In this Episode
In this conversation, Rory Holland interviews Sloan Shanahan, the CRO of FusionIQ, discussing the company’s mission to enhance wealth management through technology and the principles of behavioral finance. Sloan talks about how her time as a collegiate golfer at Clemson informed how she builds sales teams. She also explains how the future of the financial services industry will be dependent on collaboration between fintechs and financial institutions.
Key Takeaways
- FusionIQ helps banks and credit unions capture deposits and grow revenue through wealth management.
- Sloan’s upbringing in a high-performing environment shaped her work ethic.
- Playing college-level golf at Clemson taught Sloan time management and accountability.
- Generational wealth transfer presents both challenges and opportunities for banks.
- FusionIQ’s platform helps banks engage younger clients effectively.
- Behavioral finance heavily informs FusionIQ’s product development roadmap.
- Sloan emphasizes the importance of aligning personal and organizational missions when building a career.
- If fintechs want to survive, they need to collaborate more closely.
- Staying informed about industry trends is essential for developing a career in fintech.
Podcast Episode Transcript
Introduction to Fusion IQ and Personal Background
Rory Holland (00:10)
All right, welcome to Mighty Finsights. My name is Rory Holland and I’m joined by my friend Sloan Shanahan, CRO at FusionIQ.
Sloan Shanahan (00:18)
Hey Rory, how are you?
Rory Holland (00:19)
Awesome. So glad you’re here.
Sloan Shanahan (00:20)
I’m happy to be here. What a beautiful weekend in Austin.
Rory Holland (00:22)
Awesome, good, I’m so glad you came. I know you’re busy, so thanks for sit down with us.
Sloan Shanahan (00:25)
Of course.
Rory Holland (00:26)
So just a little bit about FusionIQ, and then I’d to jump right into some things. So deliver digital transformation faster, easier, and lower cost with FusionIQ One. And I want to dive into FusionIQ One and the platform itself. “From fast-growing advisory firms to leading financial institutions, FusionIQ One provides a true end-to-end wealth management platform, connecting the front, middle, and back offices through a seamless digital workflow. Get the scalability you need for profitable organic growth.” We’re going to get into all that stuff. But so before we do that, I wanted to jump into where’s home. I know this answer, but you wanna tell everybody else.
Sloan Shanahan (01:06)
Why not? Home is Charlotte, North Carolina.
Rory Holland (01:09)
And is that home for original home or did you grow up somewhere else?
Sloan Shanahan (01:12)
I grew up in Atlanta and then I was brought to South Carolina, went to Clemson, Go Tigers, and made my way to Charlotte right after school and then recently moved back. I missed the hustle and bustle of having all the banks and the fintech community around me. So I’m very, very happy to be back.
Rory Holland (01:29)
And so, part of Atlanta?
Sloan Shanahan (01:32)
Technically a born and raised in Decatur and then moved out to Forsyth County for later schooling.
Rory Holland (01:39)
Got you. OK. Is there anything about growing up in that area of the country that somehow influences the way you do work now?
Sloan Shanahan (01:48)
Oh, that’s a fantastic question. Absolutely. I think I was very fortunate to grow up in an area with a lot of, I guess what I call high performing individuals, right? You’ve got Coke, you’ve got Delta, you’ve got all types of businesses coming in and out of Atlanta, all raising their kids where I was being raised. So I had a really, I don’t know, I guess a beautiful grouping of people where I got to see adults and businessmen and women, you know, really, really changing industries and driving things. And you’re just around a lot of people who have clear visions of who they want to be and what they want to do. And I definitely think that that influenced A: my work ethic and B: just what I wanted to do in life and business. And I got a beautiful picture of what was possible.
The Journey of a Competitive Athlete
Rory Holland (02:36)
Yeah, that’s cool. But there’s something else about you that you’re an athlete, competitive athlete. So when did you get started playing golf?
Sloan Shanahan (02:44)
So my dad worked internationally when I was little. He would, many weeks away, a couple weeks at home, kind of style engagements that he would be a part of. And when he would come home, my mom was like, you gotta get her out of here. She’s about to drive me nuts. So I started going to the range with my dad when I was three. And then we started playing together there shortly thereafter, and I started competing at six.
Rory Holland (03:08)
Oh boy, so you’ve been competitive golf for a long time.
Sloan Shanahan (03:10)
Yep.
Rory Holland (03:11)
And how did you, how did Clemson come into the picture?
Sloan Shanahan (03:14)
So Clemson was a extreme, A, I never thought that I would ever wear orange and purple together. It’s an important disclaimer. I still not certain I love the color combo, but I wear it anyhow now. It was, there’s not many Power Five programs in the NCAA that don’t have all sports. Clemson was a very unique opportunity to start a program. So we had the number one recruiting class in the nation my freshman year. Went in with several other women that I grew up playing golf with. And it was just a really unique opportunity to be part of starting a program and that you don’t get those opportunities every day. So it was really, really cool, something extremely special. And we got to establish a precedent for what that program was going to look like in perpetuity.
