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At the 2025 Charles Schwab IMPACT Conference in Denver, the conversation around RIA mergers and acquisitions felt very different from the “growth at any cost” mindset that dominated the last decade. Phil Jacobson, Managing Partner, Business Development at Rise Growth Partners, captured that shift in a single idea: the next great RIAs will not be those that simply do the most deals, but those that pursue M&A with discipline—alignment, cultural fit, and long-term enterprise value at the center.
“There is a land grab going on out there,” Phil noted, “and I think that’s what advisors need to be thinking about as they’re looking at maybe consolidating into and being part of an acquisition… Is this the right alignment and cultural fit for where we’re at today?”
For financial advisors and firm leaders, that question has never been more important.
From Land Grab to Lighthouse Brands
Phil described a market still full of aggressive buyers, but not all of them are building for the long term. Some are “doing a deal for the deal’s sake to get to the EBITDA, grow the bottom line,” he cautioned, and not paying enough attention to whether it is “the right long-term partnership.”
Rise Growth Partners positions itself differently by focusing on what Phil calls “lighthouse brands” – firms designed to attract both advisors and clients to a solution set that helps each reach their goals. Instead of chasing every possible acquisition, Rise looks for platforms that can stand out in a crowded market and act as magnets for talent and assets over many cycles.
When Phil talks about a lighthouse brand, it is not marketing jargon. It is a strategic lens:
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Does the firm have a clear mission and vision that advisors and clients can rally around?
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Can that brand promise be delivered consistently across locations, teams, and client segments?
“The RIA business is like sitting on a three-legged stool,” Phil explained. “You’ve got the advisor, you’ve got the firm, you’ve got the client. And all of those legs have to stay in balance as you grow.”
That balance—between growth, culture, and client experience—is the foundation of Rise’s approach to disciplined M&A.
A 45-Point View of Enterprise Readiness
If lighthouse brands are the destination, enterprise readiness is the roadmap. Rise Growth Partners doesn’t rely on gut feel alone; it runs potential “cornerstone firms” through a structured Enterprise Readiness Assessment that offers a firm-wide diagnostic before capital is deployed.
Phil outlined three main pillars:
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Business management: Leadership quality, decision-making, and how the firm is actually being run and grown.
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Enterprise platform: Technology stack, service model, and the underlying infrastructure that supports advisors and clients.
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Growth strategies: How the firm plans to expand, scale, and compete over time.
Each pillar has three focus areas, and each focus area has five critical success factors—45 in total. “We just simply go through a process of scoring the firm on each of those critical success factors,” Phil said, from “are they knocking it out of the park?” to “they’ve got a lot of work to do in this particular area.”
From that, Rise develops a “heat map” of strengths and gaps, and—crucially—it shares a perspective early in the dialogue:
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Where the firm is strong and can be leveraged immediately.
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Where Rise would “lean in” with resources, expertise, and focus to help the firm reach the next level.
Phil used a vivid metaphor to make the point: “You know how you train a lion? You need two things. You need a four-legged stool, and you need a whip.” A lion can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. The same is true for RIAs. “You can’t focus on 45 different things at the same time,” he said, “but there are probably three to five things that a particular firm can focus on to get to that next level.”
Those three to five priorities will change as a firm passes key thresholds—$2.5 billion, $5 billion, $7.5 billion in AUM—each requiring a paradigm shift in leadership, systems, and governance. Rise’s discipline lies in helping firms see those shifts in advance rather than reacting to them under pressure.
Cultural Compatibility and Integration by Design
Discipline does not stop with the platform. For advisory teams joining those cornerstone firms, Rise runs a complementary assessment focused on cultural compatibility and integration reality.
Many RIA leaders talk about “fit,” but few have actually defined it. Rise helps firms articulate their “cultural pillars” and the non-negotiables that truly drive success. That clarity becomes the lens through which potential acquisitions are evaluated.
From there, the integration work begins before the deal is even signed:
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Identifying “sacred cows” in both the acquiring and acquired firms.
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Mapping what can be aligned on day one versus what needs a longer runway.
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Setting expectations so both sides “go in eyes wide open” about the lift required.
This is where many transactions falter in the broader marketplace—great spreadsheets, weak integration. Phil emphasized that Rise’s goal is to avoid surprises by being honest about the integration journey up front, not after the close when teams are already fatigued.
Governance, Flexibility, and the Voyage Mindset
When the conversation turned to durability—what it takes to build a platform that lasts beyond the next wave of consolidation—Phil’s answer might surprise advisors who equate discipline with rigidity. For him, the most important trait is flexibility.
