Designed Wealth Management wants advisors making decisions, not following instructions
Kunza wants Designed to remain receptive to emerging technologies, including AI, while strengthening the resources advisors need to maintain their credibility with clients. She also sees room for dealers to apply their experience to decisions advisors face within their own businesses, particularly when it comes time to sell.
An advisor may negotiate the sale of a practice only once during a career. A dealer that has seen multiple transactions can offer a more informed view of valuations and deal structures. But Kunza also believes these arrangements deserve closer consideration from the client’s perspective, given that the value being sold rests substantially on existing relationships.
Greater transparency is particularly important when a change in ownership could affect the relationship clients have spent years developing with an advisor.
The same emphasis on transparency extends to the relationship between advisors and their dealers. With independence now claimed by firms operating under widely different models, Kunza believes advisors should pay closer attention to how openly a dealer communicates, how it responds to feedback and whether its commitments translate into action.
For Designed, the ambition to reach $100 billion will put those commitments under greater scrutiny. Kunza wants the firm’s advisors to have more resources at their disposal, but also the authority to influence how those resources are developed.
