Shaping Wealth

What Shaping Wealth does

Shaping Wealth (legally Northcenter Ventures, LLC) is a Chicago-based learning and behavioral coaching platform serving the global wealth management industry, founded circa 2020 by Brian Portnoy (PhD, CFA), Joy Lere (PsyD), and Neil Bage. The company combines behavioral finance, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence into evidence-based training content and coaching experiences for financial advisors, with the stated mission of helping clients achieve "funded contentment." Its product portfolio centers on Compass, a subscription-based dashboard delivering behavioral content and coaching, alongside modular programs including Foundations of Behavioral Advice (introductory seminar), Building the Behavioral Advisor (BTBA, a 100-day immersive cohort program priced at $7,500 per individual), Navigator guided experiences, topic-specific Workshops, Speaking Engagements ($3,000–$25,000), and the OCBO (Outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer) subscription at $150–$200 per advisor per month for small RIAs.

The company's technology stack evolved significantly with the February 2026 launch of Lydia, an agentic AI behavioral intelligence engine that orchestrates a team of specialized helper agents to deliver real-time coaching, conversation frameworks, role-playing, and just-in-time nudges to advisors. Lydia is accessible via meetlydia.ai and through partner integrations, and is offered in both Lydia Free (freemium) and Lydia Pro (paid subscription) tiers. The platform integrates with fintech partners including Conquest Planning and Focal, with more than a dozen additional integrations in development (YCharts, Seeds, Contio, Sherpas, Hamachi, Perscient, Fundment).

Shaping Wealth operates a hybrid revenue model combining recurring subscriptions (Compass, Lydia Pro, OCBO), professional services (keynotes, workshops, webinars), and cohort-based program fees (BTBA). Distribution is multi-channel: direct enterprise sales to large firms, self-serve via Compass and Lydia, channel partnerships with GAIA and Q Wealth Partners (exclusive Canadian distribution), and event-driven acquisition through the annual BeFi Summit, which drew nearly 2,000 advisors in 2024. The company is founder-controlled, has been bootstrapped through approximately 2025, and closed a $700,000 funding round in March 2026 while appointing fintech veteran Corey Westphal as CRO to lead the AI expansion.

Name

Shaping Wealth

Legal name

Northcenter Ventures, LLC

Website

https://shapingwealth.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Shaping Wealth is a Chicago-based learning and behavioral coaching platform that combines behavioral finance, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence to train financial advisors and wealth management firms globally through subscription products (Compass, OCBO), AI-powered coaching (Lydia), and cohort programs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Wealth Management Education Software

NAICS

Portfolio Management and Investment Advice (523940), Portfolio Management and Investment Advice (52394)

SIC

Investment Advice (6282), Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Digital Wealth Platforms for Advisors (TAMP/Advisor Tech) (FSAGAEAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Hybrid Advice (Advisor + Digital) Platforms (FSAAAAAE), Broker-Dealer Affiliated Wealth Advisory (FSAEABAB)

Keywords

• Behavioral finance training
• Wealth management education
• AI coaching platform
• Advisor development software
• Behavioral intelligence platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Others

Revenue model

1. Compass Subscription: Subscription-based membership providing ongoing access to behavioral content, courses, coaching, and community resources for wealth management professionals.
2. Lydia Pro Subscription: Premium AI-powered behavioral coaching platform available through subscription with usage-based tiers. Lydia Free available at no charge with usage limitations.
3. Speaking Engagements: Keynote speeches ($7,000-$15,000), workshops ($15,000-$25,000), and webinars ($3,000-$7,000) delivered by team members including Brian Portnoy, Neil Bage, Meghaan Lurtz, and Joy Lere.
4. Building the Behavioral Advisor (BTBA): 100-day immersive cohort-based coaching program for advisors. Priced at $7,500 per individual with family rates available.
5. OCBO (Outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer): Subscription membership ($150-$200 per advisor per month) providing ongoing behavioral resources, applied insights, training, and support for small RIAs and advisory firms.
6. Enterprise/Customized Learning Solutions: Customized learning solutions and enterprise-level training programs for large firms including Fortune 500 companies.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Shaping Wealth is a learning and development platform for wealth management professionals that delivers behavioral finance, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence training through its Compass subscription dashboard and AI-native Lydia behavioral coaching engine. It sells cohort programs (BTBA), membership subscriptions (OCBO), workshops, and live speaking engagements to financial advisors and advisory firms globally.

Product overview

Shaping Wealth operates as a unified learning and development platform for the global wealth management industry, offering behavioral finance education, coaching, and AI-powered tools under a platform-plus-modules architecture. The core platform is Compass, a subscription service that provides the behavioral content dashboard, coaching experiences, and access to Lydia (the company's AI-native behavioral intelligence engine). Surrounding Compass are modular programs: Foundations of Behavioral Advice (introductory seminar), Building the Behavioral Advisor (BTBA, a 100-day immersive coaching cohort), Navigator (guided journey), Workshops (topic-specific live sessions), Speaking Engagements (keynotes/webinars), OCBO (Outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer, a monthly subscription for smaller firms), and BeFi Summit (annual virtual conference). Lydia, accessible within Compass and at meetlydia.ai, serves as the AI-powered behavioral coaching layer — an agentic AI that orchestrates specialized sub-agents to deliver real-time conversation coaching, role-playing, and behavioral nudges to advisors. The company is a subsidiary of Northcenter Ventures, LLC, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Compass: Subscription-based behavioral content and coaching platform for advisors, described as 'an always-open festival of behavioral delights.'
• Lydia
• OCBO (Outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer)

