Inside WealthTech explores the technology, strategies, and partnerships shaping the future of advice—from the platforms powering the advisor tech stack to the firms redefining how growth happens in wealth management. Each episode features candid conversations with industry leaders about what it really takes to scale responsibly, serve clients better, and build enduring advisory businesses.
In this episode, Envestnet’s Blake Wood, Strategic Partnerships Head, and Aaron Bauer, Head of Custodian Strategy, sit down with Shaun Kapusinski, founder of Hifon, live from Schwab IMPACT 2025. This conversation spans the evolution of RIA operations in an AI-driven era — from technology debt and cybersecurity risk to peer-driven vendor diligence — all framed through the lens of how firms can scale intelligently without sacrificing service quality.
Read on for a snapshot of the conversation, or watch it in full here.
The core of back-office solutions
For growing RIAs, “back-office operations” encompass far more than administrative support. They are the operational framework that enables firms to onboard clients efficiently, move money securely, maintain compliance, reconcile accounts, manage billing, process paperwork, coordinate custodians, and create a consistent client experience at scale.
Modern back-office solutions increasingly centralize these workflows into connected operational systems that reduce manual work, improve visibility, and minimize operational friction. Functions often include:
- Account opening and onboarding workflows
- Billing and fee reconciliation
- Cash management and money movement
- Custodial integrations and data reconciliation
- Compliance oversight and audit readiness
- Workflow automation and task management
- Document management and digital approvals
- Vendor coordination and operational reporting
These systems become especially important during periods of growth. As firms add advisors, onboard larger client volumes, merge practices, or expand service offerings, operational complexity compounds quickly.
The firms that scale effectively are often the firms that operationalize consistency early — creating infrastructure that supports growth without compromising service quality or client responsiveness.
AI uncertainty and the power of conversation
From a technology standpoint, AI is the dominant shift impacting RIAs, but the challenge isn’t awareness; it’s direction.
As Kapusinski puts it, “Probably the biggest shift that we're seeing from a tech perspective that a lot of firms are dealing with is obviously AI. What do you do with it, right? What do you start with? Where do you go?”
Most firms remain in experimentation mode, still trying to determine whether AI is “just a note-taker today or am I supposed to be doing something else?” The uncertainty isn’t about whether AI matters, but about how to operationalize it. Kapusinski emphasizes that peer dialogue has become a critical accelerant in that process: “They don't really know where to go next… a lot of times just having people to talk to about it is the big advancement that they're looking for.”
Hifon helps by giving RIA operations and technology leaders a structured peer network to navigate ambiguity together.
Instead of evaluating AI tools, vendors, or workflows in isolation, members can:
- Sanity-check use cases
- Compare implementation experiences
- Pressure-test vendor claims
- Share lessons learned, including what didn’t work
- Benchmark operational readiness before scaling
In his words, the value is often simple but powerful: having “a place to go and essentially ask that question: ‘Hey, I’m facing a situation that I’ve never experienced before. How have you dealt with this in your firm?’”
In practical terms, Hifon reduces the risk of experimentation. It shortens the learning curve by replacing guesswork with peer-informed judgment — which, in a fast-moving AI environment, becomes a competitive advantage.
Operations as the engine of client experience
Kapusinski compares the role of operations in shaping client experience to running a train station. Clients ultimately aim to achieve long-term goals — retirement, financial independence, peace of mind — without unnecessary stress. Railroad passengers are just trying to get from point A to point B with as little stress as possible. Trains need to arrive on time, routes need to stay clear, and disruptions need to be handled before passengers ever feel them. Operations works behind the scenes to ensure the system functions seamlessly.
Operations is, in his words: “Responsible for keeping the trains running on time and making sure that if there's chaos behind the scenes, the experience for the client is not disrupted.”
That responsibility spans billing, reconciliation, account opening, money movement, compliance oversight, vendor coordination, exception management, and custodial workflows. The mandate is straightforward: insulate the client experience from operational complexity.
