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Dynasty’s Shirl Penney on Hurricanes and the American Dream

The CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners landed new funding from top financial services firms as a hurricane barreled down on his Florida home.

Photo of Dynasty Financial Partners CEO Shirl Penney
Photo via Dynasty Financial Partners

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It’s been a hell of an October for Dynasty Financial Partners CEO Shirl Penney.

The founder of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based advisor services platform won backing from some of the most prominent names in the industry, including BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Charles Schwab, that valued his firm at a reported $800 million. Minutes later, one of the most powerful hurricanes in recent history barreled down on his community on the barrier island of St. Pete Beach.

“Water was literally coming up to the windows,” he told The Daily Upside. After signing the deal, Penney said he ran outside, pulled the electrical breaker, and killed power to his home. He estimates the storm surge eventually topped 4.5 feet, and lasted for more than eight hours. “I’m sure there’s an interesting metaphor in there somewhere,” he said. 

From growing up in rural Maine, where he was homeless during his teens, to founding a wealth management giant with more than $100 billion in assets on the platform, Penney, 47, is no stranger to adversity. In fact, he says it’s taught him to take on every opportunity. Dynasty, which provides technology, funding and recordkeeping to breakaway advisors, is now ready for its next chapter. “Having the largest custodian in the industry, the largest asset manager in the world, and the largest bank in the world, is a pretty good trio,” Penney said.

Advisor Upside: What is the biggest challenge facing advisors today?

Penney: Technology has the potential to displace a lot of the work advisors do. In middle- and back-office [operations], technology will take over some of the roles that currently are occupied by humans. However, the future is going to be cyborg. It’s the empathy that’s so powerful. Clients look to advisors for meaningful life events: positive ones, like retiring; emotional ones, like deciding to sell a business; or sad ones, like divorce. But it’s about having a person to sit with and talk to who understands the human side. For advisors that are helping high-net-worth clients deal with life events, they won’t be massively disrupted as long as they embrace the changes. 

What are the plans for the new funding?

We’re pushing more aggressively to help partners grow by adding other advisors and clients. As a result, the M&A deals for those clients to buy other practices are also getting much larger. We needed a fortress balance sheet with plenty of capital to support the M&A appetite of some of our larger clients. We’re also starting down the path of building out some AI tools that are going to apply against our data lake to help advisors connect with clients and offer suggestions on how they can run their businesses better. 

What’s one thing no one is talking about?

I’m a big believer in the American Dream. But the financial wellness and health of the country isn’t getting better — it’s getting worse. Some 75% of Americans can’t put their hand on $1,000 in an emergency, meaning they’re one car breakdown or leaky roof away from disaster. You’ve got the national budget deficit and state-level deficits. A lot of state pension funds are running dry.

So there’s a lot of financial health that needs to be improved. Fundamentally, the way you improve that isn’t by selling people products they may or may not need. It’s by giving people sound advice. Over time, that approach might make a dent.