Steve Lockshin is an entrepreneur and financial advisor, focusing on ultra high-net-worth clients. He is a founder of a number of companies, such as Fortigent in 1994, Advizent in 2012, and Advice Period in 2013. He is an early investor in a number of fintech firms, such as Betterment, Quovo, Wealthbox, and Advizr. He has appeared widely in the finance and business press, and at conferences in the financial services and fintech industries. He has served on CNBC's Digital Financial Advisor Council.
Lockshin was CEO for Convergent Wealth Advisors for 18 years, during which time the company became one of the largest RIAs in the industry. In 2011, while he was at Convergent, he was named the "No. 1 Independent Financial Advisor" in the United States by the financialweekly newspaperBarron's. Lockshin resigned as Convergent chairman in 2014, after the suicide of its CEO David Zier.
Awards and Recognitions
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, and writes a regular column in Barron's called The Tech Whisperer. He wrote the book Get Wise to Your Advisor, which exposes conflicts of interest in the financial advice industry, and argues that individual investors, even very wealthy ones, are often not well-served by their advisors. 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, and that this will result an increased focus on and need for "unconflicted advice." He predicts that investment automation will be disruptive, making it ever harder for investment advisors to compete with Robo-investing and AI and the bigfinancial firms who use them. He has said that the financial services industry is having a "Kodak moment," 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.
Controversy
Lockshin has repeatedly criticized the financial services industry for its inherent conflicts of interest, its over-reliance on active investing, its low standards, and its excessive fees. He argues that many investment advisors should not be trusted. 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.
