Modern American Advisor isn’t trying to become another financial media brand..

…We’re building the platform you always wished existed.

Modern American Advisor was not launched to become another traditional financial trade publication. We are building a modern media, intelligence and engagement platform designed around the way the US advisory profession now operates, communicates and makes decisions.

The RIA market has changed dramatically. Advisory firms are larger, more sophisticated and more ambitious. They are investing in technology, competing for talent, acquiring businesses, developing new leadership teams and thinking much more carefully about culture, client experience and enterprise value. The profession has evolved from a fragmented collection of practices into one of the most commercially important and influential sectors within US financial services.

Much of the media serving that profession, however, has not evolved at the same pace.

There remains an important role for news, data, product announcements and industry reporting, but advisors also need something more. They need thoughtful interpretation, practical business insight and a platform that understands what it actually means to build, lead and grow a modern advisory firm.

That is the opportunity Modern American Advisor was created to address.

Our ambition is not simply to report on the profession from the outside. It is to become part of the infrastructure around it: a place where advisors discover ideas, hear from their peers, understand emerging opportunities, meet potential partners and participate in a community that reflects their own professionalism and ambition.

For organizations seeking to reach and influence the US RIA market, that distinction matters. There is a significant difference between appearing alongside content and becoming part of a trusted conversation. Modern American Advisor has been designed to help partners achieve the latter.

More Than a Magazine

From the outset, Modern American Advisor has been conceived as a connected platform rather than a single publication.

The quarterly magazine and digital edition remain important expressions of the brand. They establish the quality, tone and visual standards we believe the modern advisory profession deserves. The wider opportunity, however, comes from connecting that editorial authority with email, podcasts, research, live conversations, specialist communities, recruitment, events and commercial intelligence.

The platform now includes:

• A premium website and quarterly print magazine.
• The Weekender newsletter and targeted email campaigns.
• The Modern American Advisor Podcast, hosted by Derrick Kinney.
• Specialist editorial and commercial platforms including Build to a Billion, WealthTech & AI and Empowering Women in Finance.
• MAA Talent, our specialist financial services recruitment business.
• The Modern American Advisor Private Members Club.
• Executive interviews, webinars, research, video and invitation-only roundtables.
• Strategic partnership campaigns built around education, insight and measurable engagement.

These are not disconnected products. Each part has been designed to reinforce the others.

A feature can become a podcast interview. A podcast conversation can produce articles, social content, newsletter engagement and a webinar. Original research can inform editorial coverage, create a lead-generation campaign and provide a partner with proprietary market intelligence. A successful digital campaign can develop into a live roundtable, an executive relationship or a wider strategic partnership.

This is why we do not see ourselves as simply selling advertising space. The real opportunity is to help organizations build sustained influence with the advisory profession through a combination of trusted content, intelligent distribution and direct engagement.

Building Reach, Engagement and Trust

Modern American Advisor has developed rapidly since its launch earlier this year. Our current audience extends to more than 275,000 financial professionals across the RIA, wealth management and CPA markets, giving our partners access to a substantial and highly relevant community.

Our website has recorded more than 345,000 GA4-recorded views, while our email performance demonstrates that the audience is not simply receiving our content but actively engaging with it.

A recent Weekender campaign delivered:

• 193,107 emails successfully delivered
• 65,685 opens
• A 34.01% open rate
• A 98.4% delivery rate
• An unsubscribe rate of only 0.14%

We are careful about how we present these numbers. Reach on its own is not enough, and media performance should not be reduced to the largest possible headline figure. The more important question is whether the right people are paying attention and whether that attention leads to meaningful action.

The evidence we are seeing suggests that it does.

Our Women in Finance content and assessment journey have generated some of the strongest levels of engagement across the platform. The Derrick Kinney podcast has also demonstrated its ability to attract substantial readership and drive response through the newsletter. One recent episode generated 13,662 page views, supported by approximately 1,900 newsletter clicks.

These results matter because they demonstrate how the different parts of the platform work together. Editorial authority creates interest; intelligent distribution creates reach; and trusted relationships turn that attention into participation.

From Readership to Action

The clearest proof of influence is not an impression, an open or even a click. It is what someone chooses to do next.

