Listen to this week’s episode

Episode 145

On this week’s episode of Next Mile, I speak with Aaron Wormus, Chief Technology Officer at SMArtX Advisory Solutions. Aaron has spent years building technology infrastructure for the financial services industry, from hedge fund platforms to enterprise-grade advisory systems.

We explore the growing shift from fragmented advisory technology toward unified enterprise infrastructure. Aaron breaks down how UMA architecture transforms the advisor experience, why portfolio accounting engines enable real-time innovation, and how firms can build modern “advisor-built enterprise platforms” using best-of-breed technology. We also discuss AI, data orchestration, operational toil, and why the firms most open to technology and experimentation will have a major advantage in the years ahead.

Key Takeaways

• The next generation of advisory firms will behave more like technology companies. Advisors increasingly want flexible infrastructure that lets them combine best-of-breed tools into a unified client experience instead of operating inside rigid “walled garden” ecosystems.

• Real-time experiences depend on invisible infrastructure. Portfolio accounting, reconciliation, trading order sequencing, and data normalization may not sound exciting, but they are the foundational systems that make modern advisory experiences possible.

• Clean, secure, accessible data is becoming the real competitive advantage. AI tools are only as useful as the infrastructure and guardrails surrounding them. Firms with reconciled data and strong architecture will be positioned to move significantly faster than firms still trapped in disconnected systems.

Quotes

"We're in a new space where the people who are open to technology, open to building, really are the ones who win." ~ Aaron Wormus

"Most advisors want to become advisors so they can help people. They want to go out and solve problems. They don't want to spend all their time rebalancing stuff or using spreadsheets." ~ Aaron Wormus

"Being able to have that reconciled data, being able to know that the data is good, being able to provide that data into different systems, that's really where that key component is." ~ Aaron Wormus

Links

• Aaron Wormus on LinkedIn

• SMArtX Advisory Solutions

• Fidelity Investments 

• Charles Schwab 

• Goldman Sachs 

• Claude

• Red Notice

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• Milemarker.co

• Kyle on LinkedIn

• Jud on LinkedIn

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Kyle Van Pelt