Bridging the Gap: Lori Hardwick on Connecting Wealth and Retirement

Decoding Growth

The retirement industry keeps talking about convergence.

Lori Hardwick breaks down what it actually takes to make it real.

This conversation cuts straight into the structural issues—America’s savings gap, advisor confidence, platform integrations, valuation pressures, and the technology finally capable of scaling access. Lori brings decades of experience as an operator, board member, and founder to explain why this moment is different, what’s newly possible, and where firms are still holding themselves back.

You will hear what most leaders learn only after expensive trial and error:

• 00:00 — The real retirement access crisis in America
• 04:20 — The savings gap, Social Security challenges & bipartisan urgency
• 08:45 — Why wealth advisors hesitate: risk, regulation & confidence
• 12:30 — The time-management dilemma: 25 employees, one advisor
• 15:50 — The Sater model: specialists, referrals & shared revenue
• 20:55 — Swell’s turnkey infrastructure & chatbot-powered onboarding
• 25:10 — Tech rails: the new path from payroll → recordkeeper → asset mgmt
• 29:35 — Emergency savings, student-loan matching & plan design innovation
• 34:18 — What retirement can learn from wealth—and vice versa
• 37:45 — Where retire-tech platforms can plug in
• 41:20 — Early-stage founders vs. enterprise due diligence reality
• 45:12 — Riding the rails: integrations with Orion, InvestNet, Pershing
• 49:05 — Founder traits: execution vs. ideas
• 53:25 — Build, buy, or partner? Lori’s framework from inside the big firms
• 56:12 — The legacy tech debt problem nobody wants to talk about
• 01:00:40 — How firms can modernize without breaking the enterprise
• 01:03:50 — Final challenge: who will actually bridge the gap?
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This isn’t industry commentary.

It’s a strategic field guide for enterprises, advisors, founders, and retirement innovators who want to bridge the gap without burning years—or budgets—doing it the hard way.

If this episode gave you a new lens on convergence and growth:

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