Canadian wealthtech has grown under Mark Evans, now Brad Joudrie explains the challenges he sees advisors facing and how he wants to address them
Mark Evans is leaving his role as CEO of Conquest Planning Inc. It was announced today that the founding executive of the Canadian wealthtech firm will move into the role of executive chair while the CEO role will be taken up by the firm’s longstanding Chief Revenue Officer, Brad Joudrie. The move comes after significant growth for Winnipeg-based Conquest, which was founded in 2018 and has grown to serve 60 per cent of the Canadian advisor market as well as segments in the US and UK. It now works with more than 60,000 at 1,000 financial institutions. More than 2 million financial plans have been created on the Conquest platform.
Joudrie spoke with WP about his plans in the CEO role. He expressed gratitude and credit for Evans’ leadership and stressed the company’s past successes. He outlined what advisors and their clients can expect as the company undergoes this leadership change and why he believes he was chosen for this role. He noted, too, the areas where advisors and firms are still facing hardship and emphasized his plans to address those challenges.
“At the very highest level, firms are trying to support more clients with potentially fewer resources. There have been challenges around fee compression. There have been challenges around regulation in terms of the type of extent of service they have to provide to these clients. We’re looking to provide that scale to these firms to allow them to do more with technology than they have ever been able to do before as it relates to advice delivery,” Joudrie says. “In essence, allowing advisors to support more clients, allowing the firms to support different demographics of clients within their purview and ultimately addressing that challenge that we set out first and foremost, which is making more financial plans available.”
Joudrie highlighted some of the investments Conquest is making to pursue their goal. That includes investment into generative AI, which he noted would be an intentional pursuit of technology that adds to the value of their existing services. Their core engine, he says, is currently auditable and fully traceable, which is key for advisors. To maintain that traceability Conquest won’t be adding generative AI functions directly into their core calculation engine. However, he says that they will add generative functions around navigation to enable better communication between users and their engine.
Those generative improvements, he says, would allow advisors to answer questions more easily, finding specific pieces of a client’s retirement income plan, their cash flow, or their tax reporting. Joudrie stressed that these investments are part of a continuation of the work begun under Evans, in line with the firm’s core mission. He wants to see financial planning made more accessible to clients outside of higher net worth segments, stressing the value that can come when clients have a plan built early in their financial lives as they are paying down student loans, purchasing their first home, and beginning to save for retirement.
Joudrie stressed his time working closely with his predecessor, at both Conquest and Evans’ prior firm NaviPlan. His focus on the distribution and client service side of the business gave him a view to the firm’s overall strategy as well as a direct line to end users. In his role, Joudrie has been involved in customer feedback and ensuring that clients’ voices were heard and understood at the firm. He noted that he will continue to emphasize that level of service and communication in his new role as CEO. Evans, for his part, emphasized Joudrie’s qualifications.
“Since the moment I met Brad, I knew he had the vision and capability to be a transformative leader, and I couldn’t be happier to see him take this next step as CEO of Conquest,” said Evans in a statement. “We’ve been planning this transition for some time, and now is the right moment for Brad to lead Conquest into its next chapter.”
From a customer and end-user perspective, Joudrie says that there will be no immediate change. The mission, focus, and operations of the company will remain the same. The firm will invest further in their tech and toolsets, but Joudrie stressed continuity in this transition.
“I had a chance to speak with a number of clients that had been a part of this industry for decades in many cases, and they helped me understand the importance of the service we were providing. and how important it is for people to feel confident and safe around financial understanding, feeling confident entering life journeys like retirement,” Joudrie says. “I have a very good understanding of what we need to do to enable those financial professionals to be efficient at servicing their ultimate clients. And so that's what you're going to see for me is really a dedicated energy. We will continue to stay within our lane and do what we do extremely well, which is provide financial advice technology.”
