People Moves Related to "What exactly the CEOs of HighTower, Focus Financial and Dynasty Financial revealed when they shared a stage in Las Vegas"
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Dynasty Financial makes 'critical' hire as it prepares nationwide quick-strike forces to make its 55 RIA clients tuck-in magnets for a 'not obvious' growth opportunity
Sep 23, 2025The St. Petersburg, Fla., RIA support platform gets Kevin Monaco in Los Angeles as puzzle piece ahead of flooding the time zome with people across discipline spectrum that can close breakaways to join RIAs
Tim Oden departed Schwab after 37 years and was flooded with industry offers, but Shirl Penney made one he couldn't refuse -- a seat at the table
Feb 22, 2024The RIA sales wizard joined Dynasty Financial Partners with understanding he would leave sales behind and earn his keep by focusing on strategic ideas.
Joe Duran's second RIA act is rocking with eight staff, four co-founders and a conspicuously anti-United Capital concept that will flip RIA stakes 'eventually' as a minority investor
Nov 29, 2023The United Capital founder paradoxically promises to 'passively' buy minority stakes as a backdrop for going hyper-active with quick-strike capability to apply super-consulting and technology to create explosive growth as a prelude to a sale.
Joe Duran will co-develop Goldman Sachs unit aimed at outsourcing to non-Goldman RIAs after 'magic' never materialized for direct-to-consumer RIA
Feb 8, 2023The Newport Beach, Calif. RIA legend plans to shift from B2C to B2B to fix Goldman's disconnect with RIAs and play to the strengths for him and the bank
With RIA valuations ticking down and successions ticking up, Focus Financial deep sixes 'drunken sailor' pause, forgoes buyback plan and adds a CEO
Aug 13, 2022CEO Rudy Adolf sees a 'softening' in multiples after a couple of frothy years when CI Financial dominated headlines and big RIA deals
Marc Spilker adds Matt Brinker as chess piece -- and partner -- in what he calls a 'very selective' talent add to build platform-for-RIA platforms outside Wall Street
Jan 15, 2020Merchant Investment Management's executive chairman wants good people good at their job and Brinker likes having a breakaway Goldman partner rather than one captive to the Wall Street giant.
Goldman Sachs & Co. appoints Rachel Schnoll to yank off United Capital band-aid that Joe Duran didn't -- making FinLife work with non-UC applications
Nov 8, 2019The New York-based investment bank has the cash and people to do the combinations -- especially Goldman software -- that the roll-up's founder couldn't afford or didn't want to advantage
Goldman Sachs closes United Capital deal and Matt Brinker, Joe Duran's wingman, exits with social media swan song on same day
Jul 18, 2019The M&A chief's departure from the Newport Beach, Calif. roll-up may signal that its rolling-up days are over
Adam Birenbaum assumes the CEO hotseat at Focus Financial, becoming third chief executive in three years as Michael Nathanson steps down in 'plan' he 'designed'
Dec 13, 2025The 47 year-old St. Louis phenom takes over from the 58 year-old ex-Colony CEO but with the same steep challenge of making 70 autonomous RIA units work more collaboratively, while adding more RIAs.
Dynasty makes 24-year ex-Schwabbie its advisor and buys a stake in his startup -- a stock plan services play that connects to $129-billion OpenArc poach
Oct 28, 2025The St. Petersburg RIA platform paid an undisclosed amount for a piece of an AI-powered equity compensation platform and hints strongly about a bigger 'stock plan' play it has already staked its future on
The upper RIA echelon mass-exit is now at 25 execs and counting -- for 25 'reasons' -- but it's hardly a coincidence, analysts say
Jun 7, 2024Burnout and EBITDA weigh on CEO-types as never-ending exits claim Ron Carson, Aaron Klein, Bernie Clark, Rudy Adolf, Bill Crager and Tim Buckley.
