The registered investment advisory industry stands at an inflection point. Over 105,000 advisors plan to retire within the next decade, representing 37% of the industry and controlling 41% of total assets. Yet paradoxically, only 42% of RIA firms have written succession plans—the lowest percentage recorded since tracking began in 2019.

This isn't just a demographic challenge. It's a fundamental mismatch between what founders built and what next-generation advisors actually want. The incoming cohort isn't asking for slightly better versions of legacy firms. They're demanding autonomy over bureaucracy, technology that enables rather than constrains, and career paths that don't require a decade of ambiguity before reaching partnership.

Understanding what G2 advisors value isn't academic—it's existential for firms attempting internal succession. And for platforms serving this market, it reveals where the real differentiation lies.

The Succession Planning Paradox

The data paints a troubling picture. According to Schwab's 2024 Independent Advisor Outlook Study, 41% of advisors believe aging advisors represent the most significant factor shaping the industry. Meanwhile, Cerulli projects advisors set to retire will transition $2.3 trillion in client assets.

Yet succession planning has deteriorated. DeVoe & Company's 2024 survey shows the percentage of firms with succession plans has declined steadily—from near 50% in 2019 to just 42% today. More concerning: only one-third of RIA leaders believe their next generation is ready to assume control if transition happened immediately.

The root cause isn't procrastination, it's misalignment. Many founders assume succession means replicating their own path: grind for years, gradually buy in, eventually take the helm. But that's not what G2 advisors signed up for.

Alan Moore, co-founder of XY Planning Network, captured this tension: younger advisors "want to grow in a controlled way, the time and space to get to know their clients. PE is the exact opposite—growth at all costs and anything without a clear ROI gets cut." The same dynamic applies to founder-led firms resistant to evolving beyond their original structure.

Key barriers to internal succession include:

• Rising firm valuations that outpace G2's financial capabilities—many second-generation advisors face their greatest financial obligations (mortgages, tuitions, car payments) precisely when they'd need capital for equity buyouts

• Lack of clarity on whether G2 advisors want ownership responsibilities versus client-facing work

• Insufficient bench depth—succession often requires multiple new owners to replace departing partners

The firms solving this aren't offering token equity grants. They're restructuring timelines, creating phased ownership transitions over 10-15 years, and—critically—building cultures that align with G2 expectations before attempting handoffs.

What G2 Advisors Actually Want: Career Clarity Over Ambiguity

Ask next-generation advisors what matters most, and career pathing dominates. DeVoe's 2025 Talent Survey found 68% of G2 professionals want well-defined career paths—yet only 38% believe their firms provide them. That's a sharp drop from 50% just a year earlier.

The disconnect is striking. Schwab's 2025 RIA Benchmarking Study reports 77% of firms claim to offer career path opportunities, but lived experience among junior advisors tells a different story. More than half receive only "informal guidance" about advancement, while 8% report little communication at all.

This isn't about instant gratification. As David DeVoe notes, "Employees don't need a promotion tomorrow. But they need to know the path to get promoted. If your best employees don't see the path, you risk losing them entirely."

The challenge compounds in fast-growing firms. Paige Earls of Crestwood Advisors suggests the decline in career clarity stems from rapid expansion—firms scaling quickly often lose the structured advancement frameworks that existed when they were smaller.

What effective career frameworks include:

• Clear tier progression (e.g., Client Service Associate → Client Relationship Manager → Senior Client Relationship Manager)

• Defined competencies and milestones for each level

• Regular performance reviews—Schwab data shows 80% of Top Performing Firms offer formal career progression opportunities

• Transparent compensation structures tied to advancement

Firms that formalize these elements report measurable results. One $1 billion RIA implementing structured career tracks saw 30% higher advisor retention within 18 months.

Beyond formal structures, G2 advisors value autonomy in how they practice. They don't want to inherit rigid processes—they want frameworks flexible enough to serve clients their way while benefiting from shared infrastructure.

Technology as Enabler, Not Constraint

If succession planning is the industry's existential crisis and talent development is its tactical challenge, technology is the enabler that determines whether firms can actually scale what G2 advisors want.

The technology conversation has evolved. Five years ago, the question was whether RIAs needed better tech. Today, it's about which approach—integrated platforms, best-of-breed point solutions, or hybrid stacks—enables both efficiency and autonomy.

