Article Originally Published: Institutional Investor
Lawrence Glazer makes his living preaching prudence.
The co-founder and managing partner of Mayflower Advisors, a Boston-based registered investment advisory, spends his days crafting retirement portfolios built to withstand market cycles and impulsive financial decisions.
To manage the wealth of his mainly boomer clients, he depends on an old-guard brokerage giant, the kind of firm that prizes financial fundamentals over flashy talk about democratizing finances.
Yet Glazer can’t help but marvel at the gravitational pull of Robinhood Markets — the fast-growing, app-based brokerage that has swept up millions of young investors by fusing stock trading with entertainment.
“We have to acknowledge change,” says Glazer. “Financial advisers who don’t like change will dislike irrelevance even more.” Registered investment advisers like Glazer sit at the center of a coming upheaval in wealth management. As over $100 trillion moves from baby boomers and older generations to their millennial and Gen Z heirs, these independent RIAs are becoming the gatekeepers for where that money goes — and which platforms capture it. Traditional brokerages and fintech challengers alike are racing to win their business, betting that whoever secures the advisers will command the next generation of investors.
Robinhood, once dismissed as a trading app for dabblers, wants a seat at that table. The company is building out products aimed at attracting even more millennials, expanding into retirement accounts, and positioning itself as a low-cost, tech-savvy alternative to the incumbents that still dominate the advisory market.
