People & Company News, Week of July 10, 2026
- Bridget McGregor has been appointed as CFO of Boston Financial. McGregor will be responsible for leading financial strategy, accounting, and reporting operations. McGregor has served as Deputy CFO at the firm since 2023. Prior to joining Boston Financial, she served as chief accounting officer at GID Investment Advisers.
- Kevin Shields, chairman and co-chief executive of Griffin Capital Company, has been named the 2026 Spirit of Life Honoree by City of Hope’s Los Angeles Real Estate and Construction Industries group. The honor recognizes leaders who have made significant contributions to City of Hope’s cancer research and patient care mission. The Los Angeles real estate and construction industries have partnered with City of Hope for 30 years.
- Jennifer Ayer has been named managing director of Purpose-Driven Wealth at Caprock. In the newly created role, Ayer will be responsible for advising the firm’s ultra-high-net-worth families, foundations and investors on investing, portfolio construction, philanthropy, gender-lens investing and generational wealth transitions. Prior to joining Caprock, Ayer co-led the impact investing strategy at AlTi Tiedemann Global.
- Michael Welch has been tapped as head of Investor Relations and Capital Formation at Ballast Rock Asset Management, an alternative investment manager. In the newly created role, Welch will lead the firm’s investor relations strategy and capital formation efforts across accredited individual investors, RIAs, family offices, and institutional investors. Prior to joining Ballast Rock, Welch spent over a decade at PPM America, where he most recently served as senior managing director and head of Relationship Management and Investor Relations. Welch has also held senior roles at Oppenheimer & Co., Lehman Brothers and Core Capital Management.
- Financial advisor Ronald White has joined LPL Financial to launch his independent practice, El Paso, TX-based NorthStar Wealth Advisors, with support from LPL’s affiliated firm Good Life Companies. NorthStar Wealth Advisors provides wealth management services to high-net-worth clients, including retirees, pre-retirees, business owners, and multigenerational families. White is also joined by wealth advisor Scott Draime. Prior to joining LPL, White was affiliated with Raymond James, where he and his team managed about $160M in advisory, brokerage and retirement plan assets.
- Chris Aiken has been appointed as head of Real Estate Equity Strategies at MetLife Investment Management, the asset management arm of MetLife. Aiken will lead MIM’s direct property investment platform and oversee investing activities on behalf of MetLife’s general account and third-party institutional investors. Aiken will report to Andrea Drasites, global head of Real Estate and Agricultural Finance. Prior to assuming his role, Aiken served as head of Acquisitions for MIM’s Real Estate Equity Strategies Group.
- Ken Beck has been tapped as SVP of the Four Corners region at ExchangeRight. Beck will serve financial advisors and representatives across Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Additionally, he will focus on deepening relationships and equipping advisors with access to ExchangeRight’s 1031 and 721 exchange DSTs, the Essential Income REIT, and Preferred Equity Funds.
- Financial advisor Wayne McCormick has joined Linsco, LPL Financial’s W-2 channel, with his firm, Manchester, NH-based McCormick Private Wealth. Prior to joining LPL, McCormick was affiliated with Steward Partners, where he managed about $340M in advisory, brokerage, and retirement plan assets. McCormick Private Wealth also includes Michelle Lauder and Bo Denniston. The team joined LPL because of its “combination of independence,” technology and institutional support.
- Austen Karr has joined Kestra Financial as a business development consultant and promoted Jack Roller to vice president of business development. Before joining Kestra Financial, Karr served as VP at Raymond James. Roller joined Kestra in 2022 as a financial planning analyst and has advanced through several roles on the business development team, most recently serving as senior business development consultant.
- John D’Amico has joined Piper Sandler as a managing director in the firm’s restructuring group. D’Amico will be focusing on advising a broad range of clients in complex restructurings and special situation transactions. Prior to joining Piper Sandler, D’Amico was a senior member of the restructuring groups of Miller Buckfire and Jefferies.
- Financial advisor Brent Holcombe has launched Albany, NH-based Chocorua Wealth Management, a wealth management firm that provides “personalized” financial planning and investment management to high-net-worth clients. Chocorua Wealth Management joined Osaic Wealth through its office of supervisory jurisdiction, Innovative Financial Group, and will gain access to the firm’s broader suite of tools, including technology, investment resources, operational support and compliance infrastructure.
- Dan Marquis has been appointed as CFO of RIA Lido Advisors. Marquis will oversee all financial operations and planning and partner with senior leadership and the board on capital strategy. Before joining Lido Advisors, Marquis served as managing director of FP&A and Capital Markets at Carson Group. Marquis was also the founder of Omaha, NE-based Metronome Financial, a portfolio company.
- IRACE Digital, a banking platform, has launched its Board of Advisors and has appointed seven inaugural members. The Board of Advisors will provide strategic counsel as IRACE continues to expand its platform. The members of the IRACE Board of Advisors include CEO John Cronin, IRACE’s executive chair Derek Delaney, veteran banking executive Fred Jacobs, DMS Governance’s founder Don Seymour, DataOp and ComOp’s co-founders Paul Cahill and Glen Magee, Coinbase’s John D’Agostino, and chair and CEO of IRACE Europe Colm O’Driscoll.