We saw that very clearly when we introduced the Modern American Advisor Private Members Club.

There was no lengthy promotional campaign and no significant launch expenditure. We mentioned the Club to our audience through The Weekender and invited advisors to learn more about the community we were creating.

Leading RIA executives did not simply read the announcement. They acted.

They joined the Club, personally paid for their membership and began offering practical support. Members proposed introductions, volunteered potential venues for executive roundtables and invited us into their professional networks. They did not behave like passive subscribers to a publication; they behaved like people who wanted to help build something.

That distinction is commercially important.

It shows that Modern American Advisor can do more than generate awareness. We can introduce a proposition to the market, establish its relevance and move respected industry professionals from interest to action. For advertisers, agencies and strategic partners, that is far more valuable than a large but anonymous audience.

When a senior advisor chooses to spend their own money to become part of a new community after seeing it mentioned in a newsletter, they are effectively endorsing the trust they place in the platform behind it.

It tells us that the audience believes the brand is credible. More importantly, it demonstrates that our communications can influence behavior.

The Industry Is Recognizing the Difference

One of the most encouraging responses came during a recent conversation with Peter Klein, Managing Partner of Align Wealth Management, which manages approximately $1.15 billion in client assets.

Peter has spent decades within the profession, from Wall Street and wirehouse wealth management through to building a substantial independent advisory business. His reaction was therefore particularly meaningful.

Reflecting on the existing media landscape and what he had seen of Modern American Advisor, he said:

“I think you’ve got a nice green field ahead of you. From what I could see, you guys are stepping it up to a calibre that’s respectful of the professionalism of our industry. To that, I give you a bravo.”
— Peter Klein, Managing Partner, Aline Wealth Management

That endorsement captured something central to our founding purpose.

We have always believed that the RIA profession deserves media that reflects its maturity. Advisors are entrepreneurs, fiduciaries, employers, acquirers, technology buyers, community leaders and sophisticated consumers of information. The publications serving them should recognize that.

This is not simply a question of producing a more attractive magazine, although design matters. It is about treating advisors as intelligent professionals and creating content that understands the complexity of their working lives.

During the same conversation, Peter observed:

“There are a lot of places where we’re getting data and news, but no one is really talking about what it is to be a financial advisor. What do we go through as a profession and as professionals? I like the idea of it. The concept is great.”
— Peter Klein, Managing Partner, Aline Wealth Management

That is a powerful description of the gap Modern American Advisor is working to fill.

We are interested in investment markets and industry news, but we are equally interested in leadership, growth, succession, culture, technology, client psychology and the pressures involved in running an advisory firm. We want to explore how advisors develop their businesses, manage their time, build teams, serve demanding clients and create something of lasting value.

Peter later described his reaction to the wider platform, including the Private Members Club and our plans for editorial collaboration, in even more direct terms:

“I’m excited by this. I feel like I’m on the ground floor of something exciting.”
— Peter Klein, Managing Partner, Aline Wealth Management

That sense of momentum is now being reflected across the business. Advisors are joining. Contributors are coming on board. Strategic partners are helping us develop new propositions. Commercial organizations are beginning to recognize that Modern American Advisor offers something broader than another place to put an advertisement.

We are creating an environment in which the industry can meet, contribute, learn and act.

The quality of that environment ultimately depends on the people behind it.

A Platform Built Around Genuine Expertise

Modern American Advisor is being built by people with direct experience of the subjects they cover. That principle is important because the advisory profession does not need generic commentary from people observing it at a distance. It needs insight from individuals who understand how businesses are built, how clients behave, how technology is changing and how leadership decisions affect real organizations.

Our growing team brings together experience from financial advice, recruitment, technology, artificial intelligence, operations, media, behavioral engagement and business development. The result is not a conventional editorial masthead. It is a group of practitioners and specialists capable of helping us address the most important issues facing the profession.

Strengthening Our Leadership and Industry Relationships

Kathryn Ficarra has joined Modern American Advisor as a major senior leadership appointment, bringing deep experience in partnerships, relationships and strategic engagement.

Her role extends well beyond traditional business development. Kathryn is helping us create a more connected ecosystem around the publication, bringing advisors, commercial partners, industry experts and media relationships together in ways that generate genuine value for everyone involved.