Products and services

• Compass Flagship subscription-based behavioral content and coaching platform for wealth management professionals offering always-open access to behavioral content, courses, coaching, and the full Lydia AI experience.
• Lydia AI Behavioral Coaching Platform Agentic AI behavioral coaching engine for wealth management advisors providing real-time coaching, conversation frameworks, role-playing, just-in-time nudges, and behavioral analysis with a free tier (Lydia Free) and premium subscription (Lydia Pro).
• Foundations of Behavioral Advice (FOBA) 4-part introductory seminar serving as the starting point to understand and improve the human experience of money for advisors, their teams, and their clients.
• Building the Behavioral Advisor (BTBA) Immersive 100-day cohort-based coaching program for advisors serious about delivering human-centric guidance, leveraging behavioral insights to drive better life outcomes for clients and advisors.
• Navigator Guided experience offering within Shaping Wealth's menu of content, courses, and coaching built to address real-world opportunities and challenges in the global wealth industry.
• Workshops Topic-specific live workshops on culture, empathy, storytelling, and wellbeing designed to charge one advisor superpower per session for application to clients, teammates, and self.
• Speaking Engagements Keynote speeches and webinars delivered by Shaping Wealth team members for events, featuring Brian Portnoy, Neil Bage, Meghaan Lurtz, and Joy Lere.
• OCBO (Outsourced Chief Behavioral Officer) Subscription membership providing advisors with ongoing behavioral finance content, weekly content, monthly expert interviews, quarterly deep-dive training, and office hours with a licensed clinical psychologist, priced at $150-$200 per advisor per month.
• BeFi Summit Annual flagship virtual conference focused on behavioral finance for the wealth management industry, offering actionable tools for advisor-client engagement with CFP CE credits available and free attendance.

Quantifiable outcome

• Nearly 2,000 advisors engaged through BeFi Summit 2024
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.

• Conquest PlanningcoreTechnology or Integration · 18 February 2026Integration partnership with Conquest Planning as part of Shaping Wealth's pursuit of CRM platform and financial planning software integrations. More than a dozen fintech partnerships currently in development.
• FocalcoreTechnology or Integration · 28 January 2026Focal, an AI-powered productivity platform for financial advisors, announced integration with Shaping Wealth to embed research-backed behavioral coaching directly into its meeting workflow platform. The partnership delivers real-time behavior-based personalized coaching through AI agents, with management gaining centralized visibility into team-wide performance, trend insights, and sentiment tracking.
• Q Wealth PartnersflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 January 2024Exclusive Canadian partnership with Q Wealth Partners, one of Canada's only co-operative Partner-led Portfolio Management firms. The collaboration aims to develop the next level of human-centric client experience, leveraging all Shaping Wealth team members including Dr. Joy Lere, Neil Bage, and Dr. Meghaan Lurtz for curriculum development and training.
• Global Association of Independent Advisors (GAIA)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 30 June 2023Strategic partnership providing GAIA firms access to OCBO platform content, coaching, tools, and resources. GAIA intends to make OCBO available to teams beyond front-line advisors, aligning with Shaping Wealth's philosophy that true human-centric planning cultures must empower broader teams serving clients.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Kitces: Kitces is a leading financial advisor education, research, and blog platform serving independent RIAs and wealth managers with technical and practice-management content. It directly overlaps with Shaping Wealth's Compass content and BTBA-style advisor learning, and both compete for advisor mindshare and CE-eligible learning time.
• FMG (Twenty Over Ten): FMG is a marketing, content, and website platform purpose-built for financial advisors. It competes with Shaping Wealth for advisor training and engagement budgets, particularly via its digital marketing and content offerings; FMG's Chief Evangelist Samantha Russell also sits on Shaping Wealth's Advisory Council.
• Riskalyze: Riskalyze built its brand on risk tolerance and behavioral alignment tools for advisors. It is one of the closest direct competitors to Lydia because it also embeds behavioral-finance methodology into advisor-client workflows, though its focus is risk profiling rather than conversational coaching.
• Money Quotient: Money Quotient offers behavioral finance assessments, tools, and training programs specifically for financial planners. It is a direct peer in the niche of behavioral-finance training for advisors and competes with BTBA, OCBO, and Foundations offerings.

Emerging players

• Riskology (AdvisorWorld): Riskology by AdvisorWorld provides behavioral finance tools and training for advisors focused on client risk conversations. It overlaps with Shaping Wealth's behavioral coaching mission but is smaller and more narrowly focused on risk-tolerance workflows.

Broad incumbents

• Orion Advisor Solutions: Orion is a large, established wealthtech platform offering portfolio management, CRM, and advisor technology. While not focused on behavioral coaching, it competes for the same advisor software budget and could embed competing AI coaching features within its broader platform.
• Envestnet: Envestnet is a broad wealth management technology and TAMPS platform serving RIAs and enterprises. It is comparable as a large incumbent advisor-tech platform that competes for enterprise wealth management software spend and could launch behavioral AI features of its own.
• Salesforce Financial Services Cloud: Salesforce is a global CRM and workflow platform with a dedicated Financial Services Cloud for advisors. It competes for enterprise advisor engagement and CRM budgets and has launched AI (Einstein) capabilities that could overlap with Lydia's agentic advisor assistance.
• Addepar: Addepar is a wealth management technology platform serving large RIAs, family offices, and institutional investors. It is comparable as a well-capitalized incumbent in advisor software that could expand into behavioral AI coaching for advisors.
• CAIS: CAIS is an alternative investments platform for advisors and a broader fintech ecosystem player (CAIS IQ). It is comparable as a fintech serving the RIA community with both technology and education components; advisory council member Andrew Smith Lewis was formerly CAIS's founding CIO.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/shapingwealth
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/shaping-wealth
• Instagraminstagram.com/shapingwealth

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Shaping Wealth