People & Company News, Week of August 14, 2026

Northleaf Capital Partners, a private markets investment firm, has made several key executive leadership appointments. Michelle Joliat, Nadim Vasanji, and Jeff Lucassen have been appointed as COO, CFO, and vice chair of Finance and Operations, respectively. Joliat will lead firm-wide operations, including investor operations, technology and data, risk management, and corporate operations. She will also become a member of the firm’s Executive Committee as of August 31. Vasanji will continue to lead the firm’s Corporate Development and Strategic Distribution units. In addition to his CFO duties, Vasanji has also been named head of Corporate Development as of October 1. In the newly created position, Lucassen will advise and mentor the firm’s Finance and Operations leaders. Lucassen initially joined Northleaf in 2017 as CFO & COO, where he played a significant role in expanding the firm’s finance, fund operations, risk management, capital markets, and technology capabilities. Lucassen will also assume his new role on October 1.

Anthony Folino III has been named senior advisor at Cendry Capital, a private equity firm. Folino will be responsible for building the firm’s financial, operational, and reporting infrastructure. At Cendry, Folino will advise on the design and buildout of the firm’s financial, operational, compliance, and reporting infrastructure — including fund accounting and administration, investor reporting, valuation policy, audit and tax relationships, treasury management, and back-office technology. Folino served as CFO of Newtown Square, PA-based private equity firm Graham Partners, for over two decades and focused on industrial technology and advanced manufacturing.

Focus Financial has added Winchester, VA-based Employee Benefits Administration, and owner Gayle Canini will continue to serve clients. Financial advisor Jennifer McDonald has also joined the Winchester office.

Peter Lenardos has been tapped as CFO at Energea, a renewable energy operating firm. Lenardos will lead financial strategy across Energea’s platform, investment portfolios, and operating entities, and will be responsible for corporate finance, accounting, tax compliance, financial reporting, controls, and capital markets initiatives. Before joining Energea, Lenardos most recently served as head of Investor Relations at Clear Street, a cloud-native capital markets platform.

Financial advisor Mitchell Edenbaum recently joined the branch channel of Ameriprise Financial. He was previously affiliated with Oppenheimer & Co., where he managed more than $145M in client assets. Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Edenbaum is supported locally by Ameriprise branch manager Drew Granauro, Ameriprise complex director Dan Landrau, and Ameriprise regional VP Mike Rearden.

FMG Suite, a marketing and growth platform, has made four additions to its senior team. Christian Short has joined as SVP of AI Strategy & Operations; Nathan Worthington as SVP of Customer Success; and Kevin Jurick and Jeremy Kowalski as strategic enterprise account executives. Short will be reporting to FMG’s CEO Dave Christensen. Prior to joining FMG, Short served as senior director at EY-Parthenon. Worthington will lead FMG’s customer success organization across SMB and enterprise segments and will be responsible for helping clients deepen their adoption across the platform and expand their long-term growth with FMG. Prior to joining FMG, Worthington most recently served as a managing director at Institutional Shareholder Services. Jurick will be focused on broker-dealers, RIAs, wirehouses, insurance organizations, and asset managers. Prior to FMG, Jurick most recently served as managing director and head of Strategic Accounts at Institutional Shareholder Services. Before joining FMG, Kowalski served as a strategic account director at Salesforce.

Bluerock, an alternative asset manager, has appointed three senior divisional leaders as senior regional VPs at Bluerock Capital Markets. Midquel “Mick” McClendon will lead Bluerock’s coverage of the Southeast and Atlantic West regions; Jeff Spah will lead the Mountain Desert region and serve as the firm’s head of Internal Sales; and Jeff Waszak will lead the Midwest region.

Financial advisor Kathryn McGough has joined Kestra Private Wealth Services in partnership with Pennsylvania-based Kindred Wealth Partners, a wealth management firm affiliated with Kestra PWS. McGough, who previously managed about $240M in client assets, specializes in estate planning for multigenerational, high-net-worth families, helping clients navigate sophisticated wealth-transfer strategies and state and federal estate-tax considerations.

Brenda Cline, Mark Gerber, and Brian Taylor have been named advisors at Lovell Minnick, a private equity firm. The three advisors have joined the firm’s Value Creation team. As an Advisor on Lovell Minnick’s Value Creation Team, Cline will be responsible for evaluating healthcare investment opportunities and working with portfolio company leadership teams. Gerber will work with the firm and its portfolio companies on risk management, regulatory strategy, compliance, and governance initiatives. Taylor will work with the firm and its portfolio companies on sales growth acceleration, commercial transformation, talent assessment, and sales organization development.

TransFi, a payments infrastructure provider, has launched JARVIS, a proprietary AI-powered compliance intelligence platform that consolidates customer and transaction data from its internal systems and third-party providers into a single, risk-based profile. The platform supports the company’s Compliance, Risk, and Operations teams.

Oxane Partners, a technology-based private credit solutions provider, has received a growth investment from TA Associates, a private equity firm. The undisclosed investment will support Oxane’s technology, its expansion of AI capabilities, and investment in talent and leadership. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Community Financial System has launched New Hampshire Shores Trust. New Hampshire Shores Trust helps financial advisors, RIAs, independent and hybrid firms, estate planning attorneys, and family offices serve clients’ trust and estate planning. The new office is in Manchester, New Hampshire, and is led by director of Personal Trust Services Sean Houghton. Prior to joining New Hampshire Shores Trust, he most recently served as VP and regional manager at Nottingham Trust.

