Presented by Envestnet
On this episode, Doug speaks with Molly Weiss, President of the Wealth Management Platform at Envestnet, about how the firm balances innovation with simplicity across its platform. Molly shares Envestnet’s dual-track approach to development—advancing core systems while rapidly testing new features—and explains how modern APIs help integrate acquisitions without compromising user experience.
She also highlights how AI and automation are enhancing advisor efficiency by surfacing actionable insights, not replacing relationships. With over 19,000 data sources powering its wealth data platform, Envestnet enables more holistic, personalized advice. Molly emphasizes configurability, seamless workflows, and a human-first mindset as essential to meeting the evolving needs of both advisors and clients.
Recorded at Envestnet Elevate 2025
Resources: Envestnet
Related: The Power of Steady Advice in Unsteady Markets With Dana D’Auria
Disclosures:
The information, analysis, and opinions expressed herein are for general information only. The views expressed herein reflect the judgement of the speakers as of the recording date and are subject to change at any time without notice. Information obtained from third party resources are believed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Nothing contained in this document is intended to constitute legal, tax, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type. Investing carries certain risks and there is no assurance that investing in accordance with the portfolios or strategies mentioned will provide positive performance over any period of time. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
There are risks inherent in AI technology and its application in the financial sector, including embedded bias, privacy concerns, outcome opaqueness, performance robustness, unique cyberthreats, and the potential for creating new sources and transmission channels of systemic risks. Trends or potential transactions identified by AI are for informational purposes only and are not to be construed as an instruction to take any specific action. Envestnet, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates are not responsible for any decisions or recommendations you may provide to your clients.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Doug Heikkinen: This is Advisorpedia's Power Your Advice podcast, and I'm Doug Heikkinen. We're at Envestnet's Elevate Conference, and we're joined by Molly Weiss, the group's President of the Wealth Management Platform at Envestnet. Welcome, Molly.
[00:00:12] Molly Weiss: Thank you. Happy to be here. . .
[00:00:14] Doug Heikkinen: How do you think about balancing innovation with simplicity across a platform that serves a wide range of users and workflows?
[00:00:23] Molly Weiss: I love this question because innovation is hard to balance with anything. So we think a lot about how to make sure that we are keeping some of our core technology advancing. So something like a trade engine or a performance reporting engine. But then you also have to bring innovation into the picture. And so things like, a new user experience for creating reports. That can be very innovative. But it kind of has to operate on a separate track and you've gotta be able to fail fast and introduce things and get user feedback and then tweak them and innovate and iterate again.
So I think, in my experience, having those two tracks of development and enhancements coming to the platform are really important. You've gotta keep the core going, but then on the innovation side, you've got to, get new and exciting things out there to users and then just be prepared to fail fast. And if they don't go over well, you tweak 'em and you put 'em back out there better.
[00:01:22] Doug Heikkinen: Fail fast. I love that. Envestnet has grown through acquisitions and partnerships. How do you balance maintaining a unified user experience while integrating diverse technologies?
[00:01:34] Molly Weiss: So I think in Envestnet has great experience in both an acquisition that we didn't integrate quickly, and acquisitions that we did integrate quickly.
And I will tell you that there's a perfect balance between those two extremes. And I think one of the great things about the modernization of technology and the way so many things are built with much more flexible kind of API or user experience frameworks makes it easier to deconstruct something so you can acquire a new technology. Keep the engine and hook it up to an existing user experience just using APIs and really flexible, modern, user experience frameworks.
So I think that going forward, if I was in complete control over any acquisition that we ever did again, the approach I would take is to integrate quickly, but in a really thoughtful way so that you're maintaining the integrity of the acquisition, but hooking it into the overall investment ecosystem in a much cleaner, faster way.
[00:02:36] Doug Heikkinen: With AI poised to transform wealth management and our lives, how is in Envestnet leveraging tools to deliver hyper-personalized client experiences without sacrificing human advisor relationships?
[00:02:51] Molly Weiss: I love this question too. so I'm a big fan of AI. I err on the side of being more excited than I am scared. I feel like everybody, everybody's probably a little bit of both is the reality.
However, there are some people that are like just terrified of it and think it's the end of the human race and other people that think it's gonna change things in really exciting and fun ways. And I definitely lean towards the exciting and fun. I use like ChatGPT every day. He's my new best friend and he knows everything about me and gives me really helpful feedback about both my life and my career. I think that the ways that we've already been incorporating AI into the advisor experience is around surfacing data. So I think the foundation of AI is obviously data. So then it's how do you use the interactions that AI can provide and enhance to leverage data and make it actionable and to surface those personalization opportunities.
So we talk about our insights a lot at Envestnet. We have insights that can be surfaced up to an advisor. Historically, the advisor had to go look for them and now the advisor can log into the platform and say, what should I pay attention to today? Or what opportunities for better tax management might exist in my book of business that I should go talk to a client about?
So I think it's the engagement that's different. It's not necessarily the action. And what that means is that if we're saving the advisor all this time because we're helping to serve up those opportunities, or the advisor can just say, what should I do today? It means that the advisor has a lot more time to go call their client and spend time with their client. And so, as much as AI might replace some of the tasks that an advisor performs today, I think it actually frees the advisor up to be a better financial life coach to their clients, which is the most important thing at the end of the day.
