On October 16th, our next guest’s Lowcountry business school will host their annual Strategic Investment Symposium. This one-day event will bring in investment professionals, institutional investors, financial advisers, and business leaders, for a look at how today’s economic, technological, and market forces are reshaping how investment money is allocated. Mike Switzer interviews Mark Pyles, a professor with the College of Charleston School of Business.
TRANSCRIPT:
Switzer: Hello and welcome to another edition of the South Carolina Business Review. This is Mike Switzer. On October 16th, our next guest's Lowcountry Business School will host their annual Strategic Investment Symposium. This one day event will bring in investment professionals, institutional investors, financial advisors and business leaders for a look at how today's economic, technological and market forces are reshaping how investment money is being allocated. Mark Pyles is a professor with the College of Charleston School of Business and he joins us now by phone. Mark, welcome to the program.
Pyles: Well, pleasure, thanks for having me.
Switzer: So give us more details about the symposium coming up in Charleston.
Pyles: This was created just simply as a way to try to let some of our students have a laboratory in which they could interact with the financial community. And that started over a decade ago or so and the Charleston community just sort of soaked it up and it is now where we bring together thought leaders from industry all around the country and even internationally to talk about the prevalent economic and financial events of the day. An entire day's agenda ranging from very broad macroeconomic discussions and then eventually it gets more granular into breakout sessions for specific topics. But the goal is, is to give, you know, thoughtful dialogue that is professionally oriented but we really try to make it more broad based so that anyone from a, you know, a student in school, there definitely be students there, all the way up to seasoned professionals can gain insight.
Switzer: All right, so tell us who some of these speakers will be.
Pyles: We have Dr. David Kelly from JP Morgan, he's the chief strategist, excuse me, at JP Morgan. And then we have Seema Shah who is also the chief strategist but at principal that is sort of the opening session of the day where we talk about more of the macroeconomic backdrop. And then the next session following that is our CIO session. Chief Investment Officer. We have Cameron Dawson who's the CIO at New Edge Wealth. And on top of Cameron we have Alan McKnight who's the CIO at Regents bank and Tim Holland, who's the CIO at Orion Wealth Management. So these are thought leaders that are regularly on TV and radio and we're really honored to have them. And then throughout the afternoon, I certainly won't go through all the names, but we have a variety. I think there's nine total other, other sessions where we have again certainly experts in the area throughout the entire day.
Switzer: Alright, now I mentioned in my introduction that, you know, in today's new world of AI, technological advances, the economy's crazy, market forces, you know, so I'M assuming that all of these topics will have their own sessions, including AI?
Pyles: Absolutely. That is one of the sessions, the preeminent sessions, some of the sessions are for everyone to view and then we have breakouts. So yes, AI and specifically how it is influencing the wealth management industry is a, is a topic that will probably be throughout all the sessions, honestly. But it does indeed have one standalone session. We're very excited to have, to have that on the agenda. But to your point, we really want this to be modern. We want it to be the topics of the day and certainly things like AI and political issues such as the war and things of that nature will certainly be prevalent throughout the day's discussion.
Switzer: And so our wealth managers, our investment advisors, concerned that AI will take their jobs and start planning these portfolios on their own.
Pyles: I don't think we would call it a fear for sure. And the reality is some of this has been around for a long time. We've spoken of things such as robo advising, for a decade or so now. And that is of course a computer effectively picking your investments based upon criteria you give it. So that part's not new. to answer your question more directly, I think the answer is always in the middle. And in this case there's absolutely amazing use cases for AI and I think every firm is using it to some degree. But our advisors at this point worry that it's going to take their jobs. I do not think so, certainly not in Mass. At the end of the day we're in a relationship business, the advisors are in a relationship business. and that, that part could not be replicated at least at this point and hopefully for the foreseeable future. But again, coming back where there's amazing use cases throughout the entire financial ecosystem and I imagine that will come up throughout the entire day.
Switzer: Well Mark, one more time, give us the details of the upcoming event, the date, time, place.
Pyles: Yeah, absolutely. So the the Charleston Strategic Investment Symposium hosted by the College of Charleston School of Business specifically will be on Friday, October 16th, all day, event at the Gayard center, starting around 8:00 o', clock, running through again all day through 4:00pm in the afternoon. Would love obviously to make it a great event and continue the tradition in Charleston.
Switzer: Mark, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Pyles: Of course, thanks for the time.
Switzer: Mark Pyles is a professor at the College of Charleston School of Business and we will have a link to the event posted at our webpage so you can learn more. South Carolina public radio.org or you can hear this show again. And you can hear us again wherever you find podcasts with the South Carolina Business Review, this is Mike Switzerland.
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