This week on our Masters in Business interview, we speak with Ron Carson, founder and CEO of Carson Group, which serves financial advisors and investors through its various businesses. Carson Wealth manages over $12 billion dollars for clients.
He explains how in 1983, he first began working with investors from his dorm room at the University of Nebraska. He believes the fee-only Fiduciary side of asset management is accelerating over the old commission-based broker model. Conflict-free advice is the direction the industry is heading.
Carson discusses the other entities under the Carson Group umbrella, including the coaching they do for advisors, as well as their turnkey asset management program (TAMP) business. They do everything from technology, trading, compliance, Trust and Insurance, for the small independent advisor. They have also established a robust succession planning for small RIA firms.
He believes that artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning will have a major impact on the advice industry. Sometime over the next few decades, financial advice will be given by machines working in tandem with advisors and their clients.
We also discuss the firm’s outreach to women and people of color, both of whom are strongly underrepresented within the industry. There are too few young people working in asset management, which creates a unique opportunity: “There are more people over the age of 80 in our profession than there are under the age of 30.”
Carson bluntly addresses why his firm took PPP money: The firm runs a separate conference and consulting business, which is what they applied for the paycheck guarantee program. Why should those employees not in asset management be disadvantaged and not be able to participate in the salary guarantee because they work for an RIA?
His favorite books are here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Monday.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including the podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Bloomberg, and Stitcher. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
Next week, we have a special Fourth of July episode: we speak with Robin King, Chief Executive Officer for the Navy SEAL Foundation, a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization that provides critical support and assistance to the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community and its families.
Ron Carson’s favorite books
Unexpected Returns: Understanding Secular Stock Market Cycles by Ed Easterling
Benjamin Graham on Value Investing: Lessons from the Dean of Wall Street by Janet Lowe
Books Barry Mentioned
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
