuming anything, how to open, and what not to rush. Read in five minutes on the morning of the meeting.

See the brief for this meeting →

The first meeting decides more than the transition plan does.

A client who spent eighteen years with one advisor is not checking the successor’s credentials. They are checking whether their history came with them and why these matter. Whether the new person knows about the daughter’s wedding, the heart surgery, the year they nearly sold the business. Whether they are going to have to explain all of it again.

A polite first meeting is not proof the relationship transferred. It is the floor.

"When I am talking to someone about my personal finances, especially as an older individual, the details and nuances are extremely important. But again, it's the how things are communicated to me that really matter as this is how I build lasting trust with my advisor."

Richard EllisFounder, Ellis Strategy Group · retired, reviewed as a client

They will leave that meeting having already decided whether to stay.
Prepare for that decision, not just the agenda.

The successor doesn’t have to be the veteran. They have to start where the veteran left off.

Thirty years of understanding was never in the file. It was small things learned across hundreds of conversations, and it walks out the door on the last day. The overlap period transfers account details and upcoming decisions. It cannot transfer a pattern that took years to notice.

Meeting Intelligence interprets what your firm already holds on the household. The CRM history, the meeting notes, the retiring advisor’s own write-up. The successor walks in with the preparation a thirty-year advisor would have had. The advisor judgment took years of experience to develop. Meeting Intelligence gives successors that wisdom and judgment.

It works alongside the notetaker and CRM your advisors already use. Nothing has to be replaced.

What the intelligence briefs actually contain →

What we can show you today, and what is in development.

Built and working

Briefs and Deep Dives for advisor change are produced today, including the first meeting after a retirement or a reassignment.

Tested with advisors and clients

Twelve advisors and eleven clients read briefs built for sample client scenarios. Advisors rated them 4.69 out of 5. Clients gave 4.91 out of 5 when asked how likely they would be to choose a firm that prepared this way. Every advisor was asked whether the brief surfaces what a generic AI summary would miss. All twelve rated it four or five out of five.

In progress

The next step is a firm putting a brief in front of each meeting through a full transition. Six weeks shows whether the successor uses it, what changed in those first meetings, and how clients responded. Early access is built for exactly that.

If a transition is already on your calendar, the next step is a brief for one of the households changing hands.

You have just seen what a client is deciding in the first meeting after an advisor change, and what changes when the successor walks in already understanding the household. If that transition is on your calendar now, early access is how you see it work with your own successor and your own clients.

Tell us about the successor, the households changing hands, and the first meetings already booked. We prepare the first brief for one of those households, so you can see what your successor would walk in with.

Three things matter to a firm in this position. Keeping those households. A successor who is ready sooner. Clients who feel known from the first meeting.

If those matter to your firm this year, let’s consider early access as a way to support them.

Request early accessWhat early access includes →

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