The RIA Report
Forging the Future of Financial Intelligence
In the fourth century, in a forgotten province of southwest China, someone drilled a hole into the ground and lined it with bamboo. What came out was not water or gold, but something darker, crude oil. They didn’t know what to do with it, exactly. They used it to boil salt. And for the next 1,500 years, that’s all it was: a curiosity. A byproduct. Potential that hadn’t met its moment.
That story has always stayed with me.
I’m Steven, and I’ve spent the past seventeen years in finance and wealth management. I’ve pitched during meltdowns, scaled two RIA firms from scratch, sat through the long silences of due diligence and the louder ones of back-office crises. Through it all, something kept nagging at me. A signal beneath the noise.
We often say that relationships or capital are the lifeblood of this business. But what if the real asset was something else entirely?
What if it was the trail left behind?
My Turning Point
In 2022, something clicked.
I was scaling my second firm and found myself thinking, constantly, about Ray Kroc. The man who made McDonald’s what it is. Kroc famously realized the secret wasn’t burgers, it was real estate. He wasn’t building a fast-food empire. He was quietly acquiring some of the most valuable land in America.
And suddenly, I realized I wasn’t really in the connector business either.
For years, I thought I was. I worked with firms, institutions, RIAs, and asset managers, pitching stories, closing deals. I knew people. I got things done.
But beneath the surface, something more enduring was taking shape:
Patterns in firm performance
Advisor migrations that pointed to deeper shifts
Emerging deal flow and recruiting trends
The ability to find and connect the dots on every U.S. investment firm and financial professional
I didn’t just have access. I had structure.
And that’s when I saw it clearly: I was in the wrong business.
The Forgotten Well
Today, data is having its 345 AD moment. We’re swimming in it. And yet, like that ancient oil well, we haven’t built the modern refinery.
Finance is one of the few industries where every action leaves a footprint. But most of those footprints are buried under filings, compliance notices, unread RSS feeds, and quarterly reports. Most people see the mess. I started seeing the map..
Why I Started The RIA Report
The RIA Report was born from that realization.
Not to create noise, but to filter it. Not to shout over the din, but to find the melody inside it.
It began as a way to track firms and advisors. It’s grown into a system a living, searchable intelligence layer built on over 64,000 firms and 600,000 professionals. It's designed to surface what matters before it becomes obvious. Before it becomes news.
The newsletter you’re reading is just one piece of that. Every week, I’ll break down what the data is telling us about:
How strategy is shifting in real time
Where AI is helping (and where it’s hype)
What advisor migration patterns signal about M&A and consolidation
Where the edge is for smaller firms fighting to stay independent
This isn’t about big swings or loud proclamations. It’s about the long game. The idea that better intelligence makes for better decisions.
Because the future belongs to those who build the refinery. I look forward to sharing with those in the wealth management and finance community a new perspective on the industry. Thank you.