"Success grows from good habits: eat well, stay active, and clear your mind."
Christophe Gauthron Tweet
Christophe Gauthron, CFA is the founder & CEO of Kwanti, a portfolio analytics solution aiding financial advisors and investment managers with prospect conversion, client retention, model management, and more by delivering portfolio analytics, investment performance data, stress testing, and proposals.
Christophe built Kwanti on the vision that advisors with access to comprehensive and affordable portfolio analytics could serve their clients better. Prior to Kwanti, Christophe developed mathematical software for the computer and telecommunications industry.
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We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Christophe Gauthron: I’m the founder & CEO of Kwanti, a portfolio analytics solution aiding financial advisors and investment managers with prospect conversion, client retention, model management, and more by delivering portfolio analytics, investment performance data, stress testing, and proposals. The 2008 financial crisis was a wakeup call for the finance industry.
The panic led to firms closing and many insiders fleeing to other industries. Since I had always hoped to work independently, I quit my job and spent a year designing and programming Kwanti’s analytics with a focus on risk and simplifying portfolio analytics. I wasn’t thinking about starting a company then. I was more focused on solving a real problem using new technology.
I was the sole founder of Kwanti without a partner or startup team. I decided to not take any investments or venture capital because I wanted to fully control the product and its direction. While I had a strong engineering background, I had no contacts or credentials in the finance industry.
Hence, I enrolled to take the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exams over three years while simultaneously working on product development, without knowing where it was all going to lead.
Today, Kwanti is thriving with a small team of like-minded employees, serving over 1,200 financial advisory firms.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Christophe Gauthron: We’ve celebrated quite a few business achievements in the past year… we introduced three major enhancements to our platform:
- Kwanti Screener allows financial advisors to screen for best performing assets and find the right investment opportunities for clients, saving them time in the process.
- Tax Drag Analysis allows advisors to identify hidden portfolio expenses and tax liability.
- Model Portfolio Tracking allows advisors to add a model portfolio’s history of changes to achieve a more realistic illustration and performance calculation.
We also introduced multiple enhanced integrations and announced a new partnership with Altruist, a modern custodian built exclusively for RIAs that combines a self-clearing brokerage firm with intuitive software for account opening, trading, reporting, and billing – all in one streamlined solution.
Advisors using both Kwanti and Altruist can leverage Kwanti’s comprehensive suite of analytics – including detailed allocation drill downs, expense and income analysis, and stress testing client portfolios – and now have the ability to view actual performance data that is reconciled daily for their Altruist accounts.
In addition, Kwanti was named a Wealthtech Firm of the Year in Wealth Solutions Report’s Pathfinder Awards, a finalist in the ‘Model Marketplaces’ category in the 2023 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards, and a finalist in the 2023 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries Awards in the Financial & Investment Innovation category – some of the industry’s most prestigious awards programs.
We also brought on three fantastic new team members to serve our clients better and continue to enhance our offering to advisors.
But perhaps what we’re most proud of is that we yet again achieved very high client satisfaction ratings across multiple categories in the 2024 T3 / Inside Information Software Survey – including earning the highest rating in the Investment Data/Analytics Tools category for firms with more than 5% market share, as well as the highest rating in the Economic Analysis & Stress-Testing Tools category for firms with more than 3% market share.
Our mission and main focus is to make advisors’ lives easier, and these results echo what we hear from the advisors who subscribe to our system every day.
We have always and will continue to approach development and innovation with an advisor-first mindset. To this day, I remain fully obsessed with customer satisfaction.
What advice do you wish you had received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Christophe Gauthron: There are a few pieces of advice I wish I had received when I started my business journey:
Create good habits, which are crucial to personal and professional success. Good meals, exercise, and meditation kept me in good physical and mental shape to weather the inevitable setbacks.
Connect with other founders and entrepreneurs, which is a great source of support and advice. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, or even ask for help.
Be conscious in establishing priorities. Take breaks. Be prepared for unforeseen problems and delays. Take plenty of time to find the right hire and don’t rush the process. And many more!
In the next quarter, Kwanti plans to relieve a few advisor pain points related to prospecting and client onboarding. We’ll be announcing solutions in the near future that will reduce the amount of time spent on back-office tasks related to prospecting and provide a better engagement process with prospects through an efficient interface. Importantly, these new functions are designed with the elegance and ease-of-use that are Kwanti trademarks.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Christophe Gauthron: Kwanti has always been a web-based software and fintech solution that allows financial advisors to balance serving clients well and managing portfolios with data-driven expertise.
Users can elegantly showcase portfolio recommendations to centrally position themselves in client relationships and close business with prospects – virtually – as well as leverage data integrations with leading custodians and portfolio management platforms to streamline the client management process.
In the same way that we connect with advisors online through our website, social media platforms, and digital content, advisors are connecting with their clients in the same way. The way we reach advisors is often the same way advisors reach investors – with an increased digital presence and by showing authority and credibility online.
We don’t expect the surge of online business to ever go away, hence why we are always updating and enhancing our platform with elegant and efficient digital tools that allow advisors to serve their clients virtually.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Christophe Gauthron: With so many choices in the fintech space, many financial advisors struggle to identify the best tools for their specific needs and waste time and resources testing different platforms. This can lead to frustration and inefficiencies that ultimately impact their ability to serve clients effectively.
In particular, functionalities such as portfolio reporting, model management, proposal generation, and investment research are usually available through tools from different software providers. Having multiple tools results in high subscription costs, excess training, and complicated integration issues.
To address this challenge, we continue to enhance our platform with new features in order to unify access to these key functionalities in a single interface, drastically enhancing the efficiency and experience for both the advisor and their clients.
Years 2020-2023 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2024? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Christophe Gauthron: I think one of the most important factors that will allow businesses to thrive in 2024 is the ability to adapt. Curve balls will always be thrown at you – but if you can be flexible and resilient, you’ll be able to work through any setbacks.
Another important factor is always prioritizing customer satisfaction. The #1 priority at Kwanti is customer support and providing the best portfolio analytics solution for advisors – one that allows them to serve their clients the best. If you focus on the satisfaction and the success of your clients, then you will most likely be successful as well.
But when all is said and done, sometimes it’s more about surviving from day to day rather than thriving. It’s important to avoid burnout, which starts by putting your physical and mental health first. Having a healthy business starts with having a healthy business leader.
What does “success” in 2024 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Christophe Gauthron: Success is the happy faces of our clients. Success is when employees start each workday with enthusiasm and passion. Success is making our own choices and enjoying every step of the journey together with our clients.
At a personal level, success is when my actions, words, or companionship have a positive impact on people around me.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Christophe Gauthron for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Christophe Gauthron or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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