Interview with Susan McKenna of E-Money

Recently Josh had the opportunity to sit down with Susan McKenna, the CEO of E Money, a fintech company that Keystone Financial Services has used since its founding in 2010. Susan has an extensive background in leadership and aiding companies to grow in scale. She has more than 30 years of experience. This is an interview that has the potential to help you succeed with your money and your life You're going to enjoy it.

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Transcript

Wiser Financial Advisor – Interview with Susan McKenna

Hi Everyone, and welcome to the Wiser Financial Advisor show with Josh Nelson where we get real, we get honest and we get clear about the financial world and your money. This is Josh Nelson, Certified Financial Planner and founder and CEO of Keystone Financial Services. Let the financial fun begin!

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Susan McKenna, the CEO of E Money, a fintech company that Keystone Financial Services has used since its founding in 2010. As CEO, Susan oversees the execution of the vision and business strategy. In addition to managing its cross-functional core leadership team before being named CEO in 2020, Susan was E Money's head of marketing and sales where she led all activities that accommodate the underlying demand for financial aid, revenue growth, and increasing brand awareness. Susan has an extensive background in leadership and aiding companies to grow in scale. She has more than 30 years of experience specifically in software and services for both major global market leaders and smaller rapid growth businesses. We had a great conversation and I think you're going to enjoy it, not only for how this applies to our clients, but also to the financial industry in general as well as some career path stuff and life lessons for being successful. 

Josh: Welcome, Susan McKenna, to the Wiser Financial Advisor podcast. I've actually used E money with our clients as a financial planning software since I started Keystone Financial Services back in 2010. 

Susan: Thank you, Josh. What a pleasure to be here. 

Josh: This is going to be an interesting conversation, not only because we use E Money. We're very familiar with that product, and I know your background for almost your entire career has been spent in the tech sector. That's mostly where our clients come from as well, and many are still working for a tech company in various roles. So, before I forget, congratulations on the 25th anniversary this year of E Money. That's a big milestone.

Susan: Thank you. It is a huge milestone.

Josh: You started in 2018 in a marketing role. Now you've moved up to CEO, but you started in the marketing role.

Susan: Yes, and as you alluded to, I've spent my entire career in the tech space, which I adore. Different kinds of technology in different industries, but when I joined E Money in the beginning of 2018, the focus was on marketing efforts. I was so grateful to take on the role of CEO early in 2020.

Josh: Yeah, that's fantastic. So, this world has changed a lot, right, even in that span of time. I started as an advisor 26 years ago and it's changed and evolved multiple times since then. I'm sure we'll continue to do that. It seems like everything is just accelerating. So, how have you seen E Money and the space of fintech that relates to the financial industry evolve since you started?

Susan: It's interesting. I've been looking at it through a couple different lenses. At E Money, we care a lot about our advisors and our advisors’ clients. We begin with that; it’s important to understand who you're serving. I’ve watched that change a lot and the market change a lot. The market and the needs of the clients have changed over the years. Most recently there’s all the talk about AI and other technology advancements, and asking how can we take advantage of that to help our clients? So it's exciting, but definitely moving fast.

Josh: Yeah. You knew that question about AI would come up, and how it’s going to impact E Money. I guess you could look at it two ways—from the advisor perspective and also from the client perspective. How do you expect AI will evolve what you guys are doing and what clients are seeing?

Susan: Our advisors want to do things more quickly, more expeditiously, focused on delivering the best value you can to your clients. So we're going to purposefully look at ways to do that automation with personalization. We're not in a rush to take advantage of new tech that's out there gratuitously. It's a highly regulated industry, as you know. So there are a lot of considerations that we have to put into what can be perceived as providing advice or guiding advice. That's not our business. So we're looking at it from all those different perspectives to figure out how to help our clients become more efficient and be more effective using AI.

Josh: Yeah, speak some more about that balancing act. I remember in ‘99, when I started as an advisor. older people were telling me, “Gosh, I don't know if it will be a safe industry for you because E*Trade and Ameritrade make it so people can do their own trading, and all the information is on the Internet, so why would they need to you?” So every few years that same thing comes up, such as, “People could get an AI advisor, so why would they need to pay you?” How do you balance the need for human interaction, somebody who cares, and also having awesome technology? And our clients have high expectations because of the sector that that they come from.