Rory Holland (04:02)
Yeah, that’s cool. What’s an experience like being a collegiate athlete and having to go to school? Because you’re playing two roles and they’re full-time jobs, most of them.
Sloan Shanahan (04:12)
Yeah, you very quickly learn time management. You, I think in some regards it’s great, in some regards maybe not so great, but it makes you grow up. It makes you take extreme ownership and accountability of your time and your performance. And there’s expectations of physical performance in terms of your sport, and there’s expectations of academic performance. And if you aren’t doing well in both in some capacity, it’s stressful.
So it really teaches you to balance and prioritize. And I think that that’s translated over into business in terms of, know, everything’s being thrown at you. You’re in a high-paced environment. You got a lot to get done. You can’t do it all, but how do you do the right things at the right time to get the outcomes that you need to get?
Rory Holland (05:00)
And yeah, and applying that into business the way that you have and you’re a CRO at FusionIQ. And so that’s a good segue. So diving into FusionIQ, how would you describe like the elevator pitch or like just talking about the work that you guys do?
Understanding Fusion IQ’s Wealth Tech Platform
Sloan Shanahan (05:15)
Yeah. So we are first and foremost, a wealth tech platform. And our goal and our mission is to get more people involved early and often in their wealth journey. Right. So really providing banks and credit unions is probably our strongest market right now. Finding ways to continue to get traction in the RIA space, the registered independent advisor space, and then, you know, partnerships with IBDs and other independent broker dealers. Trying to watch my acronyms here. You know, so really getting their clients opportunity to get involved in their financial journey and really rounding out that wealth spectrum. Right. There’s, there’s people and it’s fun because there’s a lot of behavioral finance stuff behind this too, but there’s many people who are embarrassed about their financial picture or they don’t know where to start or they know what they, they have money, but they’re a digital first investor and they don’t necessarily want to engage with an advisor.
So our solution really meets all of those different people at those points in time and allows the institutions that we work with to garner more people into their environments, be stickier with their clients, understand the picture of their clients, cross-sell, right? You know, there’s a beautiful story in our product where we get to find out what people are investing for, right? We can help clients mine opportunities within the brains of their customers for who’s saving for a house, who’s saving for college. Who’s doing what? So I think it’s very powerful tool in helping our clients better understand their clients and give them more opportunity.
Understanding FusionIQ’s Prospect Universe
Rory Holland (06:50)
No, that’s great. I’ve certainly been pretty open online about some of my experiences as a younger person and as a business guy too. And you and I talked about professional sports with my son being a professional athlete too and the commitments that families make and being open and honest, me personally, and just trying to make good financial decisions. And so I really like the idea of being able to bring that type of technology to banks. And in that case, I just wanted to understand, you mentioned RIAs and other markets that you serve. Is there a particular hierarchy when you think about the priorities as an early stage company like you guys? Are you prioritizing banks first or is it kind of all going after all those different market segments all at same time?
Sloan Shanahan (07:31)
I would say banks and credit unions are one A. Definitely the one A. And it’s because the story is more profound and the data is already there. It’s a significantly more fluid approach in A, they have the infrastructure set up, right? They have online banking, digital banking, and we have modalities of embedding within that that make it a little bit more cohesive than some of those other markets. But our technology team is on a brilliant job of finding ways to modulize the platform where we can bring elements of what we do well to those other markets. And that’s really what we’re exploring and figuring out right now is, hey, we have a really powerful utility within our platform. How do we make sure that we serve those markets well? And we’re actually meeting the business needs and helping them solve critical problems.
How Do Financial Institutions Perceive FusionIQ?
Rory Holland (08:22)
Yeah and how are you addressing? This is something comes up a lot in my conversations and fit the notion of fintech, the word that we use in this industry, most people don’t understand that of course the banks and credit unions are inundated with companies trying to sell them fintech or different software solutions. How is the FusionIQ brand being received right now? And what are some of the challenges that you’re working through to make sure that you get through all that noise?
Sloan Shanahan (08:52)
Yeah. Great, great question. And I think it’s one of the beautiful parts of our community and the frustrating part of our community is that there’s a lot of us and there’s a lot of great ideas, but you have to be right place, right time, right problem. So for us, we are really trying to, wanna make sure I give you a really good answer here on this one. We are trying to make sure that we overcome the notion that I don’t need that and I don’t serve those clients, right? So the generational wealth transfer that we’re currently experiencing and we’re about to experience even more of, we run into a lot of prospects that say, well, I don’t have that type of client or I don’t serve that type of client. And there’s a massive, you know, I’m constantly coaching my sales teams on how do you overcome that objection, right? Like there’s a very real situation out there where many of these, as these dollars are leaving these banks and these registered independent advisors, they’re going other places. And we’re really trying to craft the story and help them understand how do you keep those assets on book? How do you keep those assets under management?