She is also closely involved in developing the Private Members Club and its program of executive conversations, member benefits and in-person events. The objective is to create relationships that continue beyond an initial article, meeting or advertising campaign.

For our commercial partners, this matters because meaningful influence in the RIA market is rarely created through a single transaction. It is built through credibility, repetition and trusted relationships. Kathryn’s experience and network will be central to expanding that part of our proposition.

MAA Talent: Helping Businesses and People Grow

The competition for high-quality talent has become one of the greatest challenges facing advisory firms. Growth plans can be delayed by the inability to recruit experienced advisors, operations leaders, relationship managers and specialist professionals. Acquisitions can struggle when cultural alignment is overlooked, while succession plans often depend on finding individuals with the right combination of technical ability, leadership potential and values.

MAA Talent has been launched to address those challenges, led by Managing Director James Ackland.

James brings close to two decades of experience in financial services recruitment. His approach reflects our wider philosophy: successful recruitment is not simply about filling a vacancy. It is about understanding the organization, the individual and the culture required for both to succeed over the long term.

By combining specialist recruitment expertise with the reach and authority of Modern American Advisor, MAA Talent can help firms communicate why exceptional candidates should join them. It also gives us the ability to connect recruitment with employer branding, culture, leadership, research and thought leadership.

The proposition is built around a simple belief: exceptional talent deserves exceptional opportunities, and strong advisory businesses are built by helping the right people and organizations grow together.

WealthTech & AI: Helping Advisors Understand What Comes Next

Artificial intelligence and financial technology are changing the advisory market at remarkable speed. New platforms are launched almost every week, while firms are being asked to make decisions about automation, data, compliance, client communication and productivity without always having the context required to assess what genuinely matters.

That creates a responsibility for specialist media. Advisors do not need every technology announcement repeated back to them. They need help understanding where innovation is practical, where it is overhyped and where it may fundamentally alter the economics or delivery of advice.

Joe Speirs is leading Modern American Advisor’s WealthTech & AI coverage.

With experience spanning law, technology and artificial intelligence, Joe brings the ability to examine complex developments and translate them into clear, useful insight for advisory firms. His focus is not on technology for its own sake. It is on the real implications for advisors, their clients and their businesses.

Our coverage will explore how technology can improve planning, streamline documentation, support compliance, strengthen client engagement and help advisors use their time more effectively. It will also address the more difficult questions around governance, data, responsibility and the appropriate role of human judgment.

Joe is also involved in the development of Phoebe, an AI-enabled proposition designed to support stronger financial planning conversations and deeper client relationships. That involvement gives our WealthTech & AI coverage a practical understanding of how emerging solutions move from concept to real-world application.

For technology businesses, this section creates a valuable environment in which to explain complex propositions properly. Rather than placing a product advertisement in front of an undifferentiated audience, partners can demonstrate use cases, contribute to research, participate in webinars and help advisors understand how technology can improve their businesses.

The opportunity is not simply to be seen. It is to be understood.

Build to a Billion: The People, Systems and Decisions Behind Growth

One of the defining characteristics of the RIA market is its ambition. Firms that once considered a few hundred million dollars in assets a major destination are now thinking about how to build billion-dollar enterprises, develop institutional infrastructure and compete with increasingly well-capitalized organizations.

Build to a Billion has been created to examine that journey honestly.

The section features advisors who have already built substantial firms, leaders currently navigating that process and specialists who understand the operational, cultural and strategic decisions required to scale successfully.

Ana Marques is helping lead the next stage of that proposition through her Operating for Scale work.

Ana brings experience associated with globally recognized organizations including Ritz-Carlton, Rolex, Disney and Harley-Davidson. Her perspective is particularly relevant because growth is rarely constrained by ambition alone. Firms often struggle because their operating model, client experience, leadership structures and internal systems have not developed at the same pace as their assets or revenue.

Through articles, assessments, executive conversations and consulting programs, Ana will help advisory firms examine whether they are genuinely equipped for their next stage of growth.