Susan: You know, when I first interviewed for E Money, I was asking the CEO about the impact the robos were having in the industry. I look at this similarly to you. I know people are not going to all go do it themselves. And I realize that AI is not the same but it's another technological advancement that people perceive as a threat. We know that advice is human centric. We know that element of helping clients successfully will never go away, whether you're at the beginning of your investing or more down the line and looking at retirement and legacy gifting and all of those things. That balance is something we take very seriously. The people element is  part of our mission and vision. So the human component is brought from somewhere. We are a fintech company, so we love technology and we know that it's one of the ways we can help you be even more effective with clients, but it's not lost on us that it needs to be married with the right elements of human interaction. 

Josh: Yeah, every time I think, “What if I was replaced?” I think of how airliners can pretty much fly themselves these days, but there is still a human in the cockpit, and I don't know how many people would get on a fully automated aircraft knowing there's nobody in the cockpit. 

Susan: I would not be first in line for that flight.

Josh: What do you think makes E Money unique as far as a company and the culture side of things?

Susan: Well, I know everybody says their culture is unique, but I truly believe the culture of E Money is unique. Our people care a lot about the products they're delivering and about each other. Our people care about our clients and helping make them successful. We've had incredibly high engagement scores from our employees. That makes me very proud, that they enjoy coming to work and helping others. I think our solutions are unique in the way we look at the market and that whole spectrum of planning from very early stages all the way up through sophisticated advanced planning. We recognize the need for continuing to plan. And lastly, I do think our service and support model is different from some of our competitors that play in this space, in terms of bringing you on board, training you, learning how to use the solution, ongoing coaching, being there to answer the phone. We think it's a critical piece of being able to provide optimal technology solutions for advisors.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. There have been multiple evolutions since I’ve used E Money with clients. One of the coolest things is all the integrations. There are a lot more integrations, right? How do you see these evolutions, and how do you see things continuing to change as we move forward?

Susan: Over the past few years it's become even more important to look at whether we build a partnership. Some solutions come and some go. Some have been here for many, many years and continue to enhance the value they provide within our ecosystem of solutions. We’ll look at what's the demand from the advisor community, and is this something that helps the end client? Should we prioritize that? So it's about looking at the technology landscape from this point forward.

Josh: Which I appreciate. I mean, it's the relationship. Me actually talking to somebody or my team members actually talking to somebody, getting to know them as we’re doing their plan. That's the stuff that adds value. Spending hours and hours of time putting the same data into multiple software options is not something that adds value.

Susan: Exactly. 

Josh: E Money has a relationship with Fidelity. It’s been 10 years now since Fidelity bought E Money.  And I remember at the time I was neutral on it, but a lot of people thought Fidelity would come in and wreck E Money. That didn't happen. And it sounds like it's a good balance as far as them leaving you alone and letting you guys continue to be great at what you're great at. A lot of people don't know that Fidelity is still privately held versus other companies but how do you think about that and how have you seen it evolve even during your time there?

Susan:  This has been an amazing experience. We really do have the best of both. Our Board is terrifically supportive and made up of Fidelity members. We do have shared clients in common.  Fidelity has been consistent about their support of planning and where that fits into the landscape. Everything else is completely independent with our own HR policies and our own everything. As a company, they let us run, but if we need them they're there and that's tremendously supportive. The last thing I would say is being a part of the larger Fidelity ecosystem, we get permission to explore. When we bring them ideas, whether it's innovation or a product, there's a real appetite for that. So that freedom is something you don't always enjoy with a company of our size. I personally feel supported and I know our team does as well in terms of exploring and innovating under that goal.

Josh: That's fantastic. So, I know you weren't there the entire 25 years, but looking back what do you think might be the greatest contribution to the financial planning industry over that time period?

Susan: We've got this wonderful balance on our executive team where you've got folks who've been here 25 years and then folks like me who are somewhere in the middle and then recent hires of less than three years. It's really nice. I think one of the things that E Money has done very well over 25 years is to continue that focus on the three-legged school of planning, client portal, and aggregation. We look at those three things as being critical elements of what makes us understand what helps you help your clients most effectively. And we've invested in how all these things have changed over the years. But I think focus is really what's important. We don't try to be all things to all people. We stay planning-centric. That allows us a lot of flexibility when it comes to making sure that we continue to provide help to our clients and our clients’  clients.