Because right now the biggest challenge that they’re gonna face is you know, we’re really trying to coach to say “Well you may not serve that market right now, but why wouldn’t you dip your toe in to make sure that you’re getting your brand out there earlier with the children or the people that are going to be receiving those, you know, outflows of cash from your current customers?” And I don’t think it’s a problem that’s been paid enough attention to, so we’re really on a brigade to educate our clients on “Hey, how can we help you? How can we help you keep assets? How can we help you move, not experience the pain of having to go and serve down-market when you could have had a really fantastic incubation channel with a smaller, leaner, more digital-forward solution?”
The Challenge of Wealth Management at Banks and Credit Unions
Rory Holland (10:51)
Are these, like, give me some examples of these banks and credit unions. Like, do they not have wealth management solutions at this point and y’all are bringing them into them? Or do some have them but they’re not using them and they are maybe looking for a new one?
Sloan Shanahan (11:05)
I’m so glad you asked that question. So a lot of the banks and credit unions that we work with are IBD affiliates, right? So they work with LPL, Osaic, Cetera, other of the likes, and a lot of those platforms serve a full-service advisor. So those advisors more often than not have pretty high minimums, right? Like you gotta be six figures liquid to engage with an advisor. And some, that’s a blanket statement that I just made, and there’s some that, you know, don’t have those rules, but for the most part they do. So we’re really trying to say, “Hey, let us sit beneath that channel. Let us be the digital first solution for, you know, I hate to use the term, but smaller accounts or digital-forward investors or digital-first investors.” So that’s where we fit and that’s the story that we’re telling. So a lot of these banks and credit unions do have a wealth function, but they have a wealth function at a certain tier or type of client. And we’re trying to expand that client-base with them
Rory Holland (12:04)
Yeah, I hear that all the time. Everybody wants the seven-figure portfolio clients, of course. And that’s great, I understand that. But as you said, this wealth transfer is happening and it’s just going to accelerate. And if I’m understanding you correctly, a lot of these banks and credit unions aren’t serving those customers, don’t have a tool, digital first tool to serve those customers. So you’re actually giving them the technology to have something that can engage that market below the seven figures, which is most people.
Sloan Shanahan (12:34)
Yeah. The majority of the United States.
Rory Holland (12:38)
And so essentially bringing in that technology and that capability to actually have a conversation and have a digital first platform do it. Is that right?
Sloan Shanahan (12:47)
Yes.
Rory Holland (12:48)
Interesting. OK. So in a way, you’re empowering these smaller banks and credit unions. Why? What I want to ask you next, to be able to provide that service. So are there particular criteria attributes of those banks and credit unions that you guys fit with as far as assets under management or other geography?
Sloan Shanahan (13:06)
So there’s a certain size of organization in terms of total deposits that usually makes the most sense. You run into a bit of an economies of scale situation, right? Because our technology is not free. We all know that. So usually, in the credit union space, we can go down to about $2 to $3 billion is usually where we start to see, OK, we can make this happen. And too, oftentimes at a bank, community bank or credit union of that size, they’re looking for differentiators to attract more clients. So it’s also a great attraction tool for a lot of, you know, most credit unions are serving an underserved market. So how do you make sure that you’re getting them tools to expand their portfolio to increase, enhance the lives of their members?
Rory Holland (13:57)
Yep, okay. And then what is some of the, you mentioned some of the reasons why they’re saying no or not seeing it. What are some of the reasons why they’re saying yes to FusionIQ?
Sloan Shanahan (14:06)
Consumer demand. We have a, I meant to throw this in earlier, but I’m so I’m glad you me back to it. There is a process that we take our prospect, our prospects through where we actually take the routing numbers for Betterment and Robinhood and all of the other individual platforms. And we show them how much of, we have them run it on their backend to show how many oftentimes millions of dollars are flowing out to Robinhood and Betterment and other like solutions. And once we’re able to show them that we’re like, there’s demand, like that is demand. So how do you then take that data and say, “Hey, we can do this in house and we can work with a partner that provides, you know, the risk and compliance functions and other things like that, that won’t become operationally burdensome for us in the longterm.” So a lot of people say yes to us because we solve a current problem, which is money’s going out and we don’t want it to go out. And we have a solution that’s turnkey in the sense that it’s completely private labeled. We have 90 points of configuration within our tool to make it what you want it to be. And then on top of that, we have an underlying RIA that allows us to serve as that manager on the back end. So you’re outsourcing all of your risk and compliance to us as a provider. So there’s no operational burden or overhead other than implementation work, which our technology team has gotten down to a science and they do a beautiful job of.
