Steve Lockshin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (age 58–59) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | financial advisor, entrepreneur and financial author |
Steve Lockshin is an American financial advisor, entrepreneur and financial author that has focusing on ultra high-net-worth clients and estate planning. [1] [2]
He is a founder of a number of companies, such as Fortigent (formerly Convergent Wealth Advisors and CMS Financial Services) in 1994, Advizent in 2012 [3] (which shut down a year later), [4] [5] and Advice Period in 2013 [6] [7] (which was named "Best Wealth Planning Firm" at Family Wealth Report Awards 2019). [8]
He is an early investor in a number of fintech firms, such as Betterment, [9] [10] [11] Quovo, [12] [13] Wealthbox, [14] and Advizr. [15] [16] He has appeared widely in the finance and business press, [17] and at conferences in the financial services and fintech industries. [18] [19] [20] He has served on CNBC's Digital Financial Advisor Council. [21]
Lockshin has criticized the financial services industry for its inherent conflicts of interest, [22] its over-reliance on active investing, [23] its low standards, [24] and its excessive fees. [25] [26] (He contends that estate planning and tax planning are much more important for clients.) [27] [28] He argues that many investment advisors should not be trusted. [29] He is critical of broker-dealers because they are not required to act in their clients best interests, unlike a registered investment advisor who is a fiduciary. [30] [31] [32]
Lockshin was CEO for Convergent Wealth Advisors for 18 years (and chairman through 2014), [33] during which time the company became one of the largest RIAs in the industry. [34] In 2011, while he was at Convergent, he was named the "No. 1 Independent Financial Advisor" in the United States by the financial weekly newspaper Barron's. [35] Lockshin resigned as Convergent chairman in 2014, after the suicide of its CEO David Zier. [36]
Lockshin has been recognized repeatedly by Barron's for his excellence as a financial advisor, including as #1 in California twice and #1 nationally. His awards and recognitions include:
Lockshin has written articles for CNBC, [43] [44] and writes a regular column in Barron's called The Tech Whisperer. [45] [46] He wrote the book Get Wise to Your Advisor, [47] which exposes conflicts of interest in the financial advice industry, [48] and argues that individual investors, even very wealthy ones, are often not well-served by their advisors. [49]
He has made a number of predictions about the future of the financial services industry, including that over the next few years there will be a rapid evolution of fintech, [50] and that this will result an increased focus on and need for "unconflicted advice." [51] He predicts that investment automation will be disruptive, [52] [53] making it ever harder for investment advisors to compete with robo advice and AI, and the big financial firms who use them. [54] [55] He has said that the financial services industry is having a "Kodak moment," [56] meaning that much of the industry, and especially individual investment advisors, are ignoring technological changes just like Kodak ignored the photography industry transitioning from film to digital. [57]