Escalent is honored to share the recognition of Chad King, Laura Winebarger, Devon Witherell, Tony Rodriguez, Ray Reno and Rob Darrow as winners of the 2023 ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) Great Minds Future Forward Award alongside their client-colleagues at Merrill. ARF recognized this team for its groundbreaking work, executed with Merrill, to develop a truly innovative financial advisor-investor compatibility matching tool.

The award honors the Escalent team for its achievement using innovation to unlock insights about consumer or business trends and reflects Escalent’s thought leadership, expertise and industry-leading solutions. Recognizing a gap in the industry, Merrill partnered with Escalent to dig deeply into what attributes contribute to a strong match between advisors and investors, and to use those insights to develop a new compatibility matching tool. In September 2022, ‘Merrill Advisor Match’ was launched to the public with great success, modernizing the approach of connecting with a financial advisor across generations while placing digital and personalization at the forefront of wealth management.

“We are so proud of the groundbreaking work this team delivered for our client,” said Melissa Sauter, CEO of Escalent. “The insights they unlocked over six research studies leveraged specialized talent from across our business, and the results have helped democratize access to financial advice and demystify the experience of finding a financial advisor.”