PHOTO BY PROSTOCK – STUDIO FROM GETTY IMAGES PRO
2021: Practifi’s Year in Review
By TEAM PRACTIFI
This past year we’ve grown tremendously – and in more than one way. We recruited new team members from around the world, expanded our leadership team with deep industry expertise, implemented new innovative features to our product, added a new learning and development team, deepened our strategic partnerships with key integration partners and welcomed new ones.
An Award-Winning Platform
We continuously work toward creating a platform that stays ahead of the industry’s needs and enables us to serve both our clients and theirs, with seamless, data-driven technology. This is why we are thrilled to share with you this year’s awards that showcase our product’s contribution toward helping the wealth management industry achieve greater success.
Wealthies 2021 Industry Award Winner
Our most recent award-winning technology evolution was adding role-based apps to our platform. The revolutionary apps surface data, dashboards and reports most pertinent to the different roles within an organization to help teams save time, minimize risk and streamline processes.
To honor our success, we were named the winner in the Wealthies 2021 Industry Awards in the category of Technology Provider – CRM.
“Our team has worked diligently to provide advisors with centralized technology that delivers tailored solutions to fit various roles within a firm. This award reaffirms our commitment to helping financial firms and their clients achieve greater success,” said Adrian Johnstone, co-founder and president of Practifi.
The Wealthmanagement.com Industry Awards is the only awards program to honor outstanding achievements by companies, individuals and organizations that support financial advisor success.
Practifi Named to WeathTech100 Again
At Practifi, we understand that today’s wealth management firms rely on a number of critical software platforms to provide an excellent level of service. That’s why at Practifi we built a platform that seamlessly connects all of the tools you need rolled into one unified workspace.
We’re proud to share that for the second year in a row, Practifi was selected as WealthTech100’s 2021 Pioneering Companies Transforming the Global Investment and Banking Industries. The WealthTech100 recognizes solution providers for their innovative use of technology to solve a significant industry problem, generate cost savings or efficiency improvements across the investment value chain.
“We’re very proud to be recognized as a leading technology provider for the industry. Even more so as our second year in a row,” said Glenn Elliott, Practifi chief executive officer and co-founder.
To identify the leading 100 WealthTech companies in the world, a panel of analysts and industry experts voted from a list of over 1,000 companies produced by FinTech Global.
Leadership Team Expansion
To ensure our product continues to provide value, exceptional service and client satisfaction, we added three new members to our leadership team. Each new hire adds deep industry expertise and proven leadership skills to help us continue efficiently evolving our product with pertinent updates for our clients.
Tom Westhoff, Vice President of Sales
We kicked off our first new hire to the leadership team with Tom Westhoff as vice president of sales in March. Tom joins us from Hearsay Systems, where he was the vice president of sales and operations for nine years achieving excellent financial results and acquired over 150 customers. We’re excited to have Tom as he brings exceptional enterprise sales leadership skills to fuel Practifi’s rapid growth. Westhoff leads our global sales team and is responsible for enhancing Practifi’s institutional relationships.
“Tom is an experienced sales professional with more than 15 years in the financial technology sector. His deep industry expertise and sales leadership are perfect for Practifi as we continue to rapidly scale the company,” said Adrian Johnstone, co-founder and president of Practifi.
Tim Highland, Head of Professional Services
In August, Tim Highland joined our team as head of professional services. Tim was previously the vice president of client success at Skience and prior to that, the vice president of client solutions at Docupace Technologogies. Highland brings over 35 years of industry expertise and client success to our leadership team and now leads our professional services team in onboarding clients, implementing new projects and enhancing the client journey.
“Tim’s devotion to client success and extensive expertise in both the fintech industry and advisory world will help us deepen client partnerships and ensure they get the most value from our platform,” shared Adrian Johnstone, co-founder and president of Practifi.
Umesh Banga, Director, Advice Solutions – APAC
Our last new leadership hire of the year is Umesh Banga, as director, advice solutions – APAC. Umesh was previously the head of XPLAN Systems and Technology at IOOF and brings 15 years of industry expertise to Practifi. Umesh is responsible for partnering with our client success, professional services, sales and product teams to ensure our product offering continues to provide exceptional service to our financial advisors across APAC.
“Umesh’s hire reaffirms Practifi’s commitment to meeting the increasing demand from its clients across APAC. His experience and expertise in financial advice and technology will further amplify the work of the Australian office,” said Adrian Johnstone, co-founder and president of Practifi.
