My last day with VettaFi is April 30, which will also mark the end of my journey with the Advisor Perspectives publication.
I am extremely proud of what I and my coworkers have accomplished over the past 17 years. For the last five of those years, we have been cited by a third-party research firm (Erdos Market Research) as the most-read newsletter by financial advisors. Achieving that distinction was the result of an enormous amount of hard work by a team that has been dedicated to our singular mission: to enable advisors to help their clients achieve their financial goals.
We have maintained a relentless commitment to quality journalism. Every article we published was with the goal of “advancing the conversation” among advisors with respect to financial planning, investing, practice management and broader economic themes. We have sought the best guest contributors and authors, and I am deeply appreciative of their efforts over many years – and of the meaningful friendships I now enjoy with many of them.
Successful journalism is about trust. I realized long ago that to achieve success as a publication, our readers needed to recognize us as a reliable source of information. That means writing in a clear and authoritative style, as well as taking positions that sometimes go against conventional wisdom. We have promoted good ideas and products, and we have exposed some bad ones. Intellectual honesty is a key element of establishing trust, and that means challenging the sources of information that are presented to us, asking tough questions, and presenting an unbiased analysis of every topic.
A good barometer of whether we have lived up to that intellectual honesty is that we rarely need to publish a correction to one of our articles. That happens perhaps a few times a year, even though we have an eminently sophisticated and demanding readership.
Above all, I want to thank the readers of Advisor Perspectives. Thank you for placing your trust in me and the team that supports this publication, for allowing us into your inbox several times a week, and for using our content to help your clients achieve their financial goals.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn, and I promise to let you know of my plans – once I figure them out!
A message from Advisor Perspectives and VettaFi: To learn more about this and other topics, check out our videos.
