Advisory Board

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 sophisticated/successful financial advisors.

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.

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 Association’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 and that program, now sponsored by Envestnet, continues to honor top quality separate account managers today. 

Mr. Watson previously 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, and chaired the Envestnet and ERS Business Partners Acceptance Committees. 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 is a graduate of Lafayette College, and earned his MA and MBA degrees from Wake Forest University where he was named a Charles H. Babcock Scholar for Academic Performance in Business School.