The Vanilla Resource Center

The WealthStack Podcast

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Apr 26, 2024

Is estate planning the next frontier of wealth management? Estate planning solutions are becoming steadily more popular with advisors, especially those seeking to differentiate their services. As clients become increasingly aware of the complexities of wealth transfer, asset protection and legacy planning, they expect comprehensive guidance from their advisors. By using estate planning tools, advisors can offer a holistic approach to wealth management, addressing not only investment strategies but also the essential aspects of estate distribution and tax implications.   In this episode, Shannon Rosic, director of WealthStack content and solutions, speaks with Gene Farrell, CEO of Vanilla, about the...

Investment News

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Apr 24, 2024

Vanilla, a leading estate planning software provider, has enhanced a key piece of its platform to provide a better experience for advisor users.   At the firm’s biannual virtual event, Legacy Now, the financial advisors, attorneys, and planners in attendance became the first to know about the new features for its Vanilla Document Builder.   The expanded features within the Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform include the ability to directly get in touch with top legal experts through an attorney engagement package. That offering is being launched in partnership with Accelerant Law, who will work directly with clients to build plans...

Financial Planning

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Apr 11, 2024

In my 30-plus years of experience as an financial advisor, I’ve delivered impactful service not by simply focusing on maximizing investment performance, but by considering approaches that improve and protect the well-being of my clients and their families on a more human level.   My most important objectives as an advisor are ensuring that my clients sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge they are in good hands; helping them to meet their financial goals; and ensuring their experience is such that they can wholeheartedly say they are glad they met us. Advisors who want to ensure that those...

ThinkAdvisor

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Mar 13, 2024

Vanilla announced Wednesday the launch of a new estate plan visualization and evaluation tool called Vanilla Scenarios.   The tool enables advisors to visualize potential federal and state estate tax mitigation strategies in real time, according to the firm’s announcement. Advisors can layer multiple strategies onto existing plans and customize the details of each strategy, including changes to their client’s state of residency or beneficiaries.   This approach to modeling allows advisors to showcase the potential impact of each scenario, the firm explains, providing clients with actionable insight and recommendations for meaningful planning improvements.   [...] Read more: Vanilla Rolls...

CityWire

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Mar 12, 2024

Estate planning tech firm Vanilla today launched its new planning software, making it available to clients for the first time, the firm said.   The new software, called Vanilla Scenarios, will allow advisors and estate lawyers to model different estate planning strategies for their clients to help them see the implications of those strategies in real time.   Scenarios will allow customers to layer a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT), a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLAT), an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) and a Qualified Personal Residential Trust (QPRT) over a client’s existing estate plan, allowing them to make more...

Investment News

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Mar 12, 2024

Estate planning technology firm Vanilla is looking to shake up the wealth landscape with a new planning visualization tool. The platform's latest offering, Vanilla Scenarios, seeks to modernize how advisors, wealth planners, and estate lawyers plan and optimize their clients' estate strategies.   [...]   Read more: Tech provider Vanilla unveils estate planning scenarios tool [Leo Almazora, Investment News]

ThinkAdvisor

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Feb 23, 2024

Estate planning is moving to the forefront of the consumer’s mind,” says Steve Lockshin, the founder of the estate planning platform Vanilla.   His goal is to move it to the forefront of the financial advisor’s mind.   In a recent interview with ThinkAdvisor, the AdvicePeriod co-founder and principal argues that estate planning is “the next frontier. This is true for anybody who has any wealth at all.”   Lockshin, an early champion of high tech for advisors, discusses why he thinks estate planning will become “a staple” with financial advisors and why it is “an important family security issue.”...

Vanguard Pressroom

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Jan 18, 2024

Vanguard is introducing new and enhanced intergenerational wealth and legacy planning capabilities through a partnership with Vanilla, an innovative provider of digital estate planning tools and solutions.   The offer was successfully piloted to a small cohort of eligible advised clients in Vanguard Personal Advisor Wealth Management over the past year and will scale to provide ultra-high-net-worth Vanguard investors with a powerful visualized approach to help manage and achieve their current and future estate planning objectives.   [...] Read the full article here: Vanguard Introduces Enhanced Digital Estate Planning Tools to Investors Through Partnership with Vanilla [Pressroom, Vanguard]

SHIFT with Ross Marino [Podcast]

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Jan 05, 2024

Steve Lockshin joins Ross Marino on advising high level investors on their retirement plans and preventing "trust fund monsters." [...]   Listen to the full episode here: Preventing Trust Fund Monsters with Steve Lockshin [SHIFT with Ross Marino]

The Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors

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Dec 14, 2023

Steve Lockshin, founder of Vanilla, AdvicePeriod,  and others, offers a unique perspective on how an advisor’s entrepreneurial DNA can drive their ability to serve clients and grow untethered, particularly in the independent space.   Many advisors often face an unfortunate truth: The decision-makers at a firm often know very little about being an actual financial advisor. Steve Lockshin has sat on both sides of the proverbial table, and he shares two unique vantage points: The perspective of an advisor who recognizes the limitations at his current firm and the entrepreneur and problem solver who fills those gaps with new solutions....

Investment News

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Oct 20, 2023

Artificial intelligence is certain to change how financial advisors and wealth managers operate, with many applications streamlining and accelerating processes.   Estate planning solutions firm Vanilla is aiming to leverage the power of AI to speed up everyday tasks such as turning estate documents into diagrams, creating projections for federal and state-specific estate tax, and beneficiary summaries.   Using its own purpose-built AI model called VAI, the firm’s newly launched suite of tools will assist advisors in understanding the unique circumstances and issues for high-net-worth families. This will include identifying planning opportunities to help advisors stay ahead of the curve....

