AdvisorHub’s Publisher & CEO — Tony Sirianni — asked executives from top firms their thoughts on the wealth management industry. Here is how Aaron Williams – Chief Growth Officer, Alden Investment Group responded.
1. So it only takes a little digging to see that Alden is more than just a standard stand-alone RIA hooked up to a custodian—how do you describe it?
Alden is a modern wealth platform purpose-built to deepen advisor-client relationships and remove friction from growth. We operate across four core pillars—marketing, solutions support, concierge service, and technology—to deliver a holistic ecosystem for advisors. We’ve created an integrated platform that not only offers best-in-class investment tools and planning resources but also reduces the need to work directly with the custodian for day-to-day tasks. Advisors gain a branded, streamlined client experience and a strategic partner that acts more like an embedded team than an external vendor. It’s a full-stack, advisor-first model—designed for those who want to grow, serve, and scale with intention.
2. That’s a lot of moving parts—from a management perspective, how do you manage growth along multiple business lines and continue to provide your advisors with the day-to-day service they need?
We grew quickly—and we grew through it, not around it. Balancing growth and increasing headcount is always a challenge, especially when you have investors involved. But rather than disappearing into strategy meetings, we rolled up our sleeves. That hands-on approach allowed us to define clear roles and train our team not just to execute, but to explain why things are done a certain way—connecting frontline service with firm-wide vision. Our business lines are complementary, not conflicting, and our leadership team is structured to support them independently while moving forward together. Advisors still get white-glove service because our foundation is built on accountability, structure, and alignment—not chaos masked as scale.
3. How do your advisors participate in that success?
We’ve carved out 40% ownership of the firm for our advisors—real equity, not marketing speak. As we grow, we expand our ability to offer customized financing solutions to help advisors take the next step, whether that’s M&A, hiring, marketing, or succession. Some of our advisors benefit from upfront capital; others from monthly forgivable budgets; and all from our due diligence, technology investments, and platform enhancements. Our balance sheet, partner network, and operating scale allow us to say “yes” more often—and mean it. When you grow with Alden, you grow with a firm that has skin in the game alongside you.
4. Well, everybody talks about culture, and thinks theirs is the best—what specifically do you think makes Alden’s culture unique?
We define our culture by three key traits:
- Hands-on Partnership – We’re not vendors. We’re business partners. That means proactive accountability, regular touchpoints, and shared responsibility for results.
- Strategic Integration – Advisors benefit from a fully integrated experience—planning, investments, insurance, trading, operations—all housed under one coordinated team.
- Vision Over Vanity – We’re not the firm offering a 92% payout or 100% of trailing 12-month earnings as transition assistance. We’re the firm for those who value long-term alignment and real support behind their practice.
5. Where do you see the business going in the next 5 years, and how have you positioned the firm to prosper?
We’ve been relentless in evolving our model. Early on, we offered multiple tech stacks to create tailored experiences—but as we scaled, we saw the downside: inefficiency. That realization led to a clear pivot: build a true growth engine around marketing, content, and advisor enablement. From there, we added trading-as-a-service, consolidated our solutions teams, and launched deeper platform integrations. Now we’re focused on real-time account opening, a unified BD/RIA workflow, and seamless alt reporting—all with the advisor’s brand front and center.
Our roadmap is simple: integrated planning and solutions across investments and insurance, intuitive tech, and real-world support. With in-house expertise in alts, fixed income, insurance, and planning—and dedicated staff to handle NIGOs, custodial workflows, and client reporting—we’ve created a firm where advisors spend less time chasing logistics and more time serving clients and growing their business. Over the next five years, we see Alden leading the industry in integrated, tech-driven, client-and-advisor-first wealth management.