Riskalyze co-founder and CTO steps down; Aaron Klein hires a headhunter to replace him and nab a CMO, too

Riskalyze needs a new chief technology officer -- and is down to one co-founder --now that Matt Pistone has departed the firm and now lists Seattle as his home address.

Co-founder and CEO Aaron Klein's LinkedIn account contained a post that the Auburn, Calif., leader in risk software for financial advisors had hire Donna White at August Venture Talent in Los Angeles to hire a new CTO -- and a chief marketing officer for good measure.

Pistone's tenure at Riskalyze goes back to 2011 when -- almost straight out of UC Berkeley -- he and Klein were the firm's only two staff.

Klein is pretty sure he'll hire somebody with more experience for the CTO role, this time around, to oversee 75 technical staff in Poland and Auburn.

'After eleven years, he was ready for his next adventure, and our next CTO will be both the excellent technical leader that Matt was, and an experienced people leader who knows how to build teams at billion-dollar scale," he says. See: Riskalyze replaces Lori Hardwick with Laurie Schultz at board chair and publicly tells her -- and the RIA industry -- it's moved the goalposts to a $1-billion valuation

Pistone is enjoying an exploration phase of life after a long period of focus, he says by email.

"I was just ready for a bit of a change, and I've got a few ideas I want to explore. In the months since departing my full time role I've wandered into a handful of consulting projects here and there, some in fintech and some not, and it's been a lot of fun to see the things incredibly smart people are working on now!"

Engineer's engineer

Pistone's technical prowess was enough to propel Riskalyze to its market leading position but also to execute a big liquidity event for the firm at a $300-million valuation. See: Riskalyze de-risks by cashing out investors at a $300-million-plus valuation to British mega-investor, but Aaron Klein is keeping big skin in the game

Klein declined to say whether Pistone cashed out during the recapitalization with Hg Capital.

"I can't comment on Matt's personal finances — I'll just stick to what I've said previously about mine," Klein wrote.

"It's true that I am the only co-founder still at Riskalyze, and I rolled the majority of my stake into the recapitalized firm in the transaction with our new partners at Hg."

Pistone is an engineer's engineer, according to Iraklis Kourtidis, CEO of Rowboat Advisors, who helped build Wealthfront's investing capabilities and whose firm sells technology to Riskalyze. 

"He is decidedly not a meetings-and-Powerpoint-only type CTO," he says. "When it comes to technology and developers, I consider myself an 'elitist,' and I have to say I was very impressed when I interacted with Matt and his team."

Klein agrees.

Big expectations

Klein is also hiring a CMO because his senior vice president of marketing, Justin Boatman, got promoted to chief product officer.