CityWire

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Oct 19, 2023

Estate planning software provider Vanilla on Thursday revealed the launch of a suite of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered resources, which the company says will save advisors time when navigating potentially complicated estate issues.   The new tools, the company says, will use AI to assess family structures and tax implications, both to provide more well rounded planning strategies and to produce graphics to help clients better understand their situation.   ‘We’re proud to introduce comprehensive, tech-forward solutions that make it easy for wealth planners and advisors to deliver proactive planning advice to clients at enterprise scale,’ stated Gene Farrell, Vanilla’s chief...

Forbes

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Sep 18, 2023

You’re not your grandfather’s financial advisor. The remit of advisors has been forced to adapt to a changing world and new client needs. This seismic shift, from a laser focus on assets directly under an advisor’s management to a holistic approach to monitoring wealth, is one that has benefited everyone, client and advisor alike. For the clients, the appeal is clear. They stand to gain more and feel safer when their wealth as a whole is being monitored and balanced by skilled professionals. And for advisors, the new approach allows them to serve their clients better and to develop deeper...

Financial Planning

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Sep 07, 2023

While most Americans worry about having enough to leave behind, a new study finds that the ultrarich fear leaving too much behind and feeding "trust fund monsters."   Estate planning wealthtech firm Vanilla, which is backed by investors including Michael Jordan, published a report on Thursday that dives into the motivations and fears driving Americans at all wealth levels in legacy planning. The report examines attitudes and behaviors in Americans with less affluence, reporting under $1 million of household net worth, as well as those in the high net worth and ultrahigh net worth spheres.   Overall, respondents said they...

WealthTech Today [Podcast]

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Sep 07, 2023

You’re listening to Episode 201 of the WealthTech Today podcast. I’m your host, Craig Iskowitz, founder of Ezra Group Consulting. This podcast features interviews, news and analysis on the trends and best practices, all about wealth management technology.   My guest for this episode is one of the most well known leaders in the industry, Steve Lockshin. Steve is a serial entrepreneur in the wealth advisory industry. He’s a principal of RIA AdvicePeriod and co founder of Vanilla, a software platform for estate advisory and that’s what we’ll be talking about today, the estate planning software provider called Vanilla that...

Rethinking65

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Aug 31, 2023

At a recent conference, the speaker asked the audience of advisors, “Who in the room thinks they are smarter or a better investor than the people they are sitting next to?” A few bold people put their hands up, but most did not. Why? Because everyone in the room knows that beating the market consistently over a long period of time comes down to just luck.   While clients would love to receive market-beating advice, no self-respecting advisor would try to win over clients by claiming to be exceptionally lucky. So, if investing and beating the market is not the...

ThinkAdvisor

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May 22, 2023

Clients with sufficient wealth to leave them exposed to future estate tax burdens need to understand that the time to act on the generous estate tax exemption established in 2017 by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is now — not when the expanded exemption sunsets the end of 2025.   In fact, according to Steve Lockshin, an experienced financial advisor and the founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla, it is already becoming more and more difficult to timely source the capabilities of specialist tax planning experts and estate attorneys who understand the rapidly evolving needs of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients....

Wealth Management

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May 15, 2023

Move over estate planners, it’s time for "estate advisors" to take the lead. At least that's what Steve Lockshin and Vanilla hope.   Estate planning tech leader Vanilla announced Tuesday the launch of what it calls the first fully integrated estate planning platform—The Vanilla Estate Advisory Platform.   The product purports to offer advisors visualizations of the estate, beneficiary summary and projections, estate tax projections, a dynamic balance sheet integrated with the leading personal finance management tools and an on-demand report builder. Vanilla also offers estate-planning educational resources for both clients and advisors as part of its "Vanilla Academy."  ...

AdvisorHub

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Dec 15, 2022

Steve Lockshin knew early on in his career as an advisor that he was, what he now terms “a Cassandra.” He saw future trends in the financial services industry before they happened, which is, in part, a definition for the metaphor originating from Greek mythology.   Lockshin started creating businesses two decades ago, which he typically would sell to the highest bidder before going back to the drawing board to create another company. As an advisor who happens to be a serial entrepreneur, Lockshin might still be following the same successful pattern had he not created a startup that ultimately...

Wealth Management

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Jan 05, 2022

Digital estate planning software developer Vanilla has added three new executives to its team as it seeks to grow its user base of advisors, according to an announcement. Former Smartsheet strategy and product executive Gene Farrell is joining Vanilla as chief executive officer, where he will be work alongside ex-Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive Amjad Hussain, who joins Vanilla as chief technology officer, and ex-Addepar executive Robin Melnick, Vanilla’s new senior vice president of revenue.   The C-suite hires signal a new chapter for the firm, founded by Steve Lockshin in 2019. Farrell will formally lead the firm, reporting to...

Wealth Management

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Sep 22, 2021

It was a routine call for Vanilla founder Steve Lockshin. He was talking with the head of the family office for one of his highest-profile clients, a billionaire known around the globe. During the call, Lockshin mentioned he was doing a capital raise for his estate planning startup and on the spot he had two additional investors. NBA legend Michael Jordan, who has worked with Lockshin for 25 years, was so impressed with the advice and leadership he received from Lockshin, that he decided to make his first direct fintech investment in Vanilla. He joined Curtis Polk, Jordan’s family office...