Rory Holland (15:35)
Yeah, and you guys have been around a couple years, right?
Sloan Shanahan (15:37)
Yeah, we took on our biggest client in 2019.
Rory Holland (15:42)
Okay, and who was that?
Sloan Shanahan (15:43)
Navy Federal Credit.
Rory Holland (15:44)
Great, that’s a huge win.
Sloan Shanahan (15:46)
Yes
How Behavioral Finance Is Changing Wealth Management
Rory Holland (15:47)
And what is that? Last fall, you had some announcements, some new leadership. I know you’re on a path this year to some pretty aggressive growth goals. What has that experience been like? Because you’ve been with the company now several months, I think, right?
Sloan Shanahan (16:02)
December, yeah.
Rory Holland (16:03)
Yeah, so you and the leadership team are fairly new. What do the coming months look like? What’s on your priority list as far as tackling things and opportunities?
Sloan Shanahan (16:13)
Yeah, so we’ve got a fun pipeline right now. It’s really exciting to see all of the momentum we’ve gained. We hired you guys to come in and help us out. So we’re super, super excited about that and just really refining messaging and getting super specific. We also have, we’re doing a lot of innovation on the product front right now. And how do we continue to create an ecosystem? So we’re looking at additional partners. We’re building out new functionality. We’ve got, my product guys would probably kill me if I mentioned some of the things that we’re doing, but really trying to make sure that as we go after the bank and credit union market, we’re making it more than just a wealth tool and finding ways to make it a full service tool where you’re able to get more buy-in organizationally across the board and really, really enhance those deposits. So we’re super, super excited about that, but it’s all about right now, technically making sure the product’s in a great spot. I’ve had a very unique experience where I actually was talking to my technology team the other day and they were like, yeah, we cut cost with our last release because we’ve just been really dialed in on getting our infrastructure under wraps and it’s not too many times you walk into an organization and hear that. So those are great signals and indicators of just the health of the organization and where we’re headed. So product and clients, that’s what we’re focused on and we’re also working with some really cool behavioral finance players in the industry to help us really drive out that ecosystem and create more value so that way we’re continually enhancing our current clients’ experience and then how they can get users onto the platform.
Rory Holland (17:49)
Interesting behavioral finance… Can you unpack that a little bit?
Sloan Shanahan (17:52)
Yeah, so there’s actually whole sections of universities now dedicated towards behavioral finance, right? Why do people make the decisions that they make, especially financially? So there’s a gentleman out of UCLA that we engage with and others that are really pushing us to say, hey, when we pull this lever, what happens, right? So when we’re testing things with clients, we’re like, you know, are someone more likely to open an account or increase the size of that account based on these educational nudges that we give them, we’ve been talking about conversational AI at certain points, because what stops someone from investing is what we’re trying to figure out. What are the things that we need to really portray and educate our clients and their clients on to help them make better financial decisions? And that’s what we’re seeking.
Using Behavioral Finance to Improve Education
Rory Holland (18:43)
I love that, there’s been a theme of inclusion it feels like and from what I would say a lot of the conversation I’ve had this weekend, and it’s really encouraging to hear that through technology but also just through intentionally with a lot of the fintech leaders like yourself I’m talking to, to help impact the world in a positive way, help more people make smart investments. And you and I chat about this off camera with like my son and my children are, because of my experience as an adult now with finance, I wasn’t introduced to this stuff, but just figure it out, right? But the fact, I believe this notion of if we can help more people, like through the bank’s credit user support, help their clients make smart investments to give them financial empowerment, through financial inclusion, through education, like that just makes the world a better place because then we can all make an impact together. So what I’m hearing you say, that’s cool.
So you’re embedding education and using behavioral financial strategies to do that.
Sloan Shanahan (19:43)
Yes.
Rory Holland (19:44)
So you’re actually creating content then?
Sloan Shanahan (19:45)
Yes, we are.
Rory Holland (19:46)
Wonderful.
Sloan Shanahan (19:47)
We have, our tool allows us to work with other financial education providers, which some of our larger clients have preferred partners. And we love that’s our favorite thing to do is A: learn from those partners, get to know those partners, figure out how we can work with those partners. So clients can either bring their chosen weapon of choice or use ours.
Enthusiasm from Prospects In the Marketplace
Rory Holland (20:07)
Yeah, I’m gonna ask this question. I know we’re little preliminary because we’re working through the branding and positioning and the narrative of FusionIQ. So all those new developments, by the time this comes out, it’ll be out.
