Snackable (and Genuine) Learning With ‘Netflix Magic’ Could Change Wealth Management
CAIS IQ is creating custom courses for a $21 billion RIA, and the knock-on effects of the partnership could prove a game changer for the industry.
August 4, 2021 | Michael Thrasher | RIA Intel
In 2019, the people behind CAIS, a $13 billion alternative investments platform founded a decade earlier, were not totally satisfied. They’d built a system to make the historically laborious process of investing in private equity or hedge funds easier, but they felt they were falling short educating wealth managers about those investments. Those managers, in turn, weren’t likely to invest in something they didn’t understand.
Whitepapers and webinars weren’t cutting it. So, CAIS founder and CEO Matt Brown hired Andrew Smith Lewis to be his chief innovation officer. A learning whiz, Smith Lewis was the founder and CEO of The Princeton Review of Japan, and co-founded Cerego, a system focused on long-term information retention that supports programs for the U.S. Army, New York University, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other institutions.
Smith Lewis and a growing 10-person team got to work on CAIS IQ, the new platform that directs users to different visual, written, and audio content based on how well they absorb and retain information.
Shortly after CAIS IQ launched last summer to 9,000 advisors, its “snackable” bursts of learning, in the form of videos, webinars and podcasts, were already proving they helped them “master” alternative investments spending just minutes each day. The launch of IQ included an effort to gather insights and adapt the program. For example, mobile app users were spending 24% less time learning than web-based users, but mobile learners were achieving a 56% “higher rate of mastery,” Smith Lewis told RIA Intel last year.
CAIS IQ is free for any CAIS member to use. Advisors with the Certified Investment Management Analyst and Certified Financial Planner designations can receive continuing education credits for CAIS IQ courses.
