Matt Eby

When the most prestigious financial institutions need a consultant to evaluate and fine-tune their trust business, they call Matthew C. Eby.

Serving as a kind of S.W.O.T. team for household-name financial institutions, Eby uses his decades of experience in financial services consulting for the wealth and asset management industries to advise on improving operations, streamlining processes, and creating stability by establishing a sequence of steps that achieves repeatable and scalable results.

His illustrious career started at none other than The Northern Trust, considered the world’s premier trust company. He would then hone his consulting skills while at Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting, also thought the leader in its field.

As Founding Managing Partner of Nth Degree Financial Solutions, Eby, with his wife and Managing Partner Joanne Eby, offer an array of services across the broad spectrum of fiduciary and non-fiduciary products provided by financial institutions, including Trust Departments, Corporate Trustees, Retirement Plan Services, Custodians, Registered Investment Advisors, and Broker-Dealer Firms.

When ePIC Services Company was taking shape, founder Carter Wilcoxson recognized Eby’s depth and breadth and the valuable contributions he would bring to its board, revolutionizing the trust process for the modern age. “Carter and his team began building a virtual approach to trust, and estate planning and settlement well before the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the industry’s need for digital solutions,” Eby says. “The world has gone online, and what might have happened by 2030 happened in 2020 instead.”

Eby is in a position to help insurance and financial advisors keep pace with that accelerated timeline. For more than 20 years, he educated financial professionals on the trust industry as a subject matter expert at Cannon Financial Institute, a leading professional development firm helping financial professionals gain advanced skillsets. He even designed and built certifications for the trust industry.

“Trusts are a very noble business because you are taking care of financial assets for people who can’t or won’t do it for themselves,” he says. “The process of settling trusts is paramount to establish ongoing stability in beneficiary care. You must be able to repeat a sequence of events and anticipate the outcomes that a client intended to create.”

He likens the trust process to baking bread. “To bake bread, you have to follow a sequence of steps,” Eby says. Missing a step or doing things out of order would not yield the desired results, he adds. “You have to stabilize the environment before you can grow it to do it again and again, faster and better, and care for the world.”

Applying this philosophy to trusts, understanding the mechanics, the cause and effect, of the trust process—and the sequence of events—is his specialty.

“When you are managing other people’s money, you are a fiduciary,” he explains. “That means that someone else’s money matters to me more than my own. Their success takes precedence. Therefore, the highest level an advisor can attain is to be a Trusted Advisor who clients entrust with giving them advice on issues that are highly personal and extremely sensitive.”

Through trusts, financial assets may be distributed to children and grandchildren for their health, education, and welfare. “A trust may exist for a generation or two before it distributes the assets,” Eby says. “Process and continuity for that duration of time are very, very important.”

Working with advisors and helping them master the trust process is his passion, Eby says. “I like to teach people and help them understand that there is a reason you follow a process to get your clients the best results. By giving advisors the knowledge and confidence to discuss trusts with their clients, many more families will have the opportunity to benefit from this valuable financial instrument.”

“Because when it comes down to it,” Eby says, “the only thing that we have control over is the process, and when we have that right, the results speak for themselves.”

Ciara Lister, Esq.

As a Network Attorney for the eStatePlan portfolio, Ciara believes in three pillars — planning, preparation, and prevention — and understands the importance and complexity of a client’s estate planning needs. Ciara believes in the importance of combining a client’s legal and financial team in one place by utilizing technology and the best resources available. “I want to offer clients the solutions they need.” The resolution was to partner with other planners and experts to create teams that offer clients a comprehensive estate portfolio. “I am pleased to be able to offer comprehensive estate planning solutions.” “What we offer through the eStatePlan portfolio is very different from a classic attorney relationship. The comprehensive portfolio manages the entire process, along with your Attorney and Trusted Advisor, so there are no surprises, and your plan is complete.”

Prior to her Estate Planning career, Ciara worked as a commercial insurance litigation and personal injury attorney. A University of Florida Alumna, she received her juris doctorate, on full scholarship, from Ave Maria School of Law. She is a member of both the Florida and Nevada Bar. Ciara serves on the Board of Directors for Salty Dog Paddle, a nonprofit that benefits rescue dogs in the South Florida area.