For commercial partners, Build to a Billion creates an opportunity to engage firms at the point when they are actively making decisions about technology, capital, custodians, investment management, recruitment, acquisitions and professional services.

These are not passive readers. They are business owners preparing to invest in growth.

The Modern American Advisor Podcast

The Modern American Advisor Podcast is hosted by Derrick Kinney, one of the profession’s most recognizable advocates for advisor growth and success.

Derrick brings the credibility of having built a highly successful advisory practice before developing a wider business focused on helping advisors communicate their value, grow more confidently and create stronger client relationships.

The podcast gives successful advisors, business leaders and industry specialists the space to discuss the ideas behind their work. It is not designed as a succession of promotional interviews. The objective is to produce conversations with lasting value: discussions about growth, leadership, client behavior, communication, resilience and the choices that shape exceptional businesses.

Early performance has demonstrated the strength of that combination. A recent Derrick Kinney episode attracted 13,662 page views, while newsletter promotion generated approximately 1,900 clicks.

That level of engagement shows the commercial potential of high-quality podcast partnerships when they are supported by a wider media platform. An episode is not left to find its audience in isolation. It can be supported through editorial content, newsletter distribution, social media, video, follow-up articles and additional audience engagement.

For the right partner, the result is not simply sponsorship. It is association with a trusted voice and an opportunity to become part of a sustained conversation with the profession.

Empowering Women in Finance

The future success of the advisory profession will depend partly on its ability to attract, retain and develop a broader range of exceptional leaders.

Empowering Women in Finance, led by Caroline Holt, has been created to move that conversation beyond broad statements of support and towards practical development, research and measurable progress.

The initiative includes editorial coverage, assessments, leadership development and cohort-based programs designed to help individuals understand their strengths, identify barriers and build the confidence required to progress.

The audience response has been substantial. Women in Finance pages and the associated assessment journey have generated some of the strongest engagement across the Modern American Advisor platform.

That response reinforces the importance of the subject, but it also shows the value of giving an initiative a dedicated identity, clear purpose and practical route to participation.

For firms seeking to demonstrate their commitment to leadership, culture and the future of the profession, Empowering Women in Finance offers a partnership opportunity that can produce both genuine impact and meaningful engagement.

From Audience Engagement to Actionable Intelligence

Working with Michael Sani and PlayVerto is allowing us to extend the Modern American Advisor proposition beyond content distribution and into commercial insight.

Media organizations have traditionally been able to tell partners how many people saw or clicked on something. Modern technology creates the opportunity to go considerably further.

Through interactive engagement, research and behavioral intelligence, it is possible to understand what advisors think, which issues concern them, how opinions differ across segments and which propositions generate the strongest response.

That intelligence can support product development, commercial strategy, campaign planning and referrals. It can help organizations test ideas before taking them to market and understand why a campaign succeeded or failed.

Michael’s work with PlayVerto, including its involvement in an international youth engagement project connected with the United Nations Youth Office, demonstrates how thoughtfully designed interaction can turn an audience into active participants.

For Modern American Advisor, this creates a natural progression from publishing information to generating intelligence. A partner can begin with an editorial campaign, extend it into market research, use that research to create a webinar or report and then engage directly with the audience segments showing the strongest interest.

This is where modern media becomes considerably more valuable than exposure alone.

Helping Independent Firms Compete

The need for this broader platform was reinforced in a recent conversation with Peter McGratty of Verdant Capital Advisors, a firm that has grown from approximately $1 billion to around $5 billion in assets under management.

Peter described an RIA market increasingly separating into two models: large aggregators benefiting from significant scale and institutional capital, and independent firms that need to become much more deliberate about how they compete.

His observation that independent firms increasingly need to “circle the wagons” was particularly telling.

Independent advisory firms require stronger networks, better information, access to experienced peers and trusted partners who can help them compete without sacrificing their identity. They need support with technology, recruitment, operations, growth, M&A and client engagement.

Modern American Advisor is being built to help create that environment.

We are not suggesting that a media platform can solve every challenge facing an advisory firm. We are saying that the right media platform can bring together the ideas, people, intelligence and relationships that help firms make better decisions.

That is also why our proposition should matter to advertisers and agencies. We are not building an audience around disposable news. We are building a community around the long-term issues that determine how advisory firms grow, compete and succeed.