Adam Birenbaum's calls 'Colony' deal -- to create $100-billion super-RIA -- a 'mandate,' but it's also likely a 'prelude' to larger strategic objective, M&A expert says
May 7, 2024The 46-year-old CEO of Buckingham Wealth's 'long game' approach keeps paying dividends; it comes down to his approach to relationships
Michael Nathanson's new post as Focus CEO could create an 'apparent conflict' with his duties at Colony Group, which is snapping up billions in Focus RIA assets -- but 'partners' now have one of theirs in the power seat
May 1, 2024The CEO of Colony, the $22-billion Boston RIA, is buying $10.4-billion GW & Wade from Focus, making him buyer and seller, as he takes the reins as first permanent Focus CEO since Rudy Adolf.
Focus Financial makes 'abrupt' CEO call, lets Rudy Adolf go into 'retirement,' with 'no solution in place;' the eighth RIA chief executive unseated since June as VCs move in -- where is the EBITDA?
Oct 24, 2023Clayton, Dubilier & Rice closed on its $7-billion purchase of the roll-up on Aug. 31 -- with no hint that its parting of the ways with legendary 60-year-old founder was in the offing.
Goldman Sachs-Creative Planning deal is bleeding defectors -- 16 more last week, report says -- auguring a 'potential disaster,' analysts warn
Oct 4, 2023Dozens of former 'United Capital' advisors are fleeing at once, but Peter Mallouk is still battling to keep them, and Goldman Sachs may play legal hardball, sources say.
Shirl Penney hands over 'front end of the house' to Andrew Marsh as Dynasty reboots -- post-$100-million raise, post-IPO withdrawal and post-Schwab partnering
Sep 21, 2023The Dynasty CEO is handing over sales, custody relations, breakaways and M&A sales to the un-retired Canadian -- and wildly promoting from within.
Elliot S. Weissbluth, Hightower Advisors mastermind, cashes out and vacates chairman role as Pershing's ex-CEO Lisa Dolly takes a board seat
Feb 19, 2021The Chicago rollup's founder got paid better by doing the second-stage exit and the new cast on the Board also includes Bob Oros ascending to chair and Darrell Horn of Green Square Wealth Management joining
Looking past Covid-19 pandemic, Louisiana RIA buys $1-million building after hitting $1 billion in AUM and hiring the town's mayor
Dec 17, 2020Summit Financial Wealth Advisors was sold to Focus Financial in 2014, growing its assets by $400 million since then but keeping staffing about the same
Executive shake-up and staff hiring binge change Dynasty Financial Partners' talent mix, with Todd Thomson, Scott Welch, Ed Friedman and 12 women as headliners
Sep 24, 2019The St. Petersburg-based producer of 'synthetic RIA scale' will continue to aggressively hire and adjust its talent ranks as it readies for next growth push.
A 20-year Merrill Lynch veteran got Sanctuary Wealth to $10 billion in AUA in 15 months with no outside capital and no time in bed: 'Nobody's slept since April'
Aug 15, 2019Jim Dickson also recruited HighTower talent, Amit Dogra, to bring the old HighTower brokerage model and execute it as HighTower veers toward buying RIAs
New-look Hightower hires Abby Salameh and takes a 'Hurley-style' stake in a $4.8 billion DFA RIA
May 3, 2019The Chicago roll-up gets a chief marketing officer who gets RIAs as it becomes part-Dynasty, part- Fiduciary Network in adopting a very 2019 deal structure for LourdMurray
As Bob Oros-led HighTower reboots, it bags an ex-Goldman RIA, hires two, makes a CMO imminent, and clarifies mission
Mar 20, 2019The new CEO will need to somehow weave together the debris of the first roll-up run and the new one to the satisfaction of RIAs and the hundreds of people already inside the HighTower umbrella
Bob Oros starts his CEO life at HighTower Advisors with a town hall meeting and clear authority
Jan 8, 2019The former Fidelity RIA chief now runs his formerly largest RIA client, from Chicago, and with Elliot Weissbluth as chairman, 'inorganic' asset and 'evangelist'
HighTower gets a new CEO, to be revealed later, as Elliot Weissbluth moves upstairs
Sep 13, 2018Elliot Weissbluth's move upstairs ends an era, as Thomas H. Lee's reign begins in earnest, and Mark Cabezas comes in as M&A head.