He likened it to creating a financial plan: “I’d guarantee it for 30 feet or 30 seconds, whichever one came first,” he joked, because three things always change—the government changes the rules, markets move, and clients’ lives and priorities evolve.
The same applies to RIA businesses. Rise talks with firms about their growth journey as a “voyage.” Phil invoked the story of Christopher Columbus, who set out to find a faster route to India and instead discovered America:
“You may discover something far better than what you intended when you started,” he said, “but as we go along that line, it’s all about having the ability to bob and weave as you go through the transitions in the markets, ups and downs, and the developing situations within the industry.”
Disciplined governance, in this context, isn’t about locking a firm into a static plan. It’s about:
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A clear mission, vision, and brand promise that anchor decisions.
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The agility to adapt tactics as conditions change without losing the core identity.
That balance—structured enough to guide, flexible enough to adapt—is at the heart of Rise’s model.
Growth Mindset, Meritocracy, and the Three-Legged Stool
Not every RIA buyer or seller is aligned with this long-term, client-centered view. Phil pointed to a critical early warning sign: Does the firm have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
“If it’s about the team, it’s about the clients, and it’s about how can we all win together, then we’re going to find solution sets along the way,” he said. “We can call it a meritocracy as opposed to an aristocracy. The best Idea wins… If the best thing for the client is what comes out on top at the end of the day, we’ve got the right mindset.”
That meritocratic, client-first ethos is what keeps the three-legged stool—advisor, firm, client—in balance as challenges inevitably arise. Discipline, in this model, is not about saying “no” to growth; it is about saying “yes” to the right kind of growth, with the right partners, for the right reasons.
Brand Promise, Vision Leak, and Turning Pirates into a Navy
Partnerships and acquisitions often stumble around leadership succession, culture, and talent retention. From Phil’s experience, the firms that get it right start with a clear brand promise and then constantly protect it.
“Brand is simply a promise made, consistently delivered,” he said. “Have you defined that well?” If advisors do not understand that promise—if they cannot articulate what the firm stands for and what it delivers—you end up with what Phil colorfully described as “a band of pirates” instead of “a navy going out on a specific mission.”
For leaders, that means doing two hard things well:
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Defining the mission, vision, and brand promise in language everyone can own.
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Constantly correcting for “vision leak” as markets, events, and distractions pull the firm off course.
Disciplined M&A, in that sense, is as much about internal alignment as it is about external opportunity. Deals don’t create clarity; clarity creates better deals.
From United Capital to the Next Generation of RIAs
Phil’s lens on culture and mission is grounded in experience. He reflected on his time working with Joe Duran during the build-out of United Capital, and the consistent feedback he hears from former colleagues years later.
“Whether it’s here [at IMPACT] or anywhere else, they always reflect back: ‘United Capital days were the best days of my career,’” he said. “We felt like we had a bigger mission, a bigger vision that we were trying to accomplish as an organization.”
For Phil, that sense of shared mission—of “linking arms, trying to accomplish the same mission and vision as we’re solving the problem for the client”—is exactly what the next generation of RIAs must recapture if they want to move from chaos to clarity.
Chaos, he argued, comes when there is no clear mission or vision and “everybody’s out there trying to just grow for growth’s sake.” In that environment, corners get cut, and eventually the consequences ripple through clients, teams, and shareholders.
Clarity, by contrast, comes when the end game is explicit:
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Helping clients make better decisions about their financial futures.
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Inviting the entire team—from CEO to receptionist—into that mission.
When that alignment is present, capital becomes a tool, not a temptation. Deal timing becomes strategic, not reactive. Growth strategy becomes disciplined, not chaotic.
Why Rise Growth Partners Matters for Advisors and Investors
For advisory firms and their clients, Rise Growth Partners offers more than capital. It brings a framework for:
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Building lighthouse brands that stand out and endure.
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Assessing enterprise readiness through a structured, 45-point lens.
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Ensuring cultural compatibility and integration planning from day one.
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Embedding a growth mindset and meritocratic, client-first culture into the fabric of the firm.
In an environment where many acquirers are still focused on short-term roll-ups and multiple expansion, that kind of discipline can be a competitive advantage for both advisors and investors seeking lasting value.
If you are an RIA leader wrestling with how to grow without losing what makes your firm special, or exploring strategic capital that aligns with your mission, consider learning more about how Rise Growth Partners partners with firms like yours. Explore their approach and connect with the team at risegrowth.com.
Related: Core and Confident: What Schwab’s 2025 ETF Study Tells Advisors About the Future of Portfolios