HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — This idyllic beach town about an hour south of Los Angeles is what everyone from Iowa thinks California looks like: crashing waves, endless miles of white sand beaches, stunning vistas, and plenty of tan and healthy-looking people. Huntington Beach in particular likes to think of itself as the beach volleyball capital of the world. For the next four days, it will also be host to one of the largest financial conferences in the world. More than 4,000 people have descended here for the Future Proof conference , a vast social gathering designed to give younger registered investment advisors and other investment professionals access to what they want. What they want, apparently, is an intense desire to network with other RIAs and investment professionals and find ways to grow their business. They also seem very particular about the kind of content they want to hear: anything about AI and how to use it, alternative investments, a bit of crypto, and a bit on the markets and the economy. Alongside serious discussions and networking they are also very comfortable with parallel classes on wine consumption, craft beer instructions, yoga, nature walks, and even rock bands (Third Eye Blind!) playing in the evening. Around this mass of RIAs is a small army of sell-side professionals eager to sell them ETFs, mutual funds, financial and management advice, and anything else they need to grow their business. Many of these sell-side pros can be seen in panels that are sprinkled throughout the conference. Reimagining the financial conference Future Proof is the brainchild of Barry Ritholtz, co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and CEO Josh Brown. This is the third year for the conference, but Ritholtz and company have been doing conferences for 15 years. Ritholtz describes it as an ongoing project to reinvent the financial conference concept, which he says is “moribund.” “We wanted something where people got out of the conference room, get out of the hotel and enjoyed the beach, enjoy the outdoors. Just because we’re in finance doesn’t mean we have to be staid and boring and running in the bowels of a giant conference, right?” he said. The ETF and financial services industry is here in force, with representatives from JPMorgan Chase, Capital Group, State Street Global Advisors, Dimensional Funds, Van Eck and dozens of others trying hard to connect with younger independent investment professionals who don’t go to traditional conferences. Much of this is being accomplished through a “speed dating” service that matches RIAs with sell-side providers for short, 15-minute one-on-ones. Fellow conference organizer Matt Middleton tells me that last year 16,000 meetings were arranged; this year he expects to double that, to 32,000. It’s about networking When I asked a group of attendees at the opening panels Sunday afternoon what they were at the conference for, one answer came up most often: to meet with other RIAs and investment professionals. “I’m here to network,” Adarsh Shyamsundar from Polaris Capital Management told me. He became an RIA in 2022 after years in the tech business. “This is about hearing what other advisors are saying, especially the small mom and pop shops around the country,” Brett Rodgriguez from Graystone Consulting told me. “We’re hear to get something we can’t get on a Zoom call–real one-on-one interaction with other people in our business.” Delon Mansour, an RIA from San Diego, said it’s about having a message for his clients. “I want my clients to see that I am staying active and learning new strategies for their portfolios,” he told me. Mansour also reflected another motivation for coming: He said he was on a hunt for more products he can use to better manage his business. Hot topics: AI, Alternative Investments, crypto, markets There’s plenty of content here, and when asked what they most wanted to hear about, AI came in at top of the list. “I want to know how people here are using AI,” Shyamsundar said. “How should I be using it, and how can I help my clients use AI better?” “If I’m using AI, how do I use it, how do I harness it?,” Harris Nydick at CFS Investment Advisory told me. “I want to use it effectively, I want to use it compliantly, and I want to know how to safely store the data.” For Graystone Consulting’s Brett Rodgriguez, it’s about alternative investments. “There is a lot of interest from my clients on investing in private equity,” he told me. He’ll hear plenty on that topic. There’s a panel on private equity led by Akash Shah (BNY), Shannon Saccocia (NB Private Wealth), Raj Dhanda (Ares Management), and John Christmas (HPS Investment Partners). Also high on the list is crypto. Many RIAs said they were unsure on how to advise their clients. They’ll get some advice from a panel with Mike Novogratz (Galaxy Digital) and Anna Paglia (State Street Global Advisors) on the state of crypto. Also often mentioned was the state of the markets . A trio of chief investment officers will offer their view on the direction of the markets for the remainder of the year, including Bryan Whalen (TCW), Saira Malik (Nuveen), and Lauren Goodwin (New York Life Investments). Ahead of a crucial Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday, my colleague Scott Wapner will be interviewing DoubleLine Capital’s Jeff Gundlach on the main stage and will later interview him for CNBC’s ” Halftime Report .” ETF luminaries like Jan van Eck and Matt Hougan (Bitwise Asset Management) will discuss the current state of ETFs, including coming competition from tokenization. Then there’s the entertainment There are several dozen social events, many of which are invitation only, topped off with DJ Mick and the rock band Third Eye Blind on Tuesday night, sometime in the wee hours. There’s also plenty of amusing asides for the attendees. Panels on cybersecurity and estate planning are interspersed with classes on craft beer making and “Fish Taco Frenzy: Coastal Cooking Class.” If that sounds a bit odd, it’s not to any of the attendees. “It’s all about team-building,” one RIA from Michigan told me at one of the social events at last year’s Future Proof. He had brought all seven members of his team, and was making the rounds talking to other RIAs about, what else? How to grow their businesses. Much of the actual work was being done at the social events and the “speed dating” events where RIAs were seeking help on how to run their businesses. Put it all together, and there’s enough content and social events to take up about 15 hours of the day for the next few days. I tell you, it’s exhausting, being part of the financial intelligentsia. Bob Pisani be doing ETF Edge on Monday from the conference, talking to conference organizer Barry Ritholtz and Jon Maier, chief ETF strategist for JP Morgan, on “Halftime Report” on Monday at 12:35 p.m. ET. ETF Edge will livestream at 1 p.m. ET, when Pisani be talking to Jan Van Eck, Marlena Lee from Dimensional Fund Advisors and Jon Maier. That’s on ETFEdge.cnbc.com .
