Shannon Larson, president of AE Wealth Management, is cautioning advisors against the allure of immediate gains, arguing that sustainable success requires a disciplined, multi-year approach. With roughly 25 years in the financial advisory industry, Larson has observed that the most resilient practices are those that resist the urge to act on every promising idea and instead evaluate opportunities through a lens of effort versus impact.
Larson, who joined AE Wealth earlier this year after an eight-year tenure at Osaic, where she served as senior vice president of platform and product solutions, will share her insights at the InvestmentNews Women Advisor Summit on Nov. 5 in New York City. She will participate in a closing fireside chat with Cathy Curtis, founder of Curtis Financial Planning, on the theme of "the long game," exploring how careers and businesses are built over time rather than overnight.
"I think they have to be open to a mindset that isn't 'no,' but it's maybe 'not right now,'" Larson told InvestmentNews. She acknowledged that this can be challenging for advisors, who often possess an entrepreneurial spirit. "In that moment, they may have the greatest idea ever, but it's really focused on what's the effort versus impact," she added, emphasizing the need to ask whether the timing is right or if it should be deferred to the following year or beyond.
Larson's career includes early roles at Fisher Investments and LPL Financial, where she served as vice president for advisory platforms. Drawing on that experience, she stressed that the people an advisor surrounds themselves with are critical to success. "They have to surround themselves with people that are different than themselves," she said. "No matter what you look at it, if I have somebody surrounding myself that's just like me … I'm just going to do more of what I do."
She elaborated that advisors need partners who provide perspective, whether that means a sales rainmaker or a chief operating officer. At AE Wealth, Larson has seen this dynamic in action. "The most successful teams I see are those that have been together for a long time, but they're really complementing each other in terms of the differences in what they bring," she noted.
AE Wealth, an RIA with approximately $50 billion in assets, boasts an organic growth rate of about 12%, a figure Larson describes as "very high." This stands in stark contrast to industry benchmarks: The Ensemble Practice's 2026 True Ensemble Growth and Profitability study found average organic growth of just 3.7%, a near-decade low, while Schwab's most recent RIA benchmarking study reported client growth of 4.7% across all firms, with top performers seeing net organic growth of 12.9% of overall asset growth.
Larson also underscored the value of industry gatherings like the Women Advisor Summit. "We all come from different backgrounds and perspectives, but when we come together in a meeting like this, there's a lot of history lessons to be learned from the women that have been in the industry for a long time and have seen things that some of us have never seen before," she said. She added that she is also looking forward to celebrating the awards at the event.
For advisors seeking to build lasting practices, Larson's advice is clear: adopt a multi-year business plan, build a team that complements your strengths, and resist the temptation to chase every opportunity. As the industry faces pressures from changing training models and evolving client needs, such discipline may be more important than ever.