[00:04:42] Doug Heikkinen: Yeah.
The wealth data platform consolidates 19,000 sources. What breakthroughs in normalizing held away account data are enabling next best action recommendations for advisors.
[00:04:56] Molly Weiss: So I think that one of the things that I've been hearing a lot from financial advisors, from the firms and institutions that we support, is that the holy grail is in getting the entire wallet share of the client.
And I don't think it's about getting necessarily the management of the entire wallet share, meaning the advisor doesn't have to be recommending investments for the whole wallet share. But I think what's important is that the advisor can see the entire kind of picture of the household and then can make sure that the advice that they're providing is as holistic as possible, as appropriate as possible, as forward-looking as possible.
So the way that we're collecting data and can bring in those held away assets, or even allow the advisor to type in something about a client's, like a piece of art or a property or something like that, helps the advisor look for opportunities where, in particular, maybe the risk isn't appropriate.
So if all the advisor did was say, "You're gonna invest a hundred thousand dollars with me. Are you moderate?" That's one conversation. But then if you have the entire picture for that client, you may say, "Actually for that a hundred thousand dollars, you could be a lot more risky because you've got these very conservative positions somewhere else."
So I think that the insights that we generate are both about opportunities for the advisor to suggest alternative ways that they could be investing the portfolio. But it's also about ensuring that the client is getting the right advice
[00:06:21] Doug Heikkinen: Envestnet serves enterprises to independents. What unique challenges arise when configuring platforms for mega RIAs versus broker dealers, and how do you address those?
[00:06:32] Molly Weiss: So probably the, biggest difference between those two extremes is that independent, in particular high net worth, ultra high net worth advisors have usually full discretion. So they can decide that the right action for a client is x and they can perform that because they have a standing agreement and a standing trust with that client. Broker dealers, on the other hand, usually don't have that kind of discretion. So in terms of workflow, on the one extreme, you need to make sure that you have a lot of oversight tools. There's a lot of checks in the system to make sure that the client has signed off on the things that the advisor is doing.
And on the independent side, we need to make sure that we're giving that independent advisor the flexibility to do what's right for an ultra high net worth client that has an expectation of the kind of service that they're going to be provided by their advisor. So, a lot of it is about flexibility and recognizing that even the portfolios are going to be usually much more complicated and sophisticated.
And we need to make sure that we deliver the tools to include things like alternative investments or highly customized portfolios for really large values. And those are very different workflows.
[00:07:44] Doug Heikkinen: How's Envestnet's technology stack evolving to support high tech, high touch workflows? Will digital tools augment and not replace the advisor experience?
[00:07:55] Molly Weiss: So I think a lot of leveraging high tech and leveraging innovation and leveraging AI is about making workflows work better for the advisor and increasing the amount of automation that exists within platforms and also across our ecosystem.
I think that the ability to integrate both kind of within an advisor's specific workflow systems, and maybe that's a custodian and a CRM and the Envestnet tech stack. But also, out into broader other tools that the advisor might be using in the ecosystem, I think the ability to integrate is going to get better and better.
And so I think it becomes about the layer of workflow and user experience that again, can leverage something like AI so that the advisors asking a question, or suggestions are being served up. Rather than the advisor logging into one system, performing part of the workflow, going to another system and performing another part of the workflow.
So I think it's the seamlessness of one consistent workflow leveraging AI data and connectivity beneath that user experience.
[00:09:04] Doug Heikkinen: How does Envestnet's platform address the compliance complexities of serving high net worth and institutions?
[00:09:12] Molly Weiss: We have, at Envestnet, a compliance and service request and workflow infrastructure that is incredibly flexible.
So in some cases it can be somewhat restrictive and put stops in the workflow and ask for client signatures or client sign off. And in other cases it can be much more flexible and not require those same stops. So I think the key, and I think where the investment technology really differentiates itself, is about configurability.
Because at the end of the day, I think that you need to be able to configure the right workflow, the right experience, not only for the advisor, but for the client too.
[00:09:51] Doug Heikkinen: Last one for you. Having risen through Envestnet's ranks, what leadership lessons from integrating acquisitions now guide your approach to FinTech innovation?
[00:10:02] Molly Weiss: Well, this is not a technology answer, but what I will tell you is that integrating teams is the most important thing you can do. I think creating a connected organization that understands the value of what Envestnet is doing, versus what their firm may have done or what, the value that the acquisition might have brought in the past.
I think the minute that you do an acquisition it has to be, everyone is pointed in the same direction, seeing the same value, and that value is big picture. So I would say first and foremost, it's about the people. And the people are who make you successful anyway at the end of the day. And then I think it's that balanced approach to integration and not waiting too long, but also being respectful of the power of the technology that you might have just acquired.
[00:10:47] Doug Heikkinen: Molly, it's a great conference. Thank you so much for being with us.
[00:10:50] Molly Weiss: Thank you. Thanks for being here.
[00:10:51] Doug Heikkinen: For more information, please visit Envestnet.com. Please follow us for more information on X, LinkedIn, and Facebook, all @Advisorpedia. For everybody at Advisorpedia, our producer Tory Miller and the Power Your Advice Podcast team, this is Doug Heikkinen.