Schwab's 2024 research found 37% of RIAs now use hybrid tech stacks—combining core integrated systems with specialized solutions. Notably, 58% cite upgrading tech stacks as a top-three priority for the next three years, second only to increasing marketing and communications.

The hybrid approach reflects a strategic choice: advisors want the benefits of integration (seamless data flow, reduced manual entry) without sacrificing the ability to customize client experiences or adopt specialized tools that drive differentiation.

Envestnet's 2024 survey revealed nearly 40% of advisors spend time on investment management and administrative tasks, with 30% unable to spend adequate time with clients. Nearly two-thirds assemble tech stacks with point solutions, yet almost half would prefer integrated platforms that reduce complexity without limiting functionality.

AI adoption is accelerating faster than anticipated. According to a 2024 InvestmentNews report, nearly 60% of RIAs use at least one AI-enabled feature in their tech stack, primarily for administrative tasks like note-taking, email drafting, and marketing content generation.

What matters isn't AI for AI's sake—it's how technology creates capacity. Farther CEO Taylor Matthews notes advisors joining his firm go from spending 65% of time on administration to 90% on client-facing work through integrated technology and delegated operations workflows.

G2 advisors evaluate technology through three lenses:

• Time creation: Does it genuinely free capacity for client relationships and growth, or just add another system to manage?

• Client experience: Can they deliver modern, responsive service that matches what clients get from fintech apps—without sacrificing personalization?

• Autonomy: Does the platform enable customization for individual advisor approaches, or enforce rigid, one-size-fits-all processes?

The firms winning with next-generation talent aren't necessarily those with the newest tools. They're the ones whose technology enables advisors to practice the way they want while benefiting from operational leverage that would be impossible to build solo.

The Strategic Implications for RIA Platforms

For platforms serving the RIA market, these trends create both opportunity and obligation. The next generation isn't interested in marginally better versions of legacy infrastructure. They're looking for partners that enable what they actually value: autonomy with leverage, clarity without rigidity, and technology that amplifies rather than constrains.

What this means in practice:

On succession: Platforms can't solve G2 affordability challenges directly, but they can reduce the capital intensity of launching or growing independent practices. Firms that provide flexible affiliation models—where advisors can scale without massive upfront infrastructure investment—lower the barrier to independence that makes succession economically viable.

On talent development: The talent crisis isn't about raw headcount—Schwab projects the industry needs 70,000+ hires over five years. It's about creating environments where talented professionals can see decade-long trajectories that don't require betting their financial future on equity buyouts or tolerating ambiguous advancement timelines.

Platforms that help firms institutionalize career frameworks, benchmark compensation, and provide professional development infrastructure become talent magnets by proxy.

On technology: The winning approach isn't forcing advisors into rigid all-in-one platforms or leaving them to assemble fragmented point solutions. It's providing curated hybrid infrastructure—integrated core systems with flexibility to add specialized tools—that delivers both operational efficiency and advisor autonomy.

This requires moving beyond technology as product to technology as enabler of business model flexibility. Can your platform support advisors who want direct indexing alongside those focused purely on financial planning? Can it handle custom portfolios while maintaining compliance oversight? Does it automate operations without dictating client service models?

The Path Forward

The succession crisis, talent development challenge, and technology evolution aren't separate issues—they're interconnected symptoms of an industry in transition.

Founders built firms optimized for their own practice models and capabilities. G2 advisors want something different: infrastructure that enables their approach to advice, clarity on how value gets created and captured, and technology that augments rather than constrains.

The platforms that succeed in this environment won't be the ones with the most features or the largest AUM. They'll be the ones that enable advisors to practice independently while accessing institutional-grade infrastructure—solving the paradox of wanting autonomy without sacrificing leverage.

For Surmount Wealth, this creates a clear positioning opportunity. As a platform built specifically for RIAs, the question isn't whether to offer data-driven tools or flexible automation—it's how those capabilities enable what G2 advisors actually want: the freedom to build practices their way with technology that scales alongside them.

The firms and platforms that internalize this will capture the next generation. Those that don't will find themselves with succession plans for businesses no one wants to inherit.