Wealthtech provider Orion Advisor Solutions is planning to open an “innovation lab” in San Francisco later this year, following the opening of a new office in Utah. According to CEO Natalie Wolfsen, the new locations follow a “workforce strategy” change over the past 18 months that included several rounds of layoffs.
In an interview at WealthManagement.com’s New York City office, Wolfsen said the changes helped right-size the firm’s approach to remote vs. in-office work and transition from a closed suite of services.
“You can only foster communities that allow you to do transformative things if you’re not siloed in your organization and deeply connected to your clients,” Wolfsen said.
While Wolfsen stressed that she could “never say never” about potential future staff changes (noting that Orion operates in a “market-tied” industry), she acknowledged that the workforce strategy has “reached a point of its fruition” based on the company’s current standing.
Orion conducted several rounds of layoffs before and after Wolfsen took the top post in 2024, leaving her role as CEO of AssetMark. In 2023, when founder Eric Clarke was still CEO, one round of layoffs was described as the “final action” in bringing several teams together from prior acquisitions.
Last July, Orion introduced its back-to-office plan for employees, which includes three days a week in the office and “choice weeks,” in which employees can work wherever they want for a week at a time (each employee gets eight choice weeks per year and can take up to four weeks consecutively).
According to Wolfsen, the choice weeks help employees travel on vacation with family while continuing to work or help an elderly parent recovering from a medical issue.
Additionally, earlier this month, Orion opened a new office in Lehi, Utah, moving to what the firm described as “the heart of Utah’s thriving tech corridor.” According to Orion, the location is closer to major business hubs. Wolfsen added that Lehi and the firm’s headquarters in Omaha, Neb. and Berwyn, Penn., were the company’s three largest locations.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco office will focus on innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and serve as “a support function for all of Orion and all of our locations,” said Orion Advisory Technology President Reed Colley, who is based there.
CEO Wolfsen also tied the layoffs to her strategy to open Orion’s offerings to advisors with a la carte service options across its advisor technology and wealth management offerings, instead of the approach of a more closed system, or large-bundled offering she had inherited.
“There was a strategy that we were going to have a closed system at Orion, where we were going to encourage people to only use our CRM, our financial planning,” she said. “When I came on as CEO, I changed that. … Sometimes you just have a skill mix mismatch of the people that were really right for a strategy of the past, but are not right for the strategy of the future.”
Wolfsen said the move to a more flexible subscription model allows Orion to stay competitive across the range of advisor models while also attracting advisors for potential upgrades.
“I’m a big believer in competition at all positions, and so sometimes financial advisors just want to use our CRM,” she said. “We [also] have an integrated client experience that we think is great, where they can be more efficient and effective, and they’ll grow in our ecosystem.”
That strategy shift added to changes in leadership positions down through the ranks, Wolfsen said.
One of those new heads is Colley, who joined Orion through the acquisition of his Summit Wealth Systems. Colley founded Black Diamond and then sold it to Advent Software—later acquired by SS&C. He put Orion’s focus on more open, flexible systems in the context of the industry’s broader shift toward fee-based or fee-only models.
“So much of this goes back down to how you’re charging your clients and how that was such a revolutionary shift from closed systems and proprietary systems to more open systems,” he said. “All of that is great because it’s more choice for the end investors … but at the same time, you’re trying to get these economies to scale and scope as the markets mature.”
Meeting the needs of enterprise-level and solo advisors will be an evolving challenge for advisor technology firms. Wolfsen said that, currently, Orion works with about 25,000 advisory firms, most of which are RIAs, and includes 17 of the 20 largest firms.
“They’re all doing really inspiring things, as are the local entrepreneurs, who are building their own business,” she said. “The way that the industry is evolving is just incredibly fascinating right now, because you start from a history that was largely wirehouse, and then everything disaggregated, and now we’re kind of moving back.”
Despite the changes to the sector, Wolfsen said advisors remain “highly independent,” and her goal is to offer them options within an integrated system.
“Because we’re open API everything and we integrate with 500 providers, it means that we can appeal to a really broad part of the market,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll ever move away from that strategy. I mean, you never say never in this world, but it’s just fundamental to my beliefs about competition and remaining competitive, so that you’re constantly pressed to get better.”
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