Josh: Yeah, that's great. And moving from a founder-owned company to being owned by Fidelity probably installed some more discipline. I can say this because I'm the founder of my company, but people like me can be a little squirrely. You know, there a lot of bright shiny objects. It's easy to chase too many things.

Susan:  I've worked for a few founders in my time. And yeah, the focus can often be on the technology you're excited about. For customers, that makes good sense. So having someone like Fidelity as a backer is comforting to large enterprises that we do business with as well as the advisors we do business with. They know there's a source of strength behind us in the event that they need it or we need it.

Josh: Yeah, that's great. So what's next, at least with what you can share? What should we look forward to over the next few months and years?

Susan: I'll make a shameless plug for our advisor summit that's coming up at the end of October. As far as recently, as you know a premium client portal was released at the end of March of this year, and we're seeing tremendous demand there. Folks wanted the mobile application and there's a lot of different benefits of the premium cloud portal that allow for greater engagement. So the latest releases are focused on that end point experience and elevating that relationship and engagement between the advisor and the end client experience. And I'm sure other technologies do this, but we look at feedback that we receive from our advisors and it impacts the client road map. So, if one advisor is saying something five times, well, maybe that's not making its way to the product road map, but 5 advisors saying the same thing one time, it does. The product team works really hard with technology and also with sales, asking what's the feedback we're hearing to be able to produce the best solutions that we can? Our platform has evolved a lot but it really comes back to what I was saying about producing things along that continuum, whether early stage or more sophisticated planner. So I would expect to see that continue.

Josh: Yeah, thank you. And pivoting back to your career, you should be very proud of where you've gotten to be—the CEO of a large fintech company. I think getting promoted like that is a byproduct of different habits that you practiced over the years. So, if you were talking to a young person just starting out in any industry, what sorts of things would you be telling them they should be doing to keep getting better?

Susan: That's a great question. I think curiosity is a big one, you know, asking questions. Little babies like to ask “Why? Why, why? Why?” If you think back to that, there's real purpose behind that. So curiosity helps a lot. A sense of humor helps too. I love what I do and always have. I love the industries I've gotten the experience with. And I think it helps to not take life so seriously. When you're in the middle of doing what you do best, a healthy sense of competition has served me, competing with myself and trying to get better and stronger. If we're knocking it out of the park with our stores and exceeding revenue targets, I want them even higher. Then lastly, I've been lucky to be part of an industry and companies where I feel like I'm really helping people. That's why at this point in my career, our mission vision resonates with me so much. When I talk to folks like you and understand the impact that we can help you have in the lives of your clients, it’s really gratifying.

Josh: Absolutely. Well, what would you say  is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made? It could be an investment of money, or an investment of time or energy or education. What are some things that pop out in your mind?

Susan: Well, what pops out from that question is something my father always told me, which is to invest in my children. That was a pretty solid investment, helping them get educated, and also making an investment in education through time by learning and reading, listening to podcasts and evolving with the way people are learning today. To me that seems important in terms of staying on top of things and figuring out personally how to be more effective at what I do.

Josh: Absolutely. And what advice would you give to a smart, driven college student—not necessarily going into the tech or financial industries, but any industry—someone  about to enter the real world? And what advice should they ignore?

Susan: What should they ignore? Probably anything that limits them. I am a big believer that if you want it to happen, you can make it happen. Work hard, talk to people, communicate, have empathy. I love the evolution of this in the market today. It's very different than when I started my career. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't. Figure out who you need to talk to and get some help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to say, “I'm not sure how to do this,” whatever you’re trying to do. I've solicited advice from many people over the years. I'm grateful for the mentors that I've had.

Josh: Very good. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. This has been great. I appreciate your time and your leadership on something that directly impacts our clients and the experience that we're giving our staff. The work that you do is important. I appreciate that.

Susan: Thank you, Josh. It was such a pleasure. 

Josh: And again, congrats on 25 years and on celebrating that. I'm sure there will be some celebrating happening at your conference, right? 

Susan: Thank you. Yes, October 20th through 22nd. Good to see you there.

Keystone Financial Services and Susan McKenna are separate and non-affiliated parties. Keystone does not endorse or receive compensation from Susan McKenna. The views expressed represent the opinions of Susan McKenna. Views are subject to change. This material is for informational purposes only. Investment advisory services offered through Keystone Financial Services, an SEC registered investment advisor.