- Keith Soura has been named CTO of Arch, an AI-backed private markets platform. Soura will oversee the end-to-end development of Arch’s platform, spanning architecture, engineering, and product delivery for banks, investment advisors, accounting firms, family offices, and institutional allocators. Prior to joining Arch, Soura previously served as head of Engineering, Product, & Design at Better, a fintech platform. Arch manages over $460B in private assets across 575 leading allocators.
- Nathaniel Donohue has been named managing director of Leveraged Finance at Cantor Fitzgerald. Donohue is based at the firm’s office in New York. Prior to joining Cantor, Donohue served as the director of Leveraged Finance at Citigroup.
- Financial advisor David Bellamy has joined Prudential Advisors, the wealth management arm of Prudential Financial. Bellamy has joined Prudential Advisors through the firm’s Mid America Financial Group and will be based in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to joining Prudential Advisors, Bellamy was an advisor at JP Moran Wealth Management, where he oversaw more than $140M in total client assets.
- SEI has expanded its transfer agency solutions with the launch of SEI Transfer Agency and Registry Services. The unit provides support for a broader range of fund structures. The SEC-backed transfer agency supports U.S.-based asset managers. The agency will also leverage technology from Envision Financial Systems, an investor accounting platform provider. Through Envision’s technology platform, SEI will gain access to investor recordkeeping and accounting, business process automation, dealer support services, and investor statements, transaction confirmations, and tax form reporting.
- Simplicity Group Holdings, a financial products distribution firm, has acquired Chicago-based Benefit Planning, an insurance agency. BPI assists clients with estate and legacy planning, retirement planning, wealth management, and group and executive benefits needs. Following the acquisition, founder Bob Muzikowski will join Simplicity as a partner.
- Vestmark has opened its newest AI data center in Boston, which is named the Vestmark Center for AI Research and Development. The center, known as the CARD, aims to develop AI-enabled and software solutions for wealth management. Also, the center is designed to support Vestmark’s expanding advanced R&D team, recruiting “specialized” technology talent, and accelerating the firm’s development of capabilities across portfolio management, trading, tax optimization, and advisor workflows.
- TaxStatus, an IRS-sourced financial data provider, has rolled out its newest AI-free tool, Planning Observations. The new capability identifies opportunities and advice gaps based on clients’ tax records. The tool also collects IRS data and information and flags the items that require dedicated attention from their advisory team. The capability provides financial advice opportunities and gaps across six advisory areas, including financial planning, investment management, tax planning, estate planning, insurance, and banking and lending.
- CohnReznick, an advisory and tax firm, has acquired Houston-based Ham, Langston, & Brezina. As part of the acquisition, HL&B’s team of 87 employees and 12 partners has joined CohnReznick. Additionally, with the acquisition, CohnReznick has expanded its presence in Texas with offices in Dallas, Austin, and a team in Houston.
- InPlay Global, a sports performance trading platform, has partnered with tZERO Group, a blockchain-based financial infrastructure provider. As part of the partnership, InPlay is actively developing the Sports Performance Securities, an equity-based tool, which combines InPlay’s market model with tZERO’s regulated digital securities infrastructure. The partnership comes as InPlay aims to launch the InPlay Trading Challenge, a free-to-enter national competition in collaboration with 15 colleges and universities.
- GLM III and its affiliated investment manager GoldenTree Asset Management, have closed $726M for its GoldenTree Loan Management US CLO 30, which will be managed by GLM III. GLM US CLO 30 will be backed by a 98% ramped $710M portfolio of primarily senior-secured loans and will have a five-year reinvestment period and a two-year non-call period. The CLO was arranged by a bank syndicate including BofA Securities as structuring lead, and Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo Securities as co-leads. Following the closing of the CLO, GoldenTree has issued 39 CLOs totaling nearly $22B under its GLM CLO strategy, which launched in January 2017.
- BetaNXT, a wealth management technology provider, has partnered with CAIS, an alternative investment platform, to deliver “end-to-end” workflows across the alternative investment lifecycle. By integrating CAIS’s alternative asset platform, BetaNXT, and CAIS will be able to streamline transaction processing, custody data integration, and reporting for financial advisors.
- MSCI, an equity and fixed income provider, has acquired First Street, a physics-based climate risk data and analytics provider. Through the acquisition, MSCI will be able to enhance its international physical climate risk capabilities, as climate-related physical risks accelerate. The transaction consideration includes a cash payment of $120M upon closing of the acquisition, with the potential for additional cash payments during the first two years after the completion of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.
- Pacific Life & Annuity Company has entered the registered index-linked annuity market in New York with the launch of Pacific Protective Growth NY. The product tracks four indexes, each covering a distinct market segment, and offers several crediting strategies — including the Tiered Participation Rate with Cap Rate strategy, which applies two participation rates across two tier levels, functioning as a performance multiplier tied to index returns. The second, a Performance Mix strategy, blends a weighted average of select indexes subject to a cap rate, with an option that automatically overweights the best-performing index over the trailing six years.
- Pie, an AI-powered startup, has raised $19.5M for its Series A funding round, which was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round included participation from Capital One Ventures, Max Levchin’s SciFi VC, F-Prime, Commerce Ventures, and WEX Venture Capital. The Series A funding has boosted the firm’s total funding to $23.7M. The capital will go toward scaling Pie’s growth platform distribution model, deepening its product suite and growing its team. Additionally, the startup has also launched its latest AI tool, dubbed the Front Desk, which caters to small business owners and helps with recordkeeping, bookings and reservations, and responds to customer inquiries.
