Women in Wealth: Guest Alli Jordan

In this episode of the Women in Wealth series, Phil sits down with Alli Jordan, President & CEO of Liberty Fi, to explore her unconventional journey into financial services that began far outside the wealth industry and evolved into leading one of the most advisor‑focused firms in the space. The conversation highlights how mentorship, confidence built through team sports, and a willingness to bet on oneself can open unexpected doors. It digs into the power of centralized operations and scalable investment support to free advisors for the holistic, relationship‑driven work clients truly value. Themes of culture, flexibility, and attracting more women into leadership roles surface as essential ingredients for the future of wealth management. The discussion looks ahead at where innovation, especially in advisor productivity, can reshape the industry without replacing the human element. Dive into this compelling look at how advisor‑first infrastructure, intentional leadership, and smart operational design are reshaping what it means to scale a modern wealth firm.

Resources:

Phil on LinkedIn

Alli on LinkedIn

Transcript

Phil: So Alli, random question of the day: what is your favorite line of haircare product?

Alli: Oh, gosh. Well, Olaplex was a good one for a while, and then now we're in the Costco life—so just, you know, whatever Costco has to offer us.

Phil: I love the fact that thriftiness is part of your worldview. That is awesome. So, Alli, for our listeners who may not know you—though I can't imagine there are very many that don't—give us a little CV. Talk to us about your journey into financial services that led to you being President and CEO of LibertyFi.

Alli: Yeah, the journey is an interesting one. When people hear it, they're a little surprised. I went to the University of Florida—sorry to the Canon folks—and I had a health science degree, so nothing to do with financial services. I loved sports and wanted to go into medicine; that was my path. That took me back to Gulf Breeze, where I was living.

By happenstance or fate, I got connected with a family who ended up bringing me to Birmingham to work for Sterne Agee, which was a regional broker-dealer in the financial services industry. I kind of took a bet on myself. I thought business was a better place for me where there’s not really a ceiling; if you have ambition, goals, and a strong work ethic, you can learn and do things the right way.

I was very fortunate to be surrounded by some incredible mentors and bosses at the time who saw something in me and gave me a lot of responsibility early on. I credit a lot to them for seeing something in me I might not have seen in myself. But once I got ingrained in financial services, I knew there was no chance I was ever leaving.

Eventually, we went through some acquisitions, and the chance to start LibertyFi with my partner, Trey Ruck, was presented to us. We took it and ran with it. That was seven years ago. It's been quite the journey to where we are today, but it’s one that I couldn't be more grateful for. Again, I think it was a mix of good people and being in the right place at the right time, but also a lot of hard work and taking a bet on myself.

Phil: I want to talk about that "bet on yourself" a little bit. I want to share with listeners a story of my first business engagement with you. I had met you before this, but I sat with you one day at your offices back when you were with Sterne, and you walked me through the process that you and your team were taking with financial advisors. It was one of the most impressive presentations I’ve ever seen. The way you explained things was crystal clear; you did it with passion and enthusiasm. I went to Trey Ruck and told him, "She is fantastic." He looked at me and asked, "How old do you think she is?" One of the worst questions to ask about a lady, right? I guessed 30. He said, "She’s 25."

How did you develop that moxie and confidence? You exude it in everything you do. Was that ingrained, or where does that come from?

Alli: It’s funny because now I’m watching my six-year-old go through her first sports. Growing up, I was always part of a team. I think for women and girls, being part of a team, gaining confidence, and learning leadership skills—there’s something to that. Now I’m surrounded by a group of people who were all on teams, and it’s the same thing. You learn so many skills in team sports. I’m not trying to make my daughters do that, but I’m encouraging them. I always go back to confidence and kindness; if there’s anything I can teach them, it’s those two things. I really credit my parents for being supportive of that. My dad always coached us, and I think there’s a direct correlation between being part of a team and the confidence I’ve taken into my 15-year career.

Phil: It’s interesting you say that. You and a colleague of mine, Sarah Jones, remind me a lot of one another. She was on a competitive cheer team for years and credits that as part of her development. Whether it’s athletics, arts, or being part of a collective group that has a larger mission, it is so important. Let’s talk mission for a moment. What is the mission that guides you? Unpack the premise of LibertyFi and what your mission is today.

