Director of RIA Relationships & Audience Development
Reports to: Managing Director, Advisor Education
Status: Full-Time
Location: Remote, preference for NY/NJ or willingness to travel regularly to the Northeast corridor
About Us
We’re building a new advisor education and engagement platform — a sister business to The Daily Upside, one of the largest and fastest-growing financial media companies in the country. We will leverage Advisor’s Upside audience reach, media expertise, and asset manager relationships as a launch advantage, but this is its own venture: a two-sided platform connecting asset managers with financial advisors through education, content, certifications, and community. Advisors get differentiated intelligence and access; asset managers get a high-quality, engaged advisor audience. This is an early-stage build with significant ownership and growth potential for the right person.
Position Overview
We’re looking for a relationship-driven, entrepreneurial leader to build and own the RIA side of our advisor platform. You’ll define our go-to-market approach for reaching advisors, build the value proposition that gets them to engage, and create the actual products and touchpoints — events, certifications, content, community — that keep them coming back. You’ll work in close partnership with our asset manager relationship management team to make sure what we build for advisors aligns with what our asset manager partners want to deliver.
This is a build-from-scratch role. You’ll be doing strategy and high-level positioning work one day and managing a CRM or drafting collateral the next. Over time, as the business scales, you’ll hire and lead a team of audience development managers under you.
Key Responsibilities
- Define the RIA go-to-market strategy, including geographic prioritization, white-space identification, and an advisor segmentation model (AUM tier, specialty, broker-dealer affiliation, growth stage) to enable targeted programming.
- Crystallize the value proposition for RIAs — peer-to-peer networking, connectivity to a major media platform’s reach and content, certifications, and proprietary intelligence — and partner closely with the asset manager relationship management team to align advisor demand with asset manager capabilities and thought leadership.
- Build and run the full mix of advisor programming: in-person teach-ins, certifications, bespoke dinners, online courses, webinars, seminars, and regional events. Cultivate a founding cohort of advisor relationships to help shape the curriculum, and travel regularly to represent the business in-market.
- Identify and pursue custodian and broker-dealer as distribution amplifiers.
- Own CRM selection and management for advisor relationships, and create marketing collateral for both RIAs and asset managers. Provide input on early-stage brand identity (name, look, website copy).
- Define and track the KPIs that matter most — advisor renewal/retention, engagement, event attendance, audience growth — and report on them regularly.
- Over time, recruit and lead a team of audience development managers as the business scales.
Qualifications Required
- 3+ years of experience in financial services, with direct experience working with or selling to RIAs/independent advisors (e.g., custodian relationship management, asset manager wholesaling/distribution, advisor-facing fintech, or RIA practice management).
- Existing network of RIA/advisor relationships, or demonstrated ability to build one quickly from scratch.
- Strong understanding of the RIA landscape: custodial platforms, broker-dealer affiliation models, advisor segmentation, and how advisors make buying/engagement decisions.
- Experience building or running advisor-facing programming (events, webinars, certifications, content) — either at an asset manager, custodian, or media/education company.
- Demonstrated success building something from zero in a fast-growth or startup environment.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable creating marketing and brand collateral or working closely with those who do.
- Willingness to travel regularly for in-person advisor meetings and events.
Preferred
- Prior experience at a wholesaler, custodian (Schwab/Fidelity/LPL), or RIA aggregator/consolidator.
- Experience managing or selecting a CRM system.
- Background in financial media, content, or community-building businesses.
What We Offer
- Ground-floor opportunity to build a new line of business with the backing and audience advantage of an established, fast-growing media company.
- Direct access to and partnership with senior leadership.
- Competitive compensation (salary + performance-based incentives). >$200k all-in.
- Path to building and leading a team as the business scales.