The commercial opportunity begins with understanding that difference.

This Is Not Simply Advertising. It Is Partnership.

The traditional advertising model is built around inventory. A publication creates an audience, divides that audience into impressions and then sells access through banners, sponsored emails and display pages.

Those products still have a role, and Modern American Advisor can deliver them at scale. However, they are only the starting point of what we are building.

The organizations that achieve the greatest influence in the RIA market are rarely those that appear once and disappear. They are the firms that contribute something useful to the profession, communicate consistently and become associated with the issues their prospective clients care about.

That requires more than media placement. It requires a clear idea, credible positioning, intelligent content and a route from initial awareness to meaningful engagement.

Our role is to help partners create that journey.

An asset manager may begin by explaining a complex investment theme through an interview or feature, then extend the discussion through a webinar, targeted email campaign and advisor research project. A WealthTech business may demonstrate a genuine use case, gather feedback from the market and identify firms showing active interest. A recruiter may build authority around culture and talent before approaching firms with a commercial proposition. A consultancy may use original research to define a business challenge and then create direct conversations with executives who recognize the issue within their own organizations.

The precise format will differ, but the principle remains the same. We help businesses move from being visible to being relevant, and from being relevant to creating action.

What Partnership Can Look Like

Modern American Advisor can support campaigns across editorial, digital, email, print, podcasting, video, research and live engagement. The strongest partnerships will often combine several of those elements around one clear commercial objective.

That might include:

• Establishing executive thought leadership around a strategically important issue.
• Launching a new product, service or proposition to the RIA market.
• Producing proprietary research and using it to create press, content and qualified conversations.
• Sponsoring a podcast, special report, webinar or established editorial franchise.
• Building a multi-stage campaign around awareness, education and lead generation.
• Reaching defined segments of the advisory, wealth management or CPA audience.
• Supporting recruitment, employer branding, acquisitions or strategic growth.
• Creating executive roundtables and private conversations with carefully selected industry leaders.

We are equally comfortable working with a partner’s internal marketing team, its appointed media agency or directly with senior commercial leadership. The most important consideration is not who manages the campaign. It is whether there is a clear understanding of the audience, the problem being solved and what success should look like.

We do not believe every organization needs the same package. Nor do we believe that adding more deliverables automatically makes a campaign more effective.

The right partnership begins with the commercial objective and then builds the media activity around it.

If Your Media Agency Is Not Talking About Modern American Advisor, It Should Be

Media agencies face a difficult challenge. Their clients expect reach, performance, creativity and evidence of return, while the number of channels competing for budget continues to increase.

In that environment, familiar media brands can become the default choice. They are easy to recognize, straightforward to place on a schedule and simple to explain in a plan. Familiarity, however, is not the same as influence.

If the objective is to reach the US RIA profession, agencies should be asking where advisors are genuinely engaging, which platforms are earning trust and where new communities are being formed.

They should also be looking beyond the conventional question of how many impressions a publication can provide.

The more valuable questions are whether the audience believes the platform understands them, whether they respond to its recommendations and whether the media owner can create something more substantial than a collection of placements.

Modern American Advisor can offer agencies the scale and delivery infrastructure required for national campaigns. More importantly, we can help them develop ideas that make their clients more useful, interesting and credible to the advisory market.

Our growing reach, strong newsletter engagement, podcast performance and early membership conversions provide evidence that the audience is responding. The next stage is to apply that attention intelligently on behalf of commercial partners.

If an agency or marketing team is planning activity aimed at RIAs and Modern American Advisor is not currently part of the conversation, we believe it should be.

Reaching Advisors as People, Not Simply as Job Titles

One of the principles behind Modern American Advisor is that financial advisors do not stop being people when they finish reading an investment article.

They are business owners, parents, travelers, sports enthusiasts, philanthropists and consumers. They care about their firms and their clients, but they also care about health, culture, leadership, personal achievement and the wider world around them.

A premium professional publication should reflect that.

Our forthcoming sports issue, The New Money Game, is a clear example. It will explore the intersection between sport, wealth, advice, leadership and business. The issue will look at the financial lives of athletes, the advisors serving them, the commercial structures surrounding modern sport and the lessons advisory businesses can draw from elite performance.