Our goal is to be a true partner and trusted advisor to the wealth management industry, and we need deep domain expertise to understand the needs of our clients and future customers. The additions of Tom, Tim and Umesh are reflective of that goal and they have already greatly contributed to our continued success.
Product Developments
Practifi Launches Role-Based Apps to Platform
When it comes to business management technology, we believe that everyone in your firm deserves an experience curated for their role.
This is why in 2021 we rolled out bespoke apps for advisor, client service, compliance, marketing and management teams to cut down the noise and display the information most relevant to each team. Our revolutionary apps surface data, dashboards and reports most pertinent to the different roles within an organization helping teams save time, minimize risk and streamline processes.
“When it comes to business management technology, tailored operational visibility is key for both company and client success,” said Adrian Johnstone, Practifi’s co-founder and president. “We believe the future of financial advice relies on centralized technology that curates information, tasks and reports to fit the different roles within an organization.
Our role-based apps provide tailored dashboards and information to enable different teams to focus on their most important work. To learn more about our role-based apps visit here.
Practifi Mobile Experience
We understand that for many advisory teams, staying on top of daily to-do lists, communicating with clients and collaborating with team members can be challenging. This is made even more difficult with teams operating in hybrid (or fully remote) work setups, commuting, traveling to visit clients, or attending conferences. However, telecommuting shouldn’t keep your advisory teams from accessing the important data they need to service clients effectively.
Built with the modern advisor in mind, this summer we launched the Practifi mobile experience. Practifi mobile puts your business in your pocket, helping advisors work smarter and faster, from anywhere.
Our mobile solution allows advisors to execute tasks with greater speed and efficiency while improving collaboration with their clients and their teams. Advisors can deep dive into client and prospect records to view basic information, and any associated tasks or interactions – helping them effectively prepare for any upcoming meetings. To better simplify compliance and streamline client management, users can easily log calls and use talk-to-text to add meeting notes directly from the app. Team members can even access personalized reports and comprehensive dashboards to monitor performance and ensure their goals are on track.
Created Learning and Development Team
Ensuring our clients are getting the most out of our product is a top priority. As our platform continually evolves and reaches new capabilities, our clients need to be up-to-date on enhancements and how to best utilize the technology advancements for their individual needs.
Thus, this past year we launched our first learning and development team dedicated to educating clients on all of our platform’s capabilities to ensure we’re providing the best user experience possible.
“We need to be able to meet our clients – the advisory firms using Practifi and the practitioners within those firms – where they want us to meet them,” said Emily Wilcox, chief operating office at Practifi. “So we put information in front of them in all sorts of different formats.”
Over the past year, the learning and development team has quickly developed educational resources, content and materials in various formats to appeal to a variety of audiences. Our goal is to provide a learning experience that is simple and easy for everyone to engage with. Learning and development is a key contribution to furthering our clients’ success.
Staying Connected Across the World
Our team’s top priority is to provide the technology, support and partnership our clients need to succeed. Doing this requires teamwork, collaboration, communication and hard work. We applied this drive and desire to conquer new challenges with an internal team goal – take enough steps to cross the Pacific in two months.
Between our Chicago and Sydney offices, there are 14,876 kilometers / 9,795 miles separating us. At the time, our Australian counterparts were in lockdown but allowed outside for daily exercise and our Chicago employees were enjoying the warmer weather. We decided it was a great time to get fresh air and encourage exercise with a combined goal of closing the gap and covering the distance created by the Pacific ocean with our team.
To cover the distance, each employee by either walking, running, or biking could individually contribute kilometers/miles toward our goal. There were no winners or losers, but just team members working together to get moving as much as they could. Employees were also encouraged to occasionally share pictures in our #practifit slack channel, to show some of the scenic views they enjoyed while covering the distance.
It wouldn’t be a challenge without a prize of course though, so when we more than achieved our goal with 15,763kilometers / 9,795 miles, each employee was able to choose from one of the three shoes pictured below. The custom-made shoes with our logos came in three different brands, so you could choose one to fit your style.
It felt great to come together, overcome a challenge and reach a common goal.
Thankful for our Team
While the pandemic has weighed heavily on us all, it has made us even more appreciative for our team and those Practifi has had the honor of working with, and because of this, Practifi has not only been resilient during this past year but persistent in its growth and ability to continue impacting the fintech industry.
And we’re confident we’ll accomplish even more in the upcoming year, as we set even higher goals for ourselves and continue to exponetially grow our team. Our top priorities include rolling out new, innovative product enhancements for the wealth managment industry and further strengthening our onboarding and client services experience with additional staff, support and educational resources.
