With more than 30 years of financial services experience, Gib Watson is a sought-after consultant and speaker to the wealth management industry. Mr. Watson provides strategy consulting services to asset managers, RIAs, family offices, and bank trusts.

Previously, Mr. Watson served as Vice Chairman, Envestnet, with responsibilities for the firm’s Envestnet | PMC division (the SEC Registered Investment Advisor) and for driving growth at the subsidiary, Envestnet | Retirement Solutions, LLC (ERS). Mr. Watson also served on Envestnet | PMC’s Investment Committee and the ERS Investment Committee. Prior to those roles, Mr. Watson served as Group President of Envestnet | Prima following the successful acquisition of Prima Capital in April 2012. In that role, he coordinated the integration of Prima’s research, due diligence, advice, managed portfolios and web-based technologies into Envestnet | PMC and Envestnet’s Advisor Suite.

Mr. Watson founded Prima Capital in 1999 and served as the company’s CEO and President. During his 13 years at the helm of the organization, Prima became a leading provider of manager research, due diligence, and advice on separately managed accounts, mutual funds, ETFs and alternative investments to banks and trusts, regional broker-dealers, family offices, and successful financial advisors. Prima also managed innovative risk-based and target date open-architecture multi-asset class, multi-manager portfolio strategies for clients and 401(k) plans where they served as both an outsourced 3(21) Fiduciary Advisor and a 3(38) Investment Manager. Prima delivered all of their wealth management and retirement solutions through empowering customized versions of their primary web-application, PrimaGuide™, including the first generation of the Matrix Retire Tool(k)it™.

Before founding Prima, Mr. Watson served as National Managing Director of the Investment Advisory Services practice for KPMG LLP, where he and his team developed the asset allocation, long-only and alternative manager due diligence platform, and client reporting center, which supported 400 KPMG financial advisors under his leadership. He was also a member of the Investment Committee for KPMG Investment Advisors. Prior to his work there, he was Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Private Client Services at Portfolio Management Consultants (PMC). Before those roles, Mr. Watson served as Vice President of the Wealth Management division and the Denver Executive Financial Counseling office for Asset Management Group (AMG), now AMG National Trust Bank. In addition to managing and growing the two largest profit centers at AMG, Mr. Watson advised ultra-high net worth families and C-Level corporate executives in all areas of personal finance and investments.

He is active in the industry as a member of the Investments and Wealth Institute’s (formerly the Investment Management Consultants Association) Standards of Practice Committee, and he has earned the Institute’s CIMA® designation through The Wharton School.  Mr. Watson is a regular columnist for ThinkAdvisor, and is regularly quoted in industry publications, including Investment Advisor, InvestmentNews, and On Wall Street magazines. Mr. Watson also created the industry’s Annual SMA Awards program with Investment Advisor magazine in 2003. That program, now sponsored by Envestnet, continues to honor top quality separate account managers.

Mr. Watson currently serves on the Advisory Boards for a number of wealth management businesses. He also served on the Board of Trustees of Dividend Capital’s DCA Total Return Fund, a closed-end mutual fund, from 2006 through 2011.

He is active in the Colorado business and philanthropic communities as a member of the Board of Directors for the Economic Club of Colorado, and as a 2009 founder of the Denver Chapter of Golfers Against Cancer, which funds local cancer research. He is also actively involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and serves on the Board of Visitors for the School of Business at Wake Forest University, his alma mater.

Mr. Watson is a graduate of Lafayette College, and he earned his MA and MBA degrees from Wake Forest University, where he was named a Charles H. Babcock Scholar for academic performance at the business school.