PARTING SHOT

Both airports and advisories can be too centralized.

F YOU’ VE FLOWN RECENTLY— ESPECIALLY THROUGH NEWARK

Liberty International Airport— you might’ ve felt like you were navigating a system on the brink.

Flights have been delayed, rerouted or outright canceled. Newark’ s chaos has made national headlines, and if you’ re a United Airlines customer, it’ s likely hit even closer to home. But what’ s really happening here? And what does it have to do with the way we’ re consolidating technology and operations inside wealth management firms?

Despite its longstanding reputation, Newark’ s airport has recently hit new lows. United Airlines, the airport’ s main carrier, just cut 35 daily round-trip flights because of the unmanageable delays and operational chaos. So what was happening behind the scenes? It turns out it was a centralized air traffic control move that was supposed to fix things— and instead made them worse.

In July 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration shifted Newark’ s airspace control from a terminal radar approach control facility( or TRACON) in Long Island to Philadelphia in an effort to address staffing shortages and“ improve efficiency.” The result was widespread burnout, controllers taking trauma leave, and even a 90-second blackout in which planes lost both radar and radio contact. There was no backup system. No warning. Just grounded flights and national headlines. But this article isn’ t really about airspace. It’ s about your firm, its systems and its technology.

What Newark Can Teach Us About Consolidation When I was leading platform migrations at Orion, I was overseeing the movement of 32 firms every quarter. That’ s right— 32 firms, four times a year.

We got incredibly good at it. And since then, Orion has grown and professionalized its process even further, maturing into one of the industry’ s most robust platforms.

But even with a well-oiled machine, we hit turbulence during the rare cases of mass consolidation. When firms like Focus Financial or WealthTrust needed to unify multiple bespoke systems into one, the tension was palpable. These weren’ t routine tech upgrades— they were cultural rewrites. It was stressful. And in more than a few cases, you could feel the trouble on the tarmac.

Centralization Is Not A Silver Bullet

Newark’ s breakdown is a lesson we keep forgetting: Just because something is centralized doesn’ t mean it’ s optimized.

In wealth management, leaders often think that consolidating their portfolio accounting, CRM and planning platforms will unlock simplicity and scale. But too often it introduces friction, slows down teams and creates a monoculture that stifles innovation.

Newark’ s breakdown is a lesson we keep forgetting: Just because something is centralized doesn’ t mean it’ s optimized.

Instead of solving for complexity, centralization moves it downstream and locks up the ability to respond locally.

What You Can Do Differently

The most efficient firms don’ t force uniformity— they orchestrate interoperability.

They unify at the data layer, not the software layer. They respect the systems continued on page 58

60 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | JUNE 2025 WWW. FA-MAG. COM