Brendan Appe

Idea

GOALS-BASED ADVICEEnhancing Financial Planning:
Best Interest Goals and Advice Framework

Challenge:
Inconsistent financial planning approaches made it difficult for advisors to align client decisions with long-term goals. There was a lack of structured goal tracking, and clients struggled to visualize how financial decisions impacted their future.

Solution:
We developed an interactive experience that helped clients and advisors align financial decisions with life goals. This included structured work flows for goal setting, integrated decision-support tools, and a dynamic interface for visualizing financial progress.

Additionally, we introduced an intuitive process for financial advisors to set Goal Level Portfolio Objectives (GLPO) that aligned with clients’ appetite for risk and growth. The GLPO became the foundation for all accounts, ensuring financial decisions remained aligned with the original goal objectives.

This approach allowed advisors to maintain consistency in portfolio management, making it easier for them to track and adjust investments in line with client expectations.

A Goal Level Portfolio Objective set the overarching stategy and account/holdings mix for each goal-based portfolio.

A NEW FRAMEWORKA Client-Centered Financial Planning Framework

This framework was co-created during our workshop, where we aligned across teams to ensure a unified, client-focused approach to financial planning. It structures a client’s financial life into key levels, allowing the system to intelligently recommend investment strategies, account types, and adjustments as financial goals evolve.

This framework simplifies financial planning by structuring a client’s financial life into three core levels:

Wants & Needs → Define Priorities
Goals → Align Wants & Needs to Financial Strategy
Portfolios & Accounts → Implement Investment Strategy

This framework became the bedrock for how Edward Jone’s was going to best serve clients and their interests.

As new wants or needs arise, the system dynamically adapts by reassessing goal priorities, adjusting portfolio allocation, suggesting new accounts when necessary, and highlighting trade-offs to keep clients on track.

By aligning client-defined priorities with structured goals, portfolios, and accounts, this framework enables a dynamic and adaptable financial planning system. It ensures ongoing alignment with a client’s evolving financial life while optimizing investment strategies.

ACCOUNT OPENINGStreamlining the Client Onboarding Experience:
Account Opening Optimization
Challenge:
The account opening process was slow, redundant, and required manual data entry, causing delays for financial advisors and clients.

Solution:
We introduced a streamlined, digital-first workflow that reduced data re-entry, enabled real-time validation, and improved automation. These enhancements resulted in a 40% reduction in account opening time, making the process more efficient and user-friendly.

The account page was organized by goal by default to further emphasize Edward Jone’s policy on goal alignment.

Additionally, within the flow, we provided account-recommended funds that ensured each account aligned with the Goal Level Portfolio Objective (GLPO). This feature allowed financial advisors to seamlessly select investments that maintained consistency with the client’s overarching financial goals, reducing misalignment and simplifying decision-making.

Account instructions ensured alignment to the overarching goal objective.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENTModernizing Portfolio Management:
Portfolio Management Enhancement

Challenge:
Financial advisors lacked a unified system for portfolio construction and management, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistent data representation.

Solution:
We created a single interface that consolidated portfolio construction, execution, and monitoring. The blueprint included real-time insights, automated portfolio rebalancing, and interactive visualization tools to improve transparency and ensure client portfolios aligned with their goals.

A BUSINESS BUILT ON RELATIONSHIPSEnhancing Advisor-Client Collaboration:
What If Analyzer & Financial Roadmap

Challenge:
Financial advisors needed better tools to facilitate discussions with clients, especially when assessing financial trade-offs and planning long-term investment strategies. The absence of an intuitive, interactive experience made it difficult for advisors to effectively communicate potential financial outcomes.

Solution:
We introduced the What If Analyzer and Financial Roadmap capabilities, designed specifically to enhance communication and relationship-building between advisors and clients. These views were co-created with financial advisors to ensure relevance and usability.

The Financial Roadmap provided a visual representation of the client's financial journey, helping advisors illustrate how past decisions influence future financial health.

The What If Analyzer allowed advisors to model different financial scenarios in real-time, demonstrating the impact of various decisions on a client’s portfolio.

These tools were designed to be used in shared-screen discussions, allowing advisors to walk clients through their financial planning process with greater clarity and confidence.

Co-Creating the Future:
Designed with and for Edward Jones Branch Teams

Every solution we crafted was co-created alongside Edward Jones home office associates, branch office administrators, and financial advisors. Through alignment, ideation, and rapid prototyping, we ensured that real-world feedback drove every iteration, allowing us to validate solutions quickly and cost-effectively.