But I’m curious what the reception has been with the industry, with you coming on board and your sales team and your executive team talking to folks. Like what’s the reception been for FusionIQ and the brand and the offer?
Sloan Shanahan (20:29)
We get a lot of “that’s really cool.” I don’t think I’ve ever left the demo. Like I’ve probably sat in on a hundred demos now and every time someone on the call goes, “That’s slick or that’s cool. Like I like it.” It’s been the next step of buy-in and messaging and value. So initially sometimes when you explain the tool to people, they’re like, “I don’t get it.” Especially like I have to remind myself in the cycles that I support my team with of like, hey, not everyone understands the wealth world. Not everyone understands or has like, there’s a stat that lives in my head rent-free on if every person at birth invested $10,000 by the time they were 18 years old, just average annualized returns, they’d have over a quarter of a million dollars. So it’s like, there’s not a, I want to get rid of the notion that people can’t, like it’s not a place, wealth or finances isn’t a place for everyone because it absolutely is. Back to your point of inclusion.
Rory Holland (21:26)
Well, the compounding interest thing is so fascinating to me and something I’ve encouraged my kids to do. Put 400 bucks a month away, like as soon as they started working.
Sloan Shanahan (21:34)
And not in cash, get it invested.
How Clients Are Using FusionIQ and Winning
Rory Holland (21:36)
Just get it invested. Just don’t let it sit in a bank. Invest it, put it away in an investment and be smart because of that compound interest. I didn’t know the stat that you just said is $10,000. That’s fantastic. So maybe some success stories. Like you’ve been around long, I know months at this point, but any success stories you can share?
Sloan Shanahan (21:56)
So we’ve got one that’s, you know, these NDAs kill me.
Rory Holland (22:01)
You don’t have to say the name.
Sloan Shanahan (22:03)
Yeah, we have one that I am so, so excited about. And it took a, modeling of showing the success that can be had is a new weapon that we are kind of taking out of there. We’re putting in the arsenal. So I’ve been working very closely with my sales team to say, hey, it’s one thing to talk about it. It’s a whole nother thing to show a client the art of the possible. Show them “eh” outcomes, show them good outcomes and show them fantastic outcomes. But make sure that the “eh” outcome is still revenue for the bank or the credit union or whoever we’re engaging with. But show them that, hey, if we invest together side by side and making this successful, here is the potential business outcome. And I think we as fintechs and we just as an industry have to be really dialed in on, showing the possible. We have one client that I kind of piloted this approach with of really getting in there and modeling with them. And they actually made the comment that we don’t have many vendors do this for us. They kind of just leave us alone on our pro formas and say, figure it out. And so we were really bold and came to the table and we said, here’s the three scenarios that we think are ahead of you based on how much we all want to put into this and how it’s our job as Fusion to make sure that that partnership is strong and we’re continuing to invest in the client and helping them be successful. But that’s been really cool and we’re hoping to get them on the platform and actually bringing them to a potentially a new custodian too, which is a super, we’ll save that for our next podcast. But yeah, that’s really, really cool to see that come to fruition.
And then a couple on its heels, we’re moving into the, what I’ll call the two-sided marketplace business too. So think of any company where there’s a lot of money changing hands and how do you, how we have a really unique ability to serve a, what we call a, non-regulated entity or a, you know, not your traditional financial services provider and show them how to get more people involved in investing just with the amount of cash that’s coming in and coming out at any given time. So really helping them bolster their arsenal and their toolkits, to provide better, better opportunities for their clients.
What FusionIQ Can Do for Non-Traditional Financial Providers
Rory Holland (24:17)
God, that’s interesting. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Sloan Shanahan (24:19)
Yeah, so it’s kind of hard not being able to use names, but think of like a payroll provider. Think of you’re a small business and you’re using a payroll provider and you have a marketplace of different tools that you’re able to engage in with your subscription or your contract with this payroll provider. So they may be doing your payroll, but how do we embed Fusion, private label? And or not it’s very and that’s an interesting market where some people don’t want a private label they actually have been curious about using the fusion logo, which we love, a unique and cool opportunity for us. But how do they embed that as an extra tool to recruit more people onto the platform and also provide a most of the time in these instances these are lean mean machines, right? They’re not your big corporate companies.They’re a little bit smaller, but they need these services. And how do we give them a competitive advantage in providing a more full suite of financial products? So it’s been a really, really cool fit and a lot of great conversations in that arena right now.
Rory Holland (25:24)
So interesting. So you have a lot of opportunities.
Sloan Shanahan (25:26)
A lot of opportunity.
Rory Holland (25:27)
To say the least.
Sloan Shanahan (25:28)
Yeah, we have to be really, really disciplined in verticalizing the business right now.
The Importance of Client Education and Holistic Experience
Rory Holland (25:32)
If there was, if you could wave a magic wand, what’s one thing you wish more people knew about FusionIQ?
