Jared Rabinowitz and Stephen Gasparek explain how they saw the potential in what has become the largest gathering of Canadian advisors outside of dealer conferences
In September of 2022, as the world emerged blinking from successive COVID-19 related lockdowns, the leadership team at Q Wealth was hungry for an event. The advisor partnership, which began as an ETF-focused business, had largely eschewed events in Canada for the US, the epicentre of the ETF industry. When Jared Rabinowitz and Stephen Gasparek, CEO and CMO at Q Wealth Partners, heard about an advisor-facing event launching in Huntington Beach, California they figured they’d give it a try, hosting a small ancillary event for Canadian advisors attending at a nearby restaurant. 70 people showed up and out of that event Q Wealth brought on two new partner practices. Rabinowitz and Gasparek realized they might be onto something.
From the 2023 event through to the present day, Q Wealth Partners has been an official supporter of the Future Proof Festival, hosting the Canadian Lounge at the event. Rabinowitz and Gasparek have seen the event grow in the intervening years, attracting a huge host of US advisors and a growing cohort of Canadians as well, to the point where it is now the largest gathering of Canadian financial advisors outside of any single-dealer conferences. Rabinowitz and Gasparek spoke to how the event has become so popular and the substance that attendees can find amid the party atmosphere in California.
“The number one thing that I find that Future Proof does when Canadians come down is open their eyes. Especially if the occasional bank advisor that stumbles down there out of the matrix,” Says Rabinowitz. “They’ll say ‘oh my God, there's another reality.’ They always comment that it's been eye-opening for them because they don't realize what's going on in the US.”
The value of a different kind of event
Gasparek and Rabinowitz both say that Future Proof’s success has been a result of its uniqueness. They contrast it with traditional industry events in windowless hotel ballrooms, followed up by an over-large dinner hosted by a fund manager. Rubber chicken.
Future Proof, by contrast, tried to get as close as it could to a music festival while still serving the financial services industry. Its colours are bright, as is the California sunshine. Cocktail classes occupy kiosks next to wealthtech providers. The event is backed by an app allowing mutual connection between attendees. Speakers are there to present on a host of topics, but Gasparek and Rabinowitz say so much of the value lies in the space given for conversations and connections, with people in fields and markets that an attendee from Canada might never get exposed to elsewhere.
“It’s amazing how culture has built around it,” says Gasparek. “There are so many people with WhatsApp chat groups, flying in and out to meet each other before and after the event. Going to Disneyland, checking out new restaurants. People are creating their own content around the event.”
Adding substance under the fun
The appeal of an event like Future Proof seems obvious in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. People were desperate for connection and anything that smacked of another presentation offered on Zoom was enough to make advisors retch. While the fun party atmosphere is at the core of Future Proof’s popularity, Rabinowitz and Gasparek insist that the conference has grown more substantive in its content and utility as it’s grown in size.
The event is replete with product pitches from event sponsors and volunteer speakers, but Rabinowitz and Gasparek insist that comes with substantive information behind it. That combination of valuable information and product pitching is a feature of much of this industry. They add that the personal meetings, which are ‘double opt-in’ meaning attendees don’t just get cold-pitched, allow for advisors to cut through the product pitch to real questions or issues. They say there is space for debate about key subjects like the role of AI in the industry or the nature of independent advice. As the event has grown, it’s brought in more advisors and professionals from around the world as well, resulting in more of the serendipitous connection that makes this valuable for attendees.
While their role in the event has been helpful in establishing Q Wealth’s presence and building connection with new partner practices, Rabinowitz says he hopes that Canadians’ growing attendance achieves something greater. He wants those Canadian advisors to actually think about the future of the industry in this country, something he thinks they can glimpse when they look at this US-based event.
“When somebody comes down to FutureProof… they see an alternative way of thinking about the business. It's very fiduciary first. It's very much about finding your niche. Advisors are doing very innovative things in the US. And that's the main thing. And the reason why we would always go to US conferences is we were always interested in the best ideas and then bringing those back home to Canada,” Rabinowitz says. “Almost everyone in this business will agree that the US is 5 to 15 years ahead of us in Canada. If you could go to the future and find out who's going to win, you could do something with that information.”
