Episode 67 - Chrissy Lee & Meghan Martin

The COO Roundtable

With Episode 67, we are joined by Meghan Martin of Apella Wealth and Chrissy Lee of Merit Financial Advisors. Meghan is the newly appointed Chief Operating Officer at Apella Wealth, headquartered in Hartford, CT. The firm advises on approximately $4.35 billion and has 93 employees across 16 office locations. Chrissy is the Chief Operating Officer at Merit Financial Advisors headquartered in Atlanta, GA. The firm manages approximately $12 billion of client assets and currently has close to 250 employees firmwide, with 48 locations around the United States. Matt, Meghan, and Chrissy focus their conversation on the operational aspects of mergers and acquisitions in the RIA space, but also hit on other topics near and dear to our listeners, including:

• Why RIAs should get into M&A in the first place
• How to articulate the value a buyer can offer an advisor looking to join
• Important messaging every advisor should address when getting clients excited about the transition
• Tips and suggestions for successfully transitioning employees during a merger
• How to examine the tech stack of the merging firm and slowly transition them to your tools and processes
• Why it is so vital to have a successful transition to point future merger partners to, so they feel comfortable joining your firm
• What one thing each guest wants our industry to understand about RIA operations