Board of Directors
Pamela Cytron
Pam is a renowned Technology Entrepreneur and recipient of numerous awards for her outstanding contributions to the industry. With a keen understanding of tracking technologies and a flair for developing innovative strategies, Pam has consistently met the demands of the industry while driving revenue growth. Her impressive career started early, making her first #fintech sale at the age of 19. Pam possesses a unique and visionary mind that effortlessly connects people, problems, and technology, leading to exceptional results in her endeavors.
Jennifer Dempsey Fox
Jen is a purpose-driven, Inspirational, and Innovative Financial Services/Wealth Management Executive who leads with authenticity and transparency to build trust and work together to create a positive difference for one another, clients, and the community.
Throughout her career, she has been thriving in creating and executing a strategic vision and culture that transforms organizations, drives explosive growth, and protects financial and reputational risk. She is a well-respected thought leader and intellectually rigorous professional with the skill to see emerging trends and recognize potential growth opportunities.
She has extensive experience with being at ease interfacing, collaborating, and building long-lasting relationships with team members, the C-suite, the board of directors, investors, and strategic partners, among others.
Marshall Smith
Marshall is an experienced operator and investor with 15+ years focused in the WealthTech space. With a focus on customer centric solution design, lean startup and preference of winning sales over pitch contests, his focus is on hitting your sales numbers and keeping a tight eye on your P&L. Marshall cut his teeth helping First Rate grow it’s revenues from $13M to $25M+ in annual revenues selling to Wealth Managers, Banks and RIAs without outside funding. His career started in customer success and included Marketing, Sales, Product and Chief Operating Officer. Marshall holds a BA from Dartmouth College and is married to Shannon and has four children. He believes businesses should deliver tangible impact for all stakeholders including its Clients, Co-workers and Communities.
Gary Walker
Gary Walker is Founder and President of SkyWalker Property Partners, LLC, and SCM Real Estate Services in Arlington, Texas. After graduating from Baylor, Gary started his commercial real estate career and immediately witnessed the historic real estate collapse in Texas. Walker continues after 25 years to represent tenants as a commercial real estate broker. In 1992, he founded SCM Real Estate Services, a full-service brokerage and property management firm.
Another area of focus for Gary includes his efforts to fuel economic development and support public projects. He is currently on the Executive Board for Downtown Arlington, Inc., his 3rd round of service for downtown over 25 years. His efforts at historic revitalization include the National Register designation and redevelopment of the Vandergriff Building in Arlington, the redevelopment of 602 E. South Street in Arlington, and 215/219 S. Main on Fort Worth South Side, and the acquisition of the Vandergriff Town Center.
Gary is also interested in community and public development. He serves on the board of the Trinity River Vision Tax Increment Financing District, was a Founding Board member of the Entrepreneurs Organization of Fort Worth, is an active investor and member of the Baylor Angel Network, has served on the Board of Directors for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, and is a member of the Fort Worth Chamber.
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Our program is designed to help you:
Develop a compelling business model
Build a scalable product that meets market needs
Acquire customers and grow your user base
Secure funding from investors who believe in your vision
We're proud to have already helped many wealthtech companies achieve their goals. Our alumni have raised millions in funding, expanded their teams, and transformed the industry.
If you’re an early-stage wealthtech company, we invite you to apply for our accelerator program. Our team of experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts will provide you with the guidance, mentorship, and resources you need to succeed.
Apply today and take the first step towards building a successful wealthtech company.
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News/Blogs
A heart to heart about Sales and Wealthtech with Pamela Cytron
Top 3 Roadblocks to Quality ESG Data
Read Here Many people in the industry continue to be at odds about what criteria will qualify a sustainable company and which data can disqualify them. However, at its core, ESG is DATA. It’s data on how a company affects its environment, how it interacts with society, and how it is governed. Here are the top three roadblocks to Quality ESG data that we discussed during this episode. Lack of Regulation and Standardization While the SEC is working to create specific ESG requirements that include actual metrics, there is still a lack of standardization and data comparison. There are no third-party auditing requirements at this time, and until there are, discrepancies and data manipulation will be rampant. Political Bias The political divide is high when it comes to interpreting ESG data. For example, many progressives and conservatives disagree on what diversity and inclusion look like and how companies should regulate it. The same goes for climate impact – especially when there is no regulatory standardization. ESG data is seldom black and white. There is a lot of gray area in the data and without context, many people are disqualifying companies on a surface level that are actually qualified when the data is examined more thoroughly. Greenwashed Data Even if we were to solve many of the other issues around analyzing and qualifying ESG companies, there is still the question of “is the underlying data accurate?” The demand is growing to obtain access to the underlying or raw data. Greenwashing, which is providing misleading information on how a company is environmentally sound, exists only because there is no well-developed system to uncover data discrepancies. Many companies are using marketing and advertising to cover up bad or incomplete ESG data. The SEC is pushing to have certain ESG criteria mandatory, but until then, there are many gaps that mislead stakeholders. Listen to the full Ventures in Wealthtech episode to learn how to better understand ESG data and how it relates and contributes to long-term sustainability. Marshall Smith CIPM, EVP of Services, has been with First Rate since 2006. You can follow Marshall on Twitter @MarshallCSmith, or connect via LinkedIn.
4 WAYS FINTECH STARTUP PROVES LONGEVITY PRIORITIZING CUSTOMER OVER CAPITAL
Read Here Many start-up founders come from extensive backgrounds, drawing from their experiences to initialize an idea that can change the game. But more often than not, they jump the gun to find funding and how to expedite growth and scalability. Many entrepreneurs fail to build their foundation before they hit the ground running. Strategically choosing talent that is equipped with expertise and experience to understand the vision and how to execute is the first step in building a strong foundation built for longevity. Many entrepreneurs believe that they know their customer and can overlook this step while not realizing their customer profile is ever evolving. Knowing your customer is about building relationships that are transparent where you can have continuous open and honest conversation about pains, wish lists, and even discuss pricing tolerance. Maintaining these relationships is key to understanding how to pivot, create product roadmaps, and how to speak to potential clients. Big ambitions drive the VC industry. Disruption is the goal and everybody will bet all their chips on their big ideas. However, sometimes smaller iterations is key to longevity and sustainability. Sometimes, it’s not about disrupting but building trust by solving immediate and current practical pains that can lead to the next phase. For example, you can’t solve blockchain issues for industries that haven’t event adopted the cloud yet. Longevity is all about taking it one step at a time. Last but not least, many entrepreneurs are so laser focused on proving themselves and their ideas that they forget to invest in selling. Many startup firms believe, “if I can just build it, they will come”, and while that is true to an extent, without exposure and good selling strategies, that big idea might end up just sitting on the shelf. A long term strategy for start-up firms is about the ability to grow revenue, not just raise capital. Taking capital into consideration to overcome early stage challenges is the reason that the venture capital industry exists, but being exceptionally talented at raising capital is not going to bear long term fruit. Watch the full podcast to learn more about long term success for start-up wealth tech firms. Marshall Smith CIPM, EVP of Services, has been with First Rate since 2006. You can follow Marshall on Twitter @MarshallCSmith, or connect via LinkedIn.