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Redefining what advisors should expect from their partner firm
Wealth extends well beyond investment returns. The work advisors do with clients is increasingly about pulling all the pieces together: portfolios, taxes, estate and trust planning, insurance, business transitions, and legacy goals. The aim is not a series of one-off decisions but a comprehensive strategy that reflects how each family wants their money to support their lives today and the outcomes they care about over time.
At Osaic, president and head of advisor growth and engagement Shannon Reid is actively advancing that broader view of wealth. Leading one of the largest wealth management platforms in the country, she is focused on what scale should tangibly deliver for advisors and their clients: support for holistic planning, better tools and integration, and a clearer path for advisors to grow their businesses. Her working definition of growth rests on three anchors: the full needs of clients, the health of advisor practices, and the strength of the firm that stands behind them.
“It’s not just about growth of the business or growth of assets or revenue,”
Reid explains in a conversation with InvestmentNews. “It’s about helping clients grow. It’s about their entire security and confidence about life. It’s about the next generation. When you think about it that way, growth means something a little different.”
Shifting the focus from owning the advisor experience The people focus carries straight through into how Osaic invests in its business and in the businesses run by its advisors. If growth starts with clients and advisors, then the firm’s technology spend must show up where they actually feel it. Osaic directs its investments toward high impact innovation, simplifying advisor workflows, applying AI to help teams work smarter, and enhancing the advisor and client experience layer that builds on platforms such as BNY Pershing, Fidelity, and Envestnet.
That approach reflects how the industry has changed. Wealth management has moved from stock picking, to asset allocation and risk management, to planning, and now to a holistic view of enhancing families, lives, and legacies. In this environment, the value of a partner firm lies in how quickly it helps advisors bring the right capabilities to clients, not in owning every piece of infrastructure itself.
Self clearing is a prime example. It was once a core revenue stream and a central proof point for many firms. Today, Reid sees a different priority: flexibility. “What firms really need is a way to be more adaptable because the future is going to be so different,” she says. Firms must be able to connect to new tools, respond to new client expectations, and add new products without being constrained by legacy systems.
The harder mandate after integration Reid talks about execution as the point where firms either deliver or fall short. “A strategy, a plan, they’re all great. But if you can’t execute, then it’s not really worth the paper it’s written on,” she says.
That focus on follow-through has taken on new significance following the multi-year integration of the legacy firms that came together to form Osaic. While the organizational integration is now largely complete, Reid finds that the more important challenge begins afterward: turning a unified business into a consistently better experience for advisors and their clients.
“When the people at Osaic have a deadline and a clear goal, they’re exceptionally good at achieving it,” Reid says. “Now that we are one firm, our goal is to create the ideal advisor and end-client experience and to build the firm of the future. We have to continually improve, even when we’re not in the face of deadlines, and we’ll never be done with that.”
The post-integration phase has already shifted the firm’s posture. “Job number one is taking care of our existing advisors,” she says. “They can and should be our biggest source of growth.” Operating as one firm, albeit with affiliation model flexibility, makes that easier.
At the same time, the independent space is in motion. “Osaic, like every other firm of our size, understands we need to grow in order to continue to make investments that return real value to our advisors, in the same way advisors need to grow,” Reid adds.
Making a big firm feel small For most of the past decade, advisors have been asked to choose: the stability of a large enterprise or the intimacy of a boutique. Reid, who has worked across both large enterprise platforms and independent channels, rejects the premise. “For a lot of clients, it’s very important to know that there is a solid firm behind their financial advisor,” she says. “The most important relationship is always with the advisor, but clients want to know the firm behind them will be there in the future, with a breadth of resources beyond just investments.”
At Osaic, that breadth shows up in what advisors can actually bring to the table. Through its Advantage companies, the firm supports insurance, trust, lending, cash management, and planning needs that sit alongside traditional portfolio work. These offerings and the breadth behind Osaic’s size also help on price and access, which can be difficult for smaller practices to secure on their own. “If advisors know we’re going to be here not just two or three years down the road, but 20 years down the road or longer, that adds a lot of benefit. And that’s certainly our plan,” Reid says.
In her view, the old trade-off between “big and capable” and “small and personal” no longer holds. “The tools and resources still allow us to give advisors a big firm but with the ability to make it feel small,” she says. The relationship layer is where she refuses to compromise. “Fundamentally, the reason wealth management and advisors will continue to be successful is because people need to connect with people. AI and technology will deliver a lot of benefit over time, but they won’t deliver a personal connection, at least not a real one.”
That same logic underpins Osaic’s Empowered Independence (i.e., W-2) offering. This channel is not aimed at one narrow advisor profile; instead, it is a way for different types of practices to offload parts of running a firm, monetize the business when it makes sense, and still keep client relationships and growth potential intact.
For established teams contemplating succession, for advisors who want to step back from full ownership risk, or for next generation leaders who see more upside in building inside a larger platform, the structure is designed to create options. The firm takes on key infrastructure and operational responsibilities, while advisors stay focused on serving clients, leading their teams, and driving the direction of their practice.