Sloan Shanahan (25:39)
Oh, I wish they knew that it is, it’s not, you know, there’s a lot of money to be made with the platform as a client of ours, but the value that it brings to a client when you invest in the educational part of it and you do the campaigns and you do the marketing and we work together, it is so, so powerful and attractive. It really, really is. I wish that people could understand the stickiness that it creates and that more holistic experience. Cause I tell the story all the time. I’m a USAA customer and they recently got, I kind of, I got a check one day in the mail. I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to my banking portal, but I got a check in the mail for roughly the amount of my brokerage account. And they had divested their brokerage group out of USAA, they no longer wanted to be in the business. And it was my first experience of, wow, now all of my assets are spread all over the place. And that’s so much harder to manage. Really like, and that just may be me as a consumer. There’s a definite possibility, but I know others like me. And you really just want to see all of your stuff in one spot. You want to have control and access. So it’s one thing that I’ve been seeking as a consumer. So I kind of have a personal mission behind it too.
Sloan’s Origin Story in Fintech
Rory Holland (27:01)
I love that. All right, so I wanna go slightly different direction. I wanna go back to how you found your way into this industry. So often I talk to folks like you, we don’t just make the choice, I’m gonna get into finance, some do. But other times we might fall into it. So I’m kinda curious how you found, like what’s the origin story for you in getting into this space?
Sloan Shanahan (27:21)
Yeah. So I, my junior year of college, um, one of my, I needed an internship. I was like, I know that I’m not going to play professional golf. I need to get an internship. I need to figure out what I’m doing. And I called one of my mom’s very best friends was with, in the talent group at EY for like, think at that point, 37 years, she had been a lifer and I called her and I was like, I’m trying to figure out what I’m coming out with a finance degree. What do I do with it? Where do I go? What do you see? What kind of opportunities are there? And she’s like, you’d be perfect for consulting. You’d be perfect for consulting. And I was like, I don’t even know what that is, but sounds great. And I know EY is a great logo. So, you know, let’s explore it. And so I talked to the recruiter. The recruiter was phenomenal. Took me through, you know, Hey, here’s our different, here’s what that means. And here’s the different flavors of it. And so I interned at EY. I actually interned in the insurance space, doing a guide wire implementation, which is super. Never done anything like it since, kinda, but loved it. And I was like, I’m getting to see, I’m getting to meet a lot of people, I’m getting to talk to people, I’m getting to solve problems. So I went back full time. And during my internship, I had met a group of people within EY in the Wealth and Asset Management Transformation Group. And I really just liked the people. To be totally honest with you, I’d always had a bit of a personal lean towards, you know, to make money, you gotta work with money a little bit. And also just, wealth is fascinating to me. It’s just always one of those things I’ve just kind of been drawn to. And I don’t really know if there is origin there or not, but I’ve always been drawn to it. So when I got back full time, immediately first thing I did when I got my EY laptop training was, you know, start pinging these people like, “Get me on a project. I don’t want to go anywhere else. This is what I want to do.” And it worked out as a wonderful mentor of mine who I still she’s retired now, but I still see her with relative frequency that made room for me on a project and got me going. So cut my teeth on a Charles River portfolio management implementation at one of the wire houses. So that was a baptism into how does money move? Why does it move? How’s it managed? Just like a full, full deep dive. So fast forward, I did that. I stayed at EY for almost six years. I learned so much. It was just one of the best learning opportunities ever. But I hit a point where I was like, I want to do something else. Like I love, I love people. I love numbers. I love, you know, making deals, crafting partnerships. Like I’m really good at that, but I’ve, I needed to learn the business. So I went and I did a couple, started some sales organizations at some mid-market consulting firms. And then Fusion actually came, came to me. A friend, a dear, dear friend of mine, who’s also heavily involved in the fintech space, threw my name in the hat and they called. And I had a couple of conversations with Pete Chiccino and Eric Noll and I was like, this is merging the two things that I am passionate about in my life. I’m getting to work in wealth and I’m also getting to build sales teams. And those are the two things that I love. So why in the world would I pass it up? So I was kind of like a bit of a homecoming where I learned wealth, then I learned how to build high performing teams and start things from scratch. And now I’m getting to merge both of those with Fusion.
Rory Holland (30:35)
That’s cool.
Sloan Shanahan (30:36)
Yeah.
The Gifts of Mentorship and Competitive Sports
Rory Holland (30:37)
Great journey. So you mentioned a mentor or someone who influenced you. What is it that she taught you would you say that’s still with you today?