Alli: I go back to what you just said regarding when I was 25 walking you through how we support advisors. That is what our business does today. We are a service-first organization that supports independent financial advisors. We don’t deal with the end client per se, but our hope is that we can give our advisors the right tools, skillset, and support so they can steward their clients through their financial journey. To me, that’s the mission. My entire career has been about supporting that advisor and doing things the right way for them.

When I think about the mission of the business, it’s threefold: the end client is always in mind, which leads to the advisor and how we can support them, and then also my team—building a business for them, their career pathways, and our families.

Phil: Gotcha. I have argued for years that if client-facing advisors aren't spending 75% to 80% of their time on the phone or face-to-face with clients, then they’re spending time on things they shouldn’t be. What you're talking about is advisor enablement—giving them the bandwidth to spend that time with clients. What do you see as the primary obstacle to advisor success? What is the gap you bridge?

Alli: You and I are so aligned on this. An advisor needs to have centralized operations and centralized investments so they can be client-facing and offer more holistic planning. That’s what the client actually cares about. They want to meet with their advisor and know they’re going to be okay—that their plan is on track for a big upcoming event.

I think advisors sometimes feel their value lies in being "in the weeds" of the portfolio, making little tweaks between value and growth or active trading. I think they’re doing a disservice if that’s how they position themselves. An advisor needs to be holistic, and the only way to do that is to offer more services. The firms we work well with have that mindset of centralizing and thinking about growth comprehensively. Those that don’t sometimes get in their own way regarding what is actually important to the end client.

Phil: Long-term listeners have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating: I’ve been married almost 35 years, and there has never been a morning where my wife and I have questioned what’s going on in the small-cap part of our portfolio. It’s just not part of the conversation. But there are a lot of life things we talk about that advisors should be helping us think through. If you're spending time on operational tweaks, you aren't having those conversations.

I hear the term "scaling a practice" or "wealth approach at scale" a lot. Sometimes advisors say, "I don't want any more clients." And that may be accurate—many firms have too many households. When we talk about "scale," we aren’t necessarily talking about more clients; we’re talking about more engagement and levels of service. Talk about that a bit.

Alli: We try to use the phrase "customization at scale." Each client situation is different, but if you have a centralized investment approach, all your clients fall in line. Where the customization comes in is the tax management overlay. Are they in a decumulation phase or an accumulation phase?

The advisors we work with are thoughtful planners, and a huge part of that is the tax piece—how to tax-manage a position or a tax transition for consolidated wealth. Some people are afraid of just putting clients in a "model," but you aren't just sitting and forgetting it. You have that centralized unit, and then each client gets customization depending on their specific needs.

Phil: Where does the friction come in for most advisory practices as they attempt to grow?

Alli: A lot of it is the 80/20 rule: 20% of your clients make up 80% of your revenue. Often, those top 20% are super complex ultra-high-net-worth clients with significant tax implications. Advisors sometimes feel they don't have the right tools.

Last week, I worked with an advisor on a $5.5 million relationship where they hadn’t taken any gains in almost 10 years because they were still working through losses from 2008. We looked at a household model to get 75% of the portfolio in line with the investment philosophy while taking some thoughtful gains. You don’t want a client’s wealth so tied up that they have massive concentration risk in a market downfall. From an advisor's seat, that conversation can be scary because "everything is working great," but it’s about being proactive so the client is protected when something eventually happens. Once they had the conversation, the client was thrilled.

Phil: As we record this, we’re in the middle of volatility with equity and oil prices. I’ve heard advisors say they are most valuable in times of chaos, but what you’re describing is being valuable in anticipation of chaos. That is wisdom right there.

You’ve been in the business 15 years. If we went back 25 years, a female CEO leading a predominantly female advisory business would have been a "unicorn." What has changed in the industry to elevate the success of women-owned businesses?

Alli: Well, I’ll speak to the last 15 years since that’s my experience. My first boss was a mutual friend of ours, T, and I saw firsthand how she positioned herself. She was supportive of new moms and gave the women on our team opportunities they might not have had elsewhere.