Providing flexible ways for advisors to partner is a cornerstone of Osaic’s strategy – from Empowered Independence to multi-custodial, institutional, and the traditional 1099 model – Osaic knows clients benefit from personalized, high-quality advice when advisors can partner in ways that work best for their business today, while still having options as their needs change over time.
Building for the advisors’ next decade That flexibility matters even more given how quickly the job itself is changing. Reid is clear that what advisors will need from a partner firm five
years from now will not look like what they need today, and will look even less like what they needed five years ago. “How advisors spend their day, I believe, will look very different,” she says.
The underlying demographics make the case for her. McKinsey projects a shortage of roughly 100,000 financial advisors in the United States by 2034, equivalent to 30 to 37 percent of today’s headcount, with about 110,000 advisors, representing 42 percent of total industry assets, expected to retire over the next decade. At the same time, Cerulli estimates that more than $124 trillion in wealth will change hands through 2048, with the majority flowing from baby boomer and Silent Generation households to Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z heirs.
Clients are also asking for deeper expertise across more areas at once, from trust and estate structures to charitable giving and business transitions.
The result is a smaller pool of professionals serving more clients with more complex needs. “We’re going to have fewer advisors serving more clients,” Reid says. “They will need a partner that helps them be more productive and still show up for clients when it matters most.”
Reid sees that as Osaic’s job to solve. Much of the routine work that fills an advisor’s day, from research and documentation to administrative tasks, is being streamlined by better tools and AI. Rising demands around cybersecurity, privacy, and fraud prevention will sit increasingly with the firm rather than the practice. Scale plays a role in absorbing that load, but it is not the whole story. The point is what it frees the advisor to do.
For Reid, that is ultimately how the industry expands access to meaningful advice. If the firm can take on more of the complexity in the background, advisors can spend more of their time where it has the greatest impact: sitting with clients, guiding families through major life events, and helping more households get the kind of holistic, personal guidance that has too often been reserved for the few. “This is a business that’s fundamentally about people helping people,” she says. The work ahead, in her view, is making sure more people get to be on the receiving end of it.
Spotlight
The irony, she notes, is that a firm with a bigger technology budget often spends less on the advisor experience “because they’re spending so much to maintain the platform.” The result is more spend on plumbing and less on what advisors and clients actually see.
At Osaic, that is the gap Reid wants to avoid. The company relies on leading clearing and technology partners and concentrates its own resources on integrations, data, and front-end experiences. “The industry is shifting toward more adaptable, advisor-centric programs where true integration matters more than the number of tools,” she says. The objective is specific: allow advisors to plug into new capabilities faster, streamline how they work, and support a broader toolkit for clients, without being tied to infrastructure decisions from an earlier era.
Osaic, Inc. (“Osaic”), a portfolio company of Reverence Capital Partners, is one of the nation’s largest providers of wealth management strategies, supporting over 10,000 financial professionals. Osaic’s mission is to empower entrepreneurial advisors to create leading wealth management solutions that enhance lives and legacies. Visit www.osaic.com to learn more.
Company Profile
10,000+
financial professionals
270+
financial institutions
$760B+
AUA
4M+
clients nationwide
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Milestones
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Accolades
Company Profile
Years of Experience
26
Education
MBA from Columbia Business School
Career focus
“I believe deeply in the role our industry plays in helping people secure their future. That’s why I’m passionate about delivering creative, practical solutions that meet today’s needs − and tomorrow’s challenges.”
Shannon Reid
President and Head of Advisor Growth and Engagement at Osaic
Osaic’s Shannon Reid is moving beyond outdated orthodoxies, putting the company’s reach to work for advisors, and redefining what a partner firm can be
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“It’s not just about growth of the business. It’s about helping clients grow. It’s about their entire security and confidence about life. It’s about the next generation. When you think about it that way, growth means something a little different”
Shannon Reid,
Osaic
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IN Partnership with
2024
2025
2026
Shannon was serving as president of Raymond James Financial Services when it was recognized for Broker-Dealer/Custodian of the Year at the inaugural InvestmentNews Awards.
2024
Shannon was recognized by the Tampa Bay Business Journal as a BusinessWoman of the Year Honoree.
2025
Shannon began her career at Osaic and became the finance committee chair for the FSI executive committee.
2026
Milestones
Published August 12, 2026
Find out more
Find out more
“Fundamentally, the reason wealth management and advisors will continue to be successful is because people need to connect with people. AI and technology will deliver a lot of benefit over time, but they won’t deliver a personal connection”
Shannon Reid,
Osaic
2001
2015
2024
2025
2026
Shannon began her distinguished career in financial services.
2001
Shannon led the Raymond James Practice Management team that developed the award-winning Practice Intelligence Model, which was celebrated for delivering an innovative, data-driven approach to helping financial advisors improve practice performance and client outcomes.
2015
Shannon was serving as president of Raymond James Financial Services when it was recognized for Broker-Dealer/Custodian of the Year at the inaugural InvestmentNews Awards.
2024
Shannon was recognized by the Tampa Bay Business Journal as a BusinessWoman of the Year Honoree.
2025
Shannon began her career at Osaic and became the finance committee chair for the FSI executive committee.
2026
Milestones