Today, we are releasing an expanded new Ethic aimed at providing advisors everything they need to engage clients around values-aligned investing. Cofounder Johny Mair pulls back the curtain on our journey here.  

by Johny Mair

‍

In the eight years since Ethic’s founding, our phenomenal team and I have partnered with hundreds of advisory firms to make values-aligned, sustainable, and impact investing a strength of their practice. This year, we are introducing a new expansive offering that aims to make the entire client experience more personalized, more efficient, and — above all — more human. 

‍

Here’s some insight into why we decided to take this major step forward, the journey that led us here, and some key takeaways you need to know about our big update.

‍

“I don't know where I'm going, but I know exactly how to get there.”‍
-Boyd Varty, A Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life.

‍

For me, this quote perfectly explains the journey of creating something. With hindsight, it may be simple to craft a compelling narrative of how everything was planned in a perfect strategy, but the reality of building something is much more about following signals, being patient, staying curious, and trusting that you know when the time is right to change course and take action.

‍

At Ethic, this creation has looked like years of working to build the right foundations, developing the right people and skills, and finding the right partners in our community. Those years have led us to today, when we feel we’ve arrived at the right time to launch our creation — the next phase of our vision. This is the reintroduction of Ethic.  

‍

So how did we get here?

‍

All that being said, I’ll go ahead and contradict my last musings by attempting to fit our creative journey into a narrative. Because the story of how we got here, and the people we were fortunate enough to do it with, is important. We’ve built this new evolved Ethic after 8 years of working with our advisor community. We’ve spent countless hours with our clients, listening to their challenges and working hand in hand with them to explore what it actually looks like to make values-aligned investing a core part of their business at scale. And what we learned is that it would take a new type of investment manager to offer this new type of investing to clients. 

‍

Here are a few things that emerged from those discussions: 

‍

• There is no singular prototype of a “sustainable, values-aligned investor.” Investors are all unique and have very different needs.
• Creating a portfolio that incorporates those personalized needs is very, very difficult. It requires not only a thorough understanding of the clients’ values but also the technical capacity to achieve the degree of customization demanded. 
• Advisors and their teams all have very different workflows and offer vastly differentiated client experiences. Accommodating that variety is another challenge that needs to be considered.
• On top of all that, clients expect more from their advisors than ever. Which means that rigorous research and data are as essential as continued education in the evolving field of values-aligned investing.   

‍

These discoveries added up to our big lightbulb “ah ha!” finding: personalized investing is incredibly difficult and cannot be done alone. Advisors need a dedicated and curious team that cares about solving hard problems. 

‍

That’s where we come in. We took these challenges and used them to inform what we have built with our advisor community. 

‍

Here’s what we are releasing today: 

‍

1. A novel client experience across the customer journey.
2. A curated investment platform for personalized needs.
3. An education and learning platform to upskill advisors. 

‍

Let’s dive in, shall we?

‍

A novel client experience

‍

Challenge: Building a relationship with your clients and understanding their values takes time. Providing a bespoke experience to all of your clients at once is even more complex. 

‍

Solution: We have redesigned and expanded to offer a delightful client experience that can be customized to your workflow. From preparing for your first meeting to crafting personalized portfolios, our platform has the tools you need to efficiently understand your clients’ values and streamline your prospecting workflow — all in one place. Getting to know your clients takes time  so we built the platform to track your tasks, giving you more bandwidth to deepen relationships.  

‍

A curated investment platform

‍

Challenge: It’s hard to find a range of high impact investment solutions that are truly personalized to your clients while simultaneously managing those assets across accounts. Access and operational complexity can often be prohibitive for advisors wanting to deliver a high-quality investment experience to their clients. 

‍

Solution: Our investment platform will host a curated list of investment solutions across asset classes, investment vehicles and solution types customized to Ethic’s 19 pillars. As we build out this offering, we focus on matching client demand with investments across Ethic-managed, Ethic co-managed, and partner providers to ensure that the most impactful managers and products are placed in our portfolios. And all of these asset classes are tracked in one place under our One Portfolio management. 

‍

An education and marketing platform

‍

Challenge: The role of the advisor is changing, and navigating a nascent sustainability landscape is increasingly difficult. Advisors need better ways to continue learning new practices for connecting and engaging with clients around the story of their portfolios. 

‍

Solution: Storytelling has always been at the heart of what we do here at Ethic. This platform is the next evolution of that work. Our innovative reporting capabilities make it simpler to connect with clients on the story of their portfolios, while our education platform provides advisors with the resources they need to deepen their understanding of sustainable investing and engage with clients around their values.

‍

This is a big expansion here at Ethic, one that we’re tremendously proud of. But it’s vital to note that we did not do this alone. This suite of offerings was built with thoughtfulness, built with determination, and, above all, built with you.  

‍

Ethic is always building with our clients in mind because we know that our success is reliant on their success. We want to help you grow your business through differentiated personalized values-aligned portfolios, delightful customer experiences, innovative reporting, and tech-enabled efficiencies. I think today’s release is an exciting step towards achieving those goals.