Derek Kinney, host of the T3 Hot & Happening Podcast, sits down with Laura Barger, Chief Marketing Officer of BetaNXT, to explore how data, trust, and innovation are reshaping the future of wealth management. Laura shares BetaNXT’s journey from a back-office powerhouse to a forward-facing fintech platform, now delivering end-to-end solutions that empower financial advisors and elevate investor experiences. From AI and automation to proactive investor communications, this conversation dives into the real-world impact of data modernization and why trust is the new currency in advisor-client relationships.
Welcome to the T3 Hot and Happening podcast recorded live at the 2025 T3 Technology Conference in Dallas. I'm Johnny Swift of impact communications. In this three-part special series, host Derek Kinney, founder of Success for Advisors, who is also affectionately known as America's financial educator, unpacks the hottest trends, game changing innovations and key takeaways shaping the future of fintech. Derek sat down with top FinTech executives at the 2025 T3 conference, unveiling cutting edge solutions for financial advisors, as well as forward thinking advisors, eager to discover the technology that will revolutionize their firms and elevate client experiences. I was also happy to guest host a few interviews while Derek was out enjoying the conference and exploring FinTech solutions. So, with that, let's jump in, because the future of FinTech is happening right now.
Derek Kenny here in the Hot and Happening podcast studio at T3 in Dallas. I am joined by Laura Barger, who is the Chief Marketing Officer of BetaNXT. Laura, great to have you with us today.
Thanks so much for having me. Delighted to be here.
And I heard your executives were just on stage on a panel. How did that go?
It went great. We are new to the T3 conference environment as a sponsor this year, and so the opportunity to get up and share a little bit about who BetaNXT is as a business and what some of our core capabilities are that directly impact the advisor audience that you have here was really terrific. I feel like it was well attended. We were well prepped. So really a big success all around.
Good. Congratulations on that. That's great. What made you guys come to T3?This is your first time here.
That's correct? Well, a couple things. I think BetaNXT, as an organization has traditionally operated and spoken largely to the operations and back-office audience. A lot of our traditional buyers are on the enterprise side, but we have increasingly, particularly through a lot of our data solutions capabilities, been offering up solutions that are more directly aligned to improving advisor experiences and subsequently to the investor clients that they serve. So, we looked at the agenda this year, and particularly because the agenda was so focused on areas that we are so focused on – data modernization, data integrations, the incorporation of responsible and productive AI and automation to platforms – we felt that this was a good year to introduce ourselves more broadly to the advisor audience and the enterprises that serve them. So overall, it's been a huge success. We've learned a lot and have had a lot of really wonderful conversations.
We're glad you're here. So, let me ask, as you have sort of roamed the hallways and been in the sessions, what is hot and happening? What are some of the trends you're hearing and sort of the themes you're taking in right now?
You cannot walk through the halls of the exhibit hall without seeing the word data everywhere; everybody is focused on data. And whether it's the core function of harnessing data to power the next generation of advisor solutions or really getting through the challenges of data modernization at the enterprise level, we have seen so much conversation around that, again, which reinforces the reason for us to be here. At BetaNXT, data is really the lifeblood of what we do as an organization, and what we end up seeing being the true value provider for a lot of these institutions. So, I would say data, forefront, was big. AI and automation, no doubt, all directly connected to data. You can't really have great AI application without dealing with the foundation of data at its source, but we're seeing so many interesting solutions that are incorporating automation to maximize efficiency and optimize costs on the back end. So, we've been really excited to be a voice in a lot of those conversations, so we're definitely seeing that this year.
When you think about the panel discussion, what were some of the issues that you're finding or in the environment right now that you guys bring a solution to?
Yeah, so I think you know, if I'm really speaking from the investor back, which is what, how we should be thinking about it, right, the outside in, this investor environment is changing rapidly. There's a demographic shift happening. There are behavioral shifts happening. So, investors themselves are really putting some new and increasingly challenging expectations on the advisor community about the speed with which insights and analytics can impact their performance, the types of communication they get from advisors. And so, we have really seen a lot of that surface as core challenges, both at the advisor level and the enterprises that serve them. At BetaNXT, we see that as a massive opportunity to harness the incredible amounts of data that are out there to be more productive in supporting those types of solutions and workflows. So, the panel that we actually did today was really focused on: What is at the root of data modernization? It has to be the data itself. It has to be data being clean and clear. Has to have proper governance around it so that advisors can trust that the data that is powering their solutions has integrity, is really a golden source, and then ultimately, the investors on the end are really trusting their advisors to bring them the best possible insights. So, I think that there's so much connection that is really bridging the gap between what is happening in the back-office from an operational perspective, to what is impacting the advisors and what sets them apart.
I think a word you said there struck me, and that is trust. You're really in the business of trust, and how do you present that to the companies, the advisors, so that they recognize and feel the trust that your product offers them.
I think we put trust in a couple of categories. Trust at the enterprise level is just knowing that your data is surrounded by an embedded source of governance, right? Knowing that you don't have to worry that your data has gone through too many reconciliations to ultimately be poorly impacted at the end. At the advisor and the investor level, the trust is knowing that the analytics and the insights that are coming out of that data are things that you can have confidence are going to add value to the investor experience. So, I'll give an example of that. One of the things that we talked about was what's really kind of been broken in terms of investor communications around corporate actions. So, if you are a shareholder, there are multiple things that happen with your holdings across the course of a year, and sometimes you get notifications, as an investor, in a number of different ways. Sometimes you get it mailed to you. Sometimes you get it emailed to you. It's not particularly personalized. It's a little bit hard to understand how much action you have to take to it. Traditionally, an investor has to take the responsibility of understanding that and weeding through it. Advisors retroactively get that information and then are forced to catch up and help advise their clients. Some of the capabilities that we're launching at BetaNXT allow advisors to be much more informed and proactive. So, knowing when corporate actions are coming and an investor needs to care about it is something that they can proactively reach out to with their investors. That's a perfect example of trust. Knowing that your advisor has your back and is not going to let a critical action escape you that could have significant financial implications.
If there was one takeaway, you'd want all of our T3 listeners to have about BetaNXT. What would that be?
I think it's that BetaNXT is really evolving into an interesting end-to-end wealth management solutions platform. BetaNXT has really only been around for about three years. It was formed through the joining together of three existing businesses, the Beta platform, which has traditionally been known as a clearing and custody solution, very much on the back-end operations side. Mediant, which is an investor communications and proxy capabilities organization. And then we have Maxit, a tax planning and tax cost basis company. The joining together of those three entities has formed a company whose vision is much more than the sum of its parts, right? So, I think the audience at T3…many of them new components of BetaNXT, or may have been familiar with it, but really knowing that BetaNXT is there to serve the end advisor, and there's so many opportunities to engage with us compared to two or three years ago, would be one thing that we would like to have people take away.
I love that. Laura, thanks for this great conversation. That's Laura Barger, the Chief Marketing Officer of BetaNXT, thanks for being with us.
Thank you so much for having me.
Source: T3 Technology