It will also allow us to produce a visually ambitious edition that readers choose to spend time with rather than simply scan for industry updates.

For the right partners, this creates a distinctive commercial environment. Financial planning, private markets, insurance, tax, philanthropy, lifestyle, technology and talent all have natural points of connection with the world of sport.

The New Money Game is not a departure from serious financial media. It is an expression of what modern financial media can become when it understands the full lives and interests of its audience.

A Platform Designed for What Comes Next

The financial media businesses of the future will not be defined solely by the number of articles they publish.

They will be defined by the strength of their communities, the quality of their data, the authority of their contributors and their ability to connect content with commercial outcomes.

They will use print where print creates impact, email where email creates response and technology where technology creates greater understanding. They will bring people together digitally and in person. They will help their audiences navigate change rather than simply report that change has occurred.

That is the business Modern American Advisor is building.

The magazine matters because quality and presentation matter. The website matters because accessibility, discoverability and regular engagement matter. The newsletter matters because it creates a dependable relationship with the audience. The podcast matters because conversations create depth and familiarity. The Private Members Club matters because influence becomes much more powerful when readers become participants.

Our specialist initiatives matter because the advisory profession is not one homogeneous market. A firm thinking about AI has different immediate needs from a firm preparing for an acquisition, developing its future leaders or attempting to recruit a senior advisor. By creating focused platforms around those challenges, we can make our content more useful and our commercial partnerships more relevant.

We are not trying to bolt a series of unrelated businesses onto a magazine. We are developing a connected ecosystem around the information, people and decisions shaping the future of advice.

The Difference Between Attention and Influence

There is no shortage of information in financial services. Advisors receive more emails, reports, invitations and product messages than they can reasonably process.

The challenge for commercial organizations is no longer simply to appear in front of them. It is to earn enough trust and relevance for them to pay attention.

That is why our early Private Members Club experience matters so much.

A mention in The Weekender did not simply produce traffic. It persuaded senior RIA professionals to join, personally pay for membership and become involved in developing the community. That is a tangible demonstration of the difference between reach and influence.

It does not mean every campaign will produce the same action, and serious media should never pretend that it can guarantee a commercial result. It does show that Modern American Advisor has begun to establish the credibility required to move its audience beyond passive consumption.

Our responsibility now is to protect and deepen that trust while creating intelligent opportunities for appropriate partners to participate.

We Are Only Getting Started

Modern American Advisor has achieved a great deal in a relatively short period, but this should not be mistaken for a retrospective celebration.

It is a statement of intent.

The audience is growing. The editorial platform is expanding. New leaders and specialist contributors are joining us. Our podcast, newsletter, Private Members Club, recruitment business and focused editorial franchises are creating new ways for the profession to engage.

The opportunity for commercial partners is to become involved while that momentum is accelerating.

Peter Klein described it as feeling as though he was “on the ground floor of something exciting.” That is exactly where we are. The foundations have been established, the audience is responding and the platform is now moving into its next phase.

We are not claiming to have completed the journey. We are inviting the right people and organizations to help shape it.

If You Are Serious About Influencing the US RIA Community, We Should Be Talking

Modern American Advisor is not another financial media website competing to publish more news than the next title.

It is a premium media, intelligence and engagement platform built around the future of the advisory profession.

We are creating a place where advisors can find ideas, understand change, meet peers and discover partners capable of helping their businesses grow. We are also creating a platform through which ambitious commercial organizations can establish authority, demonstrate their value and build meaningful relationships with the people they most want to reach.

For advertisers, that means campaigns designed to produce more than visibility.

For media agencies, it means an emerging platform that should be part of any serious discussion about reaching the RIA market.

For strategic partners, it means an opportunity to contribute to the conversations shaping the profession rather than merely appearing beside them.

If you are serious about reaching, engaging and influencing US financial advisors, we would welcome the conversation.

Explore partnership opportunities and view our media kit:
https://partner.modernamericanadvisor.com/partner-with-us

Contact:
Alex Sullivan
Founder and CEO, Modern American Advisor
alex.sullivan@americanadvisor.com