Episode summary
RIA Edge Podcast: Building a Scaled, Service-First RIA with Phil Fiore
Summary
Phil Fiore says Procyon was built to serve two core businesses: a private-wealth practice focused on the five-to-$30 million client and an institutional practice serving small to midsize companies with 401(k), pension and employee-benefit needs. He argues the firm’s edge is a fully integrated, service-first model that includes planning, investments, accounting, property-casualty insurance, trust work, M&A consulting and employee benefits, so clients can treat Procyon as the “captain” of their financial ship.
Fiore frames leaving UBS as a response to wirehouse constraints. He says clients wanted more customization and more services, while a scaled independent firm could build a bespoke offering around their actual needs. Growth, in his view, is not separate from client service: scale creates the resources to add specialists, build new capabilities and reduce friction in complex areas like private equity and alternatives.
He also emphasizes discipline in M&A and branding. Procyon wants culturally aligned, planning-based, fee-based firms and rejects loose federation models; it prefers one brand, one team and brick-and-mortar offices in selected geographies. On AI, Fiore says the firm is leaning in, using it to save advisers time and automate workflow, but not to replace authentic investment thinking or commentary.
Key takeaways
- Fiore says Procyon targets the five-to-$30 million private-wealth client and small to midsize institutional plans, using one integrated platform for both.
- He argues scale improves service because it funds more staff, more specialties and better client-facing execution.
- Procyon built proprietary alternatives vehicles, including Procyon Vintage Fund and Procyon Evergreen, to simplify paperwork and lower minimums to $250,000 or $100,000.
- Fiore says the firm prefers planning-based, fee-based acquisition targets and expects only three to five transactions a year.
- He says AI should return time to advisers by automating notes and task assignment, not by writing market commentary.
Notable quotes
“we built the firm to really focus on the five to$30 million client, right”
“we want to be the captain of their financial ship and help them enjoy the rest of their of their lives”
“when you have a scaled business, you now have the resources to spend to add services to add uh uh uh resources to add staff, right”
“We are an integrator, not an aggregator”
How the episode opens
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Hi everyone, thanks for checking in on this latest episode of the RA Edge podcast. My chance to speak to the executives building the wealth management firms of the future, meaning I guess fiduciary first, independent registered investment adviserss to try and understand how they make the decisions they do as they grow their firms. Uh, growing a business always means navigating trade-offs between one path and another.
And I'm simply interested in how these executives think about those trade-offs, what strategies they find are working or maybe not working, and hopefully that can help others get a better sense of how to cultivate their own professional ambitions in the wealth management space, whatever those might be. Today, I'm very happy to be speaking with Phil Fiori. Phil is the co-founder and CEO of Proion Partners.
He was a formerly a senior vice president of wealth management at UBS. During his time there, he led the FDG group, which specialized in institutional clients and private wealth. He and his team left UBS and launched Proion in 2017, and it's been a consistent and high-pitched growth trajectory ever since.
As always, there were more questions than time allowed, and I look forward to my next conversation with Phil to learn more. But for now, here is my conversation with Phil Fury.
Defining who we are in the marketplace, I think there's two segments uh that that we really specialize in.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ria growth
- advisor efficiency
- ai in finance
- ria mergers and acquisitions
- client service model
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Procyon
- UBS
Watch the episode
Watch “RIA Edge Podcast: Building a Scaled, Service-First RIA with Phil Fiore” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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