In a marketplace long dominated by portfolio management software applications that come partnered with obligations for how investment advisors run their business and serve their clients, Cornerstone Revolutions, Inc. set out to develop a software solution that provides advisors the tools and support they need to operate alone.
Solutions Built from Experience
Cornerstone PowerAdvisor asset management software is the end product of over 20 years of front line experience by co-founder Angela Lyles in virtually every aspect of the industry including trading, compliance, operations, purchase and sales, performance measurement, and client service departments.
Serving as a consultant to registered investment advisors from firms throughout the Northwest, the East Coast and Mexico in the day-to-day challenges of the investment advisory business, Lyles witnessed first hand the limited choices and inconsistent performance of the portfolio management software applications that have defined the marketplace for the last two decades.
A Vision for Independence
With the vision of creating an application that provided features that support the RIA, financial planner, or the independent advisor operating solo or with a staff, starting in 2002 development of a new portfolio management solution began from a step-back perspective that took into consideration the challenges advisors face beyond the day-to-day management of client accounts.
Addressing the real life scenarios faced by independent advisors that had been witnessed through years of working in the financial industry, what by now had become Cornerstone Revolutions, Inc., zeroed in on the three primary "engines" that drive any investment advisory practice-performance reporting, compliance procedures, and client prospecting-and built features into the application that fueled those engines.
Returning Control to the Advisor
But the prevailing standard Cornerstone and what by now had grown into a team of developers held as an absolute throughout the development process was that the application render control of the business, its clients, and its data to the advisor.
For years, advisors and financial planners had little choice in who held their data or how it was used beyond serving their clients' needs. Proprietary software issued by the larger financial firms came bundled with restrictions that limited the advisor and left data vulnerable to misappropriation by the very firms who held it.
Today, the vision for Cornerstone Revolutions and the PowerAdvisor application goes beyond providing features advisors need just to meet the daily challenges of doing business.
Solutions in Partnerships and Services
At Cornerstone, today's solutions for financial advisors include returning control to investment professionals trained to manage client portfolios and providing support to business professionals managing their own firms.
As the PowerAdvisor application emerges as a progressive solution for independent advisors, Cornerstone sees it as the key piece or "cornerstone" to what they envision will eventually become a suite of products and services that will provide more options for the client and more support services for the advisor.
"Cornerstone provides solutions for the way independent investment advisors are doing business in the 21st century," says Lyles. "They became independent to take control of their professional lives. It only makes sense to provide them the tools to do it."
