Matt Barthel
Barron’s publishes four individual advisor rankings each year: Top 100 Advisors, Top 100 Women Advisors, Top 100 Independent Advisors, and Top 1,200 Advisors. We also publish two team rankings and a firm ranking: Top Private Wealth Management Teams, Top Institutional Consulting Teams, and Top RIA Firms.
The goal is to shine a spotlight on the nation’s best financial advisors, with an eye toward raising standards in the industry. The rankings serve two distinct types of Barron’s readers. For wealth management professionals, they act as an industry score card, indicating which firms have the people and the processes in place to attract clients and gather the most assets. For investors, the rankings are a tool that can help them find a financial advisor who is right for them. We recommend selecting from advisors who have a typical account size close to your own portfolio to ensure you find an advisor set up to meet your needs.
Advisors who wish to be ranked must first pass a prequalification process aimed at ensuring that those in the mix are experienced and sophisticated advisors. Those who meet the criteria then fill out a survey with more than 100 questions about their practices. For this year’s Top 100 Women Advisors ranking, 1,094 advisors submitted data.
We verify that data with the advisors’ firms and with regulatory databases, then we apply our rankings formula to the data to generate a ranking. The formula features three major categories of calculations: 1) assets, 2) revenue, and 3) quality of practice.
In each of those categories, we do multiple subcalculations. For instance, we take into account not just the amount of assets an advisor manages, but also the type of assets—are they private wealth assets or institutional? If they’re institutional, are they for a foundation or an endowment, or are they corporate assets? We measure the growth of advisors’ practices and their client retention. We also consider a wide range of qualitative factors, including the advisors’ experience; their advanced degrees and industry designations; the size, shape, and diversity of their teams; their charitable and philanthropic work; and, of course, their compliance records.
The rankings are meant as a starting point for clients looking for an advisor—a first-pass vetting that can help investors narrow a search. Each advisor will have his or her own approach to investing, financial planning, and other services. Clients are encouraged to approach a search for an advisor the way they would a search for a doctor—interviewing multiple professionals and getting opinions from multiple third parties.
Email: advisor.editors@barrons.com