Sloan Shanahan (30:46)
Oh man, she’s taught me quite a bit. I think the one thing that I cling to the most is be good to your people. Be good to your people, take care of them. You know, recognize how much they do for you and what you need to pour into them to get them to produce great outcomes. That and nothing in life comes easy and or free. She’s just one of those people. Her name is Kelly Hines. I’ll drop her name. But Kelly really, you know, she was just an incredible woman, but relentless, like just so relentless in her pursuit of, you know, doing phenomenal business and doing it really, really well. And also just people, people flock to her. People just enjoy it. She was hard nosed, but at the same time, kind and loving and supportive when she needed to be. And it was a beautiful balance of, you know, hey, you better work hard. But at the end of the day, we’re going to love you no matter what.
Rory Holland (31:52)
That’s wonderful. What a gift. Yes. So what’s what’s one lesson from your your competitive golf days that that you still kind of guide your work today?
Sloan Shanahan (32:01)
Hmm mental resiliency, if I had to put it in a phrase it is the resiliency of you’re gonna fail and you’re gonna have bad days where you don’t perform, but it’s separate. It’s figuring out the lesson in that instead of taking it on as a failure. I think that, and that’s hard when you’re young but the older I get the better I get at it is being like that wasn’t a failure that was a lesson and you have to if you want to continue to be good at it or get better at it, it’s not as I failed. It’s a, I have to do it differently next time. Or I have to process that. I have to put a different meaning behind this. This isn’t, you know, you can look at it as a positive or a negative. And I think oftentimes in my younger years competing, I was so hard on myself about my failures for too long instead of taking it and being like, well, I’m gonna to try and tweak that next time and see if my outcome is different. So I say it’s not personal all the time because it’s really not personal.
Rory Holland (33:01)
Yeah, that’s hard though. I mean I confess I’d let… I take things as a younger man I took things way more personally than I do now I’ve had to learn how to, I guess if I were to describe it let everything get so close that almost keep things within you know a couple of feet instead of like letting it all consume you, because I take everything, you stick everything super personally and particularly if I failed someone or if I didn’t come through the way that someone expected me to or I didn’t come the way through the way that I expected. And I play competitive sports too, so I get that. And one thing I used to do in baseball is like, I would, if I made an error, I would pound my mitt three times as the transition point to throw it away. Like that was my throw it away.
Sloan Shanahan (33:48)
I like that.
Rory Holland (33:49)
To move on. And I try to do it in golf. I love golf. Golf is a hard sport.
Sloan Shanahan (33:53)
It’s a very hard sport.
Rory Holland (33:54)
But everybody talks about it’s one shot at a time. Yeah, it is. And you can have a great round and blow it in one hole or one shot. And I used to be the type of person that I try to make it up all, I make one bad shot, I try to make it all back in the next shot, rather than being strategic and saying, just get it back in the fairway. No, I’m gonna go for the hole, right? Oh went in the water, damn it. Right, so there comes the snowman, right? But it sounds like you’ve kind of learned through being such a high level athlete, competing through E and Y, through this relationship with these good people that mentor you. It’s wonderful that you can channel that and not carry all the failures, right? Because golf is mostly about not doing well, like a lot like baseball, 100%, 100%.
Sloan Shanahan (34:35)
You hit more bad shots than you hit good.
Rory Holland (34:41)
All right, great. Thanks for letting me bantering with me on the sports.
Sloan Shanahan (34:45)
I love it. And I, when I talk to younger athletes now all the time, I’m like, figure out a way to not let it be yourself. Figure out a way to have you as an athlete and you as a person and don’t ever let them, but saying it’s, it can only be learned like that.
Rory Holland (34:59)
We talked about the identity, right? Like we can carry our identities in work or in sports or in relationships and your marriage and your kids and your, mean, there’s all kinds of things that we can label ourselves and identity. And if we’re not careful, that could be really unhealthy.
Sloan Shanahan (35:13)
Yes
Future Aspirations and Hyper-Growth in Fintech
Rory Holland (35:14)
It can be positive, but it can also be really unhealthy. So, different type of questions. So you shared a little bit of this, but I’m kind of curious about what’s the future or horizon for Fusion just this year? Like what’s on the horizon as far as what you guys want to accomplish this year?
Sloan Shanahan (35:31)
Hyper growth, hyper growth. We’re expanding the sales team. We’re expanding the technology team. And we, our goal is more clients, helping more clients, getting them on the platform as fast as humanly possible and well. So that’s, it’s for us this year. It’s all about, let’s make these product enhancements that we know are going to make our offering more attractive to the bank and the credit union market. And even some other odd nuance players out there too. Let’s get those product enhancements, let’s get campaigning on them and let’s get people on. That’s really what this year is about for us. And also for our current clients, it’s, hey we’ve done all this work, we’ve made all these investments in education and figuring out how to get clients engaged. We need to deploy those strategies. We need to be making sure that we are in lockstep with our current clients and helping them achieve their intended outcomes.