Over the last 25 years, we’ve had good women leaders that younger generations have gotten to see. That’s super powerful. I try to replicate that. We also live in a world where you have to meet people where they are. On my team, we have 17 kids under the age of seven! You want to be an involved parent and have a good career. I’ve tried to be on the forefront of that flexibility. I challenge anyone who doesn't have a strong group of women on their team to look internally. Men and women think and do things differently; having a diversification of those mindsets only helps your business.

Phil: I completely agree. Let’s unpack that "flexibility" theme. I’ve heard the term "work-life balance" for years, but I call it "work-life prioritization." You're never really at an equilibrium. Just because an individual isn't in a chair from 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't mean their focus isn't there.

How do you encourage your team to think about that? There is a "tarnish" on millennials or Gen Z—that they aren't as hardworking—but I think your generations might actually get it better than mine as far as how you engage. How do you manage that in a chaotic life?

Alli: Chaotic is a good term. Our team is mostly millennials, and we just hired a few Gen Zers, so now we’re the ones giving the new generation a hard time! But if you sit in our office, there’s no question about work ethic. It’s a waste of time to have someone sit there until 5:00 PM if they are done with their work or their brain power for the day.

Post-COVID, we all had young kids, so we started doing "power lunches" together in the conference room. We recap projects and keep grinding so that we can be done by 4:00 PM. A lot of daycares were closing early due to new rules, so we made it work for all of us. We skip the long hour-and-a-half break to wrap up early. It’s paid dividends in team building and gives valuable time back to our days.

If you have good young people, you have to give them space to be both. Our generation does a lot of co-parenting; it’s not just one primary parent. When you empower employees to manage their own schedules, you have happier, more productive team members. In my experience, no one has taken advantage of that trust.

Phil: That comes back to a high-performance culture. You mentioned earlier that when you start something new, you have to emulate others. Talk about the importance of mentorship in this industry.

Alli: Oh, goodness. I had so many men and women take me under their wing at a young age, seeing opportunity in me and putting me in positions I probably didn't deserve to be in yet. We know there’s a shortage of young people in our space, especially on the advisor side. If we don’t have good mentors teaching the next generation, the wealth transfer over the next 10 years is going to get very interesting. Mentorship is the name of the game. There’s no handbook; you learn by the people you surround yourself with. There is no better thing you can do for this industry than to take someone under your wing.

Phil: Looking ahead 36 to 60 months, is there an area of wealth management ripe for innovation?

Alli: AI is obviously the big buzzword. Everyone wants to know how it fits into the business. I think it changes the way we do things, but I don't think it replaces the humans. Clients—even younger ones—always want to hear from a person. There is a lot of human nature in what we do. However, it will change our productivity, and I’m curious to see which technology providers and custodians stay at the forefront of that.

Phil: If we were having this conversation 25 years from now, what legacy would you hope to have left via LibertyFi?

Alli: For me personally, it goes back to the people I’ve surrounded myself with—the people I’ve brought into this space and the families we’ve impacted by helping build those careers. I couldn't be more proud of what we've created. Last week we had an event with 40 joint clients, and I sent a note to the team afterward saying, "My goodness, this is so cool." We are service-oriented, good people doing the right thing. I hope that 25 years from now, people still feel that excitement and energy. I hope we’ve created change in our space by being good partners.

Phil: Envision a 16-year-old girl in high school who knows nothing about financial services. What would you tell her about why this is such a noble industry for women?

Alli: There are so many components to it. You can be analytical, empathetic, sales-oriented, or data-driven. Whatever your mindset is, there’s a place for you here. I also like the idea of being self-sufficient. I wasn't married when I started, and knowing I could create something for myself was a very cool place to be as a young lady in the professional world. If you want to bet on yourself, there is no ceiling in financial services. I’d encourage her to get involved early in her collegiate career and just ask, "How can I get started?"

Phil: Great advice. Alli Jordan, President and CEO of LibertyFi. She is a fantastic example of what happens when you work hard and stay engaged. Alli, thank you for being part of this.

Alli: Thank you.