Edelman Financial Engines, the registered investment advisor and managed accounts provider with more than $300 billion in assets under management, has made several changes to its leadership team across its corporate and wealth planning organizations.
That includes naming Steve Gaven as chief financial officer, effective June 1. Gaven replaces Suzanne van Staveren, who left the firm earlier this year to join an insurance brokerage.
Gaven joins EFE’s executive team from SageView Advisory, a retirement plan-focused RIA acquired by Creative Planning late last year, where he was chief growth officer.
The firm has also restructured its wealth planning leadership around three key areas on the wealth side of the business, said Ralph Haberli, president and CEO of EFE. That includes enabling planner success at the firm, attracting more planners to EFE, and taking on the next big transformational initiatives.
The RIA has hired Ro Mehrotra to take on that first pillar as senior vice president of wealth client. Mehrotra joins from First Citizens Bank, where he was head of client experience and senior vice president of the wealth planning group. At EFE, he will oversee the firm’s wealth planning organization.
Jason Karmelek, the former vice president and head of recruitment strategy at Commonwealth Financial Network, will handle that second pillar, joining as senior vice president and head of planner growth. In that role, he’ll focus on attracting, developing and supporting advisors.
Amin Dabit, a senior vice president of wealth planning at EFE, will oversee the new initiatives, shifting into the role of senior vice president of wealth strategy. That position includes oversight of planner support infrastructure, planning capabilities and the integration of technology and artificial intelligence into the client relationship. One of those new initiatives will be helping planners develop teaming structures, Haberli said.
“[These roles] allow us to put a higher degree of focus on the most important parts of the business,” Haberli said. “They’re capabilities and functions that we’ve had, but just not at this level of seniority and leadership. It allows us to right-size the leadership horsepower we have against the task ahead, allowing our leaders to go a bit narrower and deeper on specific outcomes that matter to clients and to planners.”
This follows news in March that EFE expanded its employee equity ownership with a $175 million equity distribution to the firm’s financial planners. The firm also announced plans to introduce a discretionary co-investment option for all planners later this year.