Rory Holland (36:29)
Yeah, exciting times.
Sloan Shanahan (36:33)
Yes.
Rory Holland (36:34)
We’re excited to be doing it with you.
Sloan Shanahan (36:33)
Yeah, we are excited that you guys are here to help us. But yeah, I can’t wait. I can’t wait. We’ve been doing a lot of work internally right now to enable that hypergrowth, which is something that I applaud us as an organization for is not just, you know, we’re in startup world. You’re building the plane while you’re flying it at all times. But we’ve done a really fantastic job of making sure that we are operationally sound to handle that hypergrowth and me as the responsible party for sales, that gives me more peace than I’ve had in some other situations before. We’re just like, we’ll just figure it out. But it’s been amazing to have my leadership team and other folks around me be like, no, we understand. We got to make sure that we’re dialed in and we have the framework and the operational structure to make sure that our clients are handled with the care that they deserve.
Rory Holland (37:24)
Can I ask you to dust off your magic ball here?
Sloan Shanahan (37:29)
Sure.
Cooperative Ventures and Fintech Ecosystems
Rory Holland (37:30)
Where do you see the fintech industry heading in the next three, four, five years?
Sloan Shanahan (37:36)
Mmm, it’s funny. I actually I thought about this last night. So it’s timely that you’re asking me this question. I keep hearing clients and partners talk about ecosystems and it’s a word that we all throw around. We all know what it means, right? But in fintech I think it has a very specific meaning. And I think that we are going to see more fintechs going to market together. I think there is more power in fintech players as ecosystems and conglomerates, even if you will, as opposed to individual players. So I don’t want to call it consolidation, because I don’t think there’ll be a ton of them in the activity per se. But I do think that we will start to see players really getting more creative with the number of solutions that we can embed with one offering. So I deal a lot with procurement teams. They’re all wonderful. They’re great. But one of the things that I’m constantly hearing is, well, we don’t want to bring in vendors that can only do one thing. We want to bring in a vendor that we can grow with and we can do more with. And I think we, as an industry and as providers, have to listen to them when they say that. We have to take a beat and be like, OK, how do we enable one another? How do we take these big, sexy APIs we’ve all built and enable each other’s solutions in a consumable way for our client bases?
Rory Holland (39:04)
I’d love to unpack that off camera with you. Because it’s, yeah, something’s been on our mind as a marketing agency for folks like you guys in the fintech space. And someone set a stat earlier today, and I don’t have the data, so I’m not sure if this is true or not. I think she was saying like, the average person at a bank that is exploring fintech gets somewhere between 14 and 20 emails a day from fintech vendors. And like per day. So we do the math. You can see why it goes ignored or feels overwhelming. And maybe that is part of what you just said with the ecosystem play, bringing us more so we don’t have to manage so many vendors. Like it’s tough to do for them for sure. So yeah, I definitely want to talk about that.
Advice for Aspiring Fintech Professionals
Final question. So thinking about your younger self or anyone that might be wanting to step into this industry or a younger professional in fintech. What advice, piece of advice you might give them to help them be more successful and thrive in the space?
Sloan Shanahan (40:04)
Stay up on current events. I think that is, it’s not only a superpower in terms of how you engage with somebody or how you spark conversation or get them to talk about things that are important to them. But there’s such a heavy amount of influence on what’s going on in the world and then what the market demands. And so I think the I wish I had done more in my younger years, I wish I had done more education on why things were happening as opposed to just reacting when they’re happening. And I think part of that’s part of that’s maturity, part of that is a growth of the love for the business. But I really, that that would be my biggest piece of advice for someone getting into this. Understand current events and understand your purpose. Understand why you’re doing it. I feel like fintech is very mission driven. So you need to, if you want to get into that space, you have to make sure that your personal mission aligns with the mission of the organization that you are working for or starting even, right? That’s a cool part of our industry, is a lot of people spin off and do many, many cool things just based on a couple words someone says in a meeting, they get a brilliant idea and they go run with it. But lean into your purpose, make sure your purpose aligns with the mission of your company and stay up to date on current events and why things are happening. And I think that the merging of those two is really, really powerful.
Rory Holland (41:33)
It has been a pleasure. So nice to talk to Sloan Shanahan, CRO, FusionIQ, keep an eye out for them. Meet Sloan online for sure. Look up on LinkedIn. If you’re a bank or credit union, please, yeah, find them. Thanks so much for the time. Thanks for coming to Austin too.
Sloan Shanahan (41:47)
Yeah. Thank you for having me. This has been a great time. A wonderful meeting everybody and you and your team are absolutely fantastic. So thank you for everything.
Rory Holland (41:54)
Thank you, Sloan.
***End Transcript***
