Financial Services
FINALIST
Judson Bergman had a vision that he thought was too important to let die after he was unsuccessful in launching it at the investment firm where he worked.
So he took the vision with him, leaving the company to develop a business plan that became Envestnet. And of their own accord, several colleagues joined him.
Bergman wanted to transform the financial services industry. He envisioned that the Internet could be utilized to offer a scalable wealth management platform tailored to the registered investment adviser business but flexible enough to support a wide range of clients.
Bergman saw two trends that would shape Envestnet’s strategy: a desire to move from commission-based brokers to a fee-based independent investment advisers and a need for a software as a service solution with the Internet as the means to deliver it.
Success for Bergman has been measured by the number of advisers on his platform and the amount of assets under management that they advised. But beyond that, he measures his success as the progression of the financial services industries to the transparent fee-based advisory market he has envisioned.
The core value upon which everything revolves around for Bergman is transparency. He does not micromanage, preferring to see his job as empowering the team. Bergman reminds his team of the vision to transform the industry and fiduciary transparency responsibilities, as well as creating clearly defined goals and stating how employees will be measured and rewarded. As a result employee retention is high as Bergman inspires his employees and keeps them working toward his broader vision.
By staying true to his vision and making smart, strategic investments and acquisitions, Envestnet has grown in both the number of advisers and assets under management in every quarter since the economic downturn in 2001.
How to reach: Envestnet, www.envestnet.com
