Event Details:
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM: Doors open - check in + networking - come early to network with your FPA colleagues
11:00 AM - 11:10 AM: Welcome! Join us for the latest FPA updates & announcements
11:10 AM - 12:00 PM: Opportunities Within Small Format Experiential Real Estate
An update and discussion about retail real estate and opportunities within essential and experiential real estate. Chad will share his 25 year journey as a retail real estate operator exploring the evolution of retail real estate, providing a market update, discussing key investment considerations and risk mitigation, and educating participants on the tax advantages of real estate.
Chad Braun | Co-Founder & Managing Partner – Fifth Corner, LLC
Chad started his career with Kenneth Leventhal & Co in their real estate advisory practice and has spent the past 25 years exclusively working in the commercial real estate business. He helped grow AmREIT (NYSE:AMRE) from $50 million to over $1 billion in assets when it sold to EDENS in February 2015. As CFO and COO, he was responsible for over 60 employees in multiple offices, all aspects of debt and equity capital formation including leading the Company’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, accounting and reporting, asset and portfolio management, investor and institutional relations and human resources. Chad is currently the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Fifth Corner, a private equity real estate firm focused on creating value on Irreplaceable CornerTM properties throughout the major markets of Texas and the Southeast United States.
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM: Lunch & Networking
12:30 PM - 1:20 PM: Maturing Beyond Crypto: Digital Markets & Tokenization
This presentation explores how capital markets infrastructure is evolving from electronic systems to blockchain-based "digital markets" through tokenization—which isn't a crypto revolution, but the next chapter in a century-long story of wrapping assets in better structures, from mutual funds to ETFs to programmable securities. You'll see real-world examples already live in US markets, understand how programmable automation through smart contracts fundamentally differs from the operational automation you've experienced with computers, and learn the practical business impact for your RIA practice. We'll examine how each infrastructure evolution (analog → electronic → internet → blockchain) delivered better economics for both advisors and clients. Most importantly, you'll leave with specific actions you can take now to prepare your business for this evolution, just as advisors who adopted ETFs early in the 1990s built significant competitive advantages over those who waited.
Marc Nichols | Director of Business Development - Prometheum Inc.
Marc Nichols is the Director of Business Development for Prometheum Inc. where he leads strategic initiatives for the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) channel, focusing on the integration of institutional-grade digital asset solutions into RIA and wealth management platforms. In his role, Marc works across Prometheum Inc. and its subsidiaries Prometheum Capital and Prometheum ATS supporting the growth of the firm’s FINRA member and SEC-registered special purpose (“SPBD”) broker-dealer platform for the trading, clearing, settlement, and custody of digital assets securities.
With over a decade of experience in financial services, Marc began his career as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch and Charles Schwab, serving New York and New Jersey. He then transitioned to wealth management product development at TD Ameritrade, where he contributed to creating innovative investment solutions. Most recently, Marc co-founded one of the leading Separately Managed Account (SMA) investment solutions, Arbor Digital, providing RIAs and asset managers access to institutional-grade digital asset investment strategies.
Marc’s deep understanding of the RIA landscape, coupled with his passion for leveraging blockchain technology, positions him as a key driver in bridging traditional financial services with the next generation of digital asset offerings. His work is focused on empowering financial professionals to adopt secure,