Using integrations to build an independent firm

Welcome to “Show Me Your Stack,” a series from Financial Planning in which we interview those who deliver financial advice to learn what tools they rely on to make it happen. Rising client expectations are driving the need for more powerful tech tools, and we’re digging deep to find out why advisors prefer certain solutions.

Building an independent firm from the ground up once can be challenging enough, but Brandon Ross has now done it twice.

In 2002 Ross co-founded Peak Capital Investment Services in Dallas, which was purchased nearly a decade later, in 2011, by Joe Duran’s United Capital, with Ross joining as a managing director. In 2019, when Goldman Sachs acquired United Capital and rebranded it Personal Financial Management, Ross came on board as head of office for Texas and Colorado, where he led the largest group of PFM advisors. 

In August 2023, though, Ross faced another career crossroads after Peter Mallouk’s registered investment advisory firm, Creative Planning, bought Goldman’s PFM division.

“It was then that we decided to go off and start our own firm,” he said. After all, it wouldn’t be his first time.

Ross and his original Peak Capital partner Jonathan Blumenthal became the co-founders and co-CEOs of Dallas-based Quotient Wealth Partners, which has offices in Houston, Denver, San Antonio and Morristown, New Jersey. The firm now has 55 total employees, including 21 advisors, and $3.5 billion in assets under management.

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Quotient specializes in working with corporate executives and employees at Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, Texas Instruments, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco and Phillips 66.

As the firm built out its tech stack, Ross said they’ve put a lot of work into integration between essential pieces like CRM, financial planning and an AI note-taker. But for Quotient, some areas, like tax planning, work better standing alone.

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“We’ve already gone through a couple of different tools that didn’t integrate very well, and it’s just not worth the time it takes away from your employees to work efficiently,” he said. “That is one thing I would encourage anyone that’s trying to improve their tech stack: Make sure that you’re bundling it in a way that it’s going to work out smoothly. Sometimes you’re better just being modular.”

Ross said his objective now is to create a bespoke client-experience offering that bundles everything together as much as possible.

“We are working with developers,” he said. “It’s not rolled out yet, but our goal is to create a goal-setting and behavioral finance experience with our clients. To fully understand their values and then tie it in with something that incorporates the financial planning and investment management strategies.”

Scroll down the slideshow to see what Ross feels are some of the most important pieces of Quotient Wealth Partners’ tech stack: