Brad Roth recently joined UX Wealth Partners as Chief Investment Officer, marking a significant step in the firm’s continued growth and commitment to delivering data-driven, technology-enabled investment solutions to advisors. Roth brings more than two decades of experience in asset management and fintech innovation. In addition to his role at UX Wealth, he serves as CIO and Co-Founder of THOR Financial Technologies, a firm known for its rules-based, risk-managed investment strategies. His dual leadership positions place him at the forefront of modern portfolio construction, where technology and investment strategy increasingly converge to meet the evolving needs of independent financial advisors.
Roth also hosts Behind the Ticker, a podcast produced by THOR Financial Technologies, where he interviews asset managers, economists, and market strategists to explore the ideas and processes behind today’s most compelling investment approaches.
In this Q&A, Roth discusses his new role, the future of advisor technology, how to approach investing in today’s volatile markets, and the ideas driving innovation in wealth management.
How do you envision your new CIO role at UX Wealth complementing your ongoing work with THOR Financial Technologies?
Both roles are tightly aligned in one mission: helping advisors access smarter, rules-based model portfolios. I’ve spent my career working with computer-driven, rules-based, and AI-powered strategies, and now I get to bring that expertise to UX Wealth and THOR.
At UX Wealth, my focus is integrating diverse model portfolios and ensuring they work together seamlessly for advisors and clients. As the industry continues shifting toward ETFs for their simplicity and liquidity, my experience launching ETFs at THOR will be incredibly valuable.
Ultimately, I’m here to help advisors understand how to combine models, ETFs, and tech to deliver better outcomes—both for their practice and their clients.
What challenges are financial advisors facing right now in portfolio construction, and how is technology helping address them?
Advisors are struggling to implement modern, AI- or computer-driven models because the tech often creates operational headaches—complex trading, separate accounts, too much overhead.
That’s where UX Wealth steps in. Our platform allows advisors to run sophisticated, cutting-edge strategies under a single registration. We handle the trading and execution, so they can focus on relationships and growth. It’s about making next-gen investment strategies accessible, scalable, and easy to use.
How do you see the current macroeconomic environment influencing advisor decision-making and investor behavior?
Uncertainty and volatility always test the emotional limits of investors—and sometimes advisors, too. That’s when mistakes happen. A well-diversified, thoughtful portfolio gets abandoned in favor of something “safe,” and long-term performance suffers.
That’s why now, more than ever, we believe in emotionless, rules-based investing. It removes the panic and helps both advisors and clients stay focused on the plan—especially when the market gets noisy.
Volatility has been a major theme over the past year. What principles guide you in navigating uncertain markets?
First and foremost: stick to unbiased, rules-based processes. When emotion creeps in (“this strategy isn’t working,” “maybe we should shift”), that’s when errors occur.
Second: rethink diversification. Most people stop at asset class diversification, but I believe in going deeper by diversifying investment strategies and ideas. Multiple strategies in one portfolio help smooth out the ride and create more resilient performance than just mixing asset classes.
THOR has built a reputation around rules-based, risk-managed strategies. How has advisor demand for those models evolved recently?
We’ve seen demand spike during periods of volatility, and it’s a reminder that these strategies shouldn’t be an afterthought. They need to be part of the portfolio all the time.
Even a small allocation (5%, 15%, 20%) to a rules-based strategy can improve long-term results. While these models might underperform during quiet stretches, they shine when markets become chaotic, which is exactly when clients need confidence the most.
There’s a lot of noise in the fintech space. What differentiates truly valuable advisor technology from the hype?
Most fintech tools just add one more login, one more step, one more thing to manage. We think that’s backwards.
At UX, we’re building everything in one place: trading, billing, reporting, model marketplace—all on a single platform. It’s about simplifying the advisor’s workflow so they can spend more time with clients and less time wrangling tech. We believe simple, integrated solutions are the future of advisor technology.
What are you most focused on building or scaling within UX over the next 12 months?
My top priority is education. I want to meet with every advisor and new client to walk them through our available strategies and show them how to use them effectively. We also have AI-powered overlays that can optimize these models even further; education is key to unlocking that value.
Next, I’ll be listening. If advisors need something, we want to build it. And finally, I’m focused on due diligence: identifying emerging managers who may not be well-known yet, but bring innovation that could help deliver better client outcomes.