This becomes especially visible during onboarding, which is often the most operationally intensive stage of a client relationship. The first 90 days can define long-term client confidence. When onboarding is fragmented, paperwork is delayed, or accounts take weeks to open, clients feel the friction immediately. Conversely, firms with strong operational infrastructure can streamline onboarding workflows, reduce NIGOs, automate approvals, and move clients from signed agreements to funded accounts in days rather than weeks. That operational efficiency directly impacts perception, trust, and referral potential.
The challenge, however, is that as firms grow, operational capacity does not always scale in parallel. The most common consequence is technology debt — the strain that emerges when firms add advisors, merge entities, onboard new custodians, or accumulate vendors without scalable infrastructure.
“From a technological perspective, do you have the scale? Do you have the capabilities? Can your firm handle what is coming at it so fast?”
Without deliberate preparation, he warns, “If firms aren't prepared for that, they're going to have a bumpy ride ahead.”
Cybersecurity is moving front and center
Cybersecurity now sits at the center of vendor evaluation for RIAs. As Kapusinski notes, “Certainly the risk from a cyber standpoint is probably the biggest thing I think about.” The threat landscape has evolved beyond traditional system breaches; today, the greater vulnerability often lies in social engineering. “A penetration into your system is not as likely as tricking or fooling someone through a simple phishing email,” he explains, underscoring how human error can become the primary attack vector. In this environment, vendor relationships must begin with explicit risk alignment.
Firms need to understand a provider’s security posture up front to ensure shared data protection and control standards. “We want to understand your firm going in so that we're on the same page when it comes to the risks involved,” he says. And if that alignment isn’t there, the decision is straightforward: “If a vendor doesn’t have security you’re comfortable with, maybe you don’t move forward — because your firm’s the one at risk.”
Visibility and agility are the future of RIA operations
While Kapusinski acknowledges there is no definitive blueprint for the operations team of the future, he expects the function to be defined more by visibility and responsiveness than by rigid structure. Adaptability may become the central competency.
“The firm of the future, from an operations perspective, is really about understanding how you react to external changes.”
That flexibility requires more than operational talent alone. Firms also need technology environments that support agility. Legacy systems often limit responsiveness because disconnected workflows, manual processes, and fragmented data create delays in decision-making and execution. A firm may want to move quickly, but if the underlying technology stack cannot support operational flexibility, growth initiatives can stall.
Kapusinski envisions a more data-driven operating environment where leaders begin the day with dashboard-level visibility into team activity, workflow bottlenecks, exception management, and risk signals — a system where green indicates stability, yellow signals caution, and red demands immediate attention.
In that model, the competitive advantage is not organizational chart design, but reaction speed, real-time situational awareness, and the ability to course-correct before the client experience is affected.
Rapid-fire reflections
As part of Inside WealthTech’s speed round, Kapusinski offers quick takes on the forces shaping advisor growth, client experience, and the future of the RIA landscape:
- AI and advisors — co-pilot, disruptor, or hype? “All three.”
- How will advisors win clients in the next 10 years? “Probably podcasts plus something that doesn’t exist yet.”
- Private markets — mainstream in five years? “More accessible, yes, but not mainstream yet.”
- One old-school practice to eliminate? “Paper. I’m surprised how much paper still exists.”
His paper observation connects directly back to operational efficiency. Many firms still manage excessive custodial paperwork, manual approvals, and NIGO remediation processes that create delays for both staff and clients. Modern back-office solutions help reduce paperwork errors, digitize workflows, and minimize operational drag before it impacts the client experience.
Across all topics — AI, vendor risk, operational scale, peer benchmarking, and onboarding efficiency — one principle stands out: Operations is no longer just support infrastructure. It is a strategic growth lever.
Firms that proactively address technology debt, modernize operational workflows, strengthen vendor diligence, and leverage peer insights will scale more sustainably than those that react only after friction emerges.
Stay Inside WealthTech
Watch the full episode of Inside WealthTech featuring Shaun Kapusinski to learn more about how technology and operations will shape the next phase of advisory growth.
And be sure to follow along on LinkedIn for upcoming episodes spotlighting the leaders redefining wealth management through technology, data, and collaboration.
Learn more about Envestnet’s wealth management technology platform and how it enhances the fundamentals of advice and support team-based advisory models.