Astraeus, a wealthtech platform, has launched its AI-powered infrastructure platform, which is designed to provide investment advisory firms with artificial intelligence to support the creation of their AI-native financial businesses. The platform targets advisory firms, wealth technology platforms, private equity firms, and consulting firms.

SEI has partnered with San Francisco-based Zocks, an AI platform, to expand its advisor services and help firms reduce administrative conditions and strengthen client engagement. Zocks helps automate meeting preparation, notes, CRM and planning updates, client onboarding, forms, and client intelligence workflows.

WealthReach, an AI-powered growth platform, has acquired AdvisorRankings, a specialized search engine optimization and artificial intelligence search optimization agency. AdvisorRankings, founded in 2010, is led by founder Brent Carnduff. Following the acquisition, AdvisorRankings will continue operating as a separate brand under the WealthReach brand, with Carnduff leading business development and contributing to WealthReach’s SEO and AI search product.

VSS Capital Partners, a middle-market private investment firm, has made an undisclosed investment in Los Angeles-based Cordoba, an engineering, construction, and program management firm. The investment will go towards expanding the firm’s infrastructure services across the Pacific Coast region. Additionally, the investment boosts Cordoba’s resources to pursue growth opportunities, talent, hiring targets, acquisitions, and expansion initiatives. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.

Mercer Advisors has rolled out the second generation of Aspen, its proprietary AI-enabled platform. Aspen 2.0 is designed to address challenges with fragmented data and technology. Aspen has been integrated across prominent technology providers, including Orion, Box, eMoney, Estately by FreeWill, Pontera, Salentica, Salesforce, Zoom, and Microsoft—as well as multi-custody integrations with Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, Raymond James Financial, and Goldman Sachs.

Fieldguide, an AI-backed advisory and audit provider, has launched two new platform capabilities: Field Financials and Fieldguide MCP. Field Financials is a Field Agent for financial audit engagement teams that replaces the reports and spreadsheets that are required to prepare financials. Field Financials includes three agents: a Drafting Agent that produces a first draft by referencing the prior-year report and linking it to current-year trial balance data; a Review & Tie-Out Agent that flags stale overrides whenever adjustments are made to underlying trial balance data; and a Disclosure Agent that populates schedule-driven disclosures. Fieldguide MCP feeds live engagement data directly into the AI tools, including Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, alongside connectors for platforms such as Slack, Google Drive, and the Microsoft suite. Built on Model Context Protocol, Fieldguide MCP has been rolling out to Fieldguide customers since July. Fieldguide also plans to roll out Field Planner and Field Reviewer later this year.

Houston-based Mariana Minerals, a digitally powered critical minerals and energy company, has raised $310M for its Series B funding round, led by Khosla Ventures, with continued support from Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and new participation from Greenoaks, Halo Fund, Pax Ventures, StepStone Group, BHP Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, Greycroft, General Innovation Capital Partners, Mitsubishi Corporation, In-Q-Tel, and Earthshot Ventures. The capital will go towards funding the expansion of its portfolio of critical minerals projects and further deployment of its software platform, MarianaOS. The funding also accelerates the company’s goal of developing 10 commercial-scale projects in 10 years and further supports the company’s active project portfolio, including its flagship sites, Copper One in Southeastern Utah and Lithium One in East Texas.

ApartmentIQ, a multifamily data platform, has secured a $25M follow-on investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity, a private equity and venture capital firm, as ApartmentIQ expands its AI-powered product portfolio. Susquehanna previously led ApartmentIQ’s $22.5M Series B funding round in 2021.

Toronto-based Polar Asset Management, an alternative asset manager, has raised $215M in the closing round for Polar CRS Fund-II, a Significant Risk Transfer investment vehicle. The funding will go towards supporting financial institutions in achieving regulatory capital efficiency, while offering investors exposure to a variety of risk-adjusted returns.

CVC Credit has priced its fourth CLO at $5500M. The CLO, Apidos LVIII, marks CVC Credit’s third U.S. CLO and its fourth new issue internationally for the year. The CLO has a five-year reinvestment period and a two-year non-call period. Bank of America served as the lead arranger for the vehicle.

Point2 Technology, an AI-powered interconnect solutions developer, has completed its Series B funding round, which now brings the total capital to $136M. The round was led by LB Investment, with new participation from Arm and continued support from existing investors, including Maverick Silicon. Point2 will use the funding to bolster its engineering, systems, operations, and business teams to accelerate the commercialization of its Active RF Cable, near‑packaged e-Tube, and co‑packaged e‑Tube solutions for future rack‑scale compute systems.

Los Angeles-based Kingswood Capital Management, a middle-market investment firm, has raised $31.B in the closing round for its Kingswood Capital Opportunities Fund IV. The firm also raised $900M in capital for its Kingswood Capital Opportunities Small Cap Fund I. Fund IV exceeded its targeted goal of $2.25B, while Small Cap Fund I exceeded its goal of $550M. These funds doubled Kingswood’s total assets under management to over $7B.