A CEO Walks Away: What's Next for Eric Clarke, Orion

Eric Clarke, who founded Orion Advisor Solutions 24 years ago, retired as CEO earlier this month. But that doesn’t mean he’s stopped looking ahead at how Orion will help advisors use artificial intelligence in useful, ever-more sophisticated ways.

AI will be “incorporated into the client experience … [and] double or triple the number of households each advisor is able to serve concurrently,” Clarke forecasts in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

Clarke launched Orion at age 26. Unable to find certain technology off the shelf while working at his family RIA, he put together a plan to create a company for advisors that, in 1999, would become Orion Tech.

Before retiring at 50, he led Orion to provide thousands of independent advisory firms with advanced integrated technology. It now administers $3.8 trillion in client assets.

Clarke guided seven major acquisitions from 2018-2022, including those of Brinker Capital and Redtail Technology.

Reflecting on his career, his proudest achievement, he says, is “enabling thousands of advisors to leave brokerage firms and go out as true fiduciaries with the technology they need to serve a significant number of households at scale.”

Clarke is enthusiastic about the growing trend of behavioral finance among advisors because “it makes clients feel understood”… and secure “that they have a trusted resource.” 

Three years ago, Orion hired psychologist Daniel Crosby as the firm’s chief behavioral officer.

Clarke, speaking from Omaha, Nebraska, where Orion is headquartered, talks about why he retired and about his current volunteer work helping student entrepreneurs form their own companies.

“There’s nothing more exciting than starting a new business,” he says, adding that he has no plans to do so right now.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: Why have you retired at the young age of 50?

ERIC CLARKE: Lots of reasons. One is [although] my entrepreneurial nature and background led our company to the success that we enjoyed, I realized some of those skills and strengths may not be the best to run a business with 1,400 team members.

So in April, I approached my board and said, “I think it would be a good time to bring in a leader that can help take our business to the next level.” 

I felt I had taken our business about as far as I could with the entrepreneurial frameworks that I relate to.

What resulted from your announcement?

We wanted to bring in a more seasoned veteran that had a little deeper experience than I had in certain areas. And I think our board accomplished that by bringing in Natalie [Wolfsen as CEO].

I have a lot of confidence in her and Charles Goldman as chairman. They’re a great team, and as an Orion board member, I’m excited to support them.

Given your entrepreneurial bent, are you planning to start a new company?

I love starting new businesses. But I don’t have anything that’s readily present where I can tell you that’s something I could commit to.

Starting a new business and having that type of experience is always something I’m interested in, But right now, I want to be supportive of [Orion]. We’ll see what the future holds.

What’s been your biggest success as Orion founder and CEO?

The thing I’m most proud of is that we’ve enabled thousands of advisors to leave brokerage firms and go out as true fiduciaries with the technology they need to serve a significant number of households at scale.

Where do you see the firm a few decades from now?

I believe that Orion’s best days are still to come. The fiduciary model will accelerate as we go forward. I’m really excited about Orion’s future.

In the years to come, Orion will be able to help advisors with technology built around artificial intelligence, taking the very unhuman-like responses we’re seeing coming out of AI now and incorporating [upgraded capabilities] into the client experience.

That will drive advisors’ ability to serve more and more households. It will help advisors accomplish tasks so that it will double or triple the number of households each advisor is able to serve concurrently.

What trends has Orion recently capitalized on?

Over the past few years, we made seven acquisitions. They allowed us to take the integration of technology to [a higher phase]; for example, to facilitate moving data from our portfolio accounting system into a CMS [client management system], into financial planning systems, into all the other technology advisors use.

What are the implications?

We ultimately capitalized on an opportunity to take that integration to a whole other level, which is what we’re still working on.

We were able to make significant progress toward integrating the core components that advisors use to run their businesses because we not only had an open architecture framework but we executed a series of acquisitions that allowed us to aggressively expand our capabilities more broadly to the advisors we serve.

Who most helped you in your career?

I worked side by side with my father, Patrick Clarke, founder and CEO of our family RIA. for over a decade.

I learned so many great things from him — from the type of attitude and approach you [need] to always looking forward to future-proofing your business, and above all, the importance of building strong relationships and appreciating your clients.

Any other leadership lessons that you’ve learned over the years?

Being a servant leader is incredibly important. Here’s a piece of advice my father gave me years and years ago: “Never ask someone to do something that you wouldn’t want to do yourself.”

On everything I asked our team members to do, I was always willing to roll up my sleeves, jump in and work side by side with them. 

The way I looked at it was that I had 1,400 team members that I was there to help and support in any way I could with resources and skills to be successful in serving our clients.

Have you made any leadership mistakes?

Lots of them! One was that I probably didn’t get a coach early enough in my career. I afforded myself the opportunity to work with a coach only for the last 11 or 12 years. 

I should have done that a lot sooner because it would have not only helped develop me as a leader but helped our company grow faster.

When I became a member of Vistage International, I got together for discussions with other CEOs and met with a coach on a monthly basis, who really helped me see that challenges were actually opportunities to correct course.

And the quicker we could correct course, the more competitive we would be.

What are financial advisors doing well nowadays, and what do they need to adjust?

When you look at behavioral finance being integrated into the processes, it really shows that advisors have a deep interest in helping clients feel understood.

That’s very exciting because it presents an opportunity for us in the advice space to expand past people with finance, accounting and economics degrees and start incorporating those with social sciences or psychology backgrounds, which will help us drive connection with the clients.

One of the most important things an advisor can do is help the client feel understood when it comes to all things financial and money-related so they feel they have a trusted resource to go to in order to bounce questions off and rely on to get answers that are in their best interest.  

Trust creates a catalyst to accelerate progress. That’s what’s happening right now in our industry because we’re integrating all aspects of behavioral finance into the [client] relationship.

Folks have helped you in your career. Are you helping anyone right now?

I’m serving on some boards, including the Orion board. I’m also a volunteer helping student entrepreneurs who want to start businesses. There’s nothing more exciting than starting a new business.

These college students are exploring different ideas — some crazy — to see what might be possible. 

I’m looking forward to doing more volunteering in the future, helping to move young entrepreneurs’ ideas into success.

How does volunteering help you?

I’ve only been retired for a couple of weeks now, so this is new for me. But it’s something I got involved with a month or so ago, and it really elevates my energy level, for sure.

Pictured: Eric Clarke