Mercer Advisors has hired its first-ever chief technology and digital officer as the RIA looks to expand its technology and digital platform efforts.
Mercer Advisors has tapped Christine Cataldo, Edelman Financial Services’ former chief operations and technology officer, for the position. In her new role, Cataldo will oversee plans to digitize Mercer’s workflows and improve the technology the RIA provides advisors. She also wants to establish a proprietary client portal that integrates all aspects of financial, tax and estate planning.
It was a time for a change, says Cataldo, who spent more than 17 years with Edelman, and a smaller firm like Mercer provides an opportunity to make more of an impact.
Along with Cataldo’s hiring, Mercer has made several other changes to its executive leadership.
The firm hired Gary Foodim, a former Conde Nast executive, as its new chief marketing officer and internally promoted Karen Lee to chief marketing and strategy officer; Nick Semko to managing director of M&A; Brian Picariello to new managing director for the northeast region; and Scott Kays to managing director for the southeast region.
The firm has grown quickly through recent acquisitions, and Cataldo says the executive leadership changes prepare the company for its next growth push.
“We ask that anybody that we acquire comes on to all of our platforms and our systems, that they integrate fully with Mercer. That needs to be a very seamless process,” she says. “Mercer’s got a great process now, but the number of acquisitions are speeding up, so we need to make sure that it's scalable.”
Since the start of the year, the firm has acquired nine other wealth management firms. Its
Financial services are generally slower to adopt certain technologies, says Cataldo.
“Things are moving a little bit quicker, and there's a lot of great systems, but what's missing is bringing it all together so that it's very easy for an advisor to see everything about the client when they call,” she says. “And the same thing for the client. They want to log on 24/7. They want to see everything that is part of their relationship with their advisor. Right now, the industry has just bits and pieces.”
The addition of a CTO by a firm like Mercer is indicative of the continued evolution and maturation of the RIA marketplace and the rising competition for professional management talent among enterprise RIAs, says Marina Shtyrkov, associate director for research and consulting firm Cerulli.
Over the past five to 10 years, consolidators like Mercer have been influential in the growth of the RIA landscape and have become more common, fueled in part by independent advisors struggling to select, maintain and integrate a technology stack. Among independent RIAs, 81% consider it a challenge to operate their business, according to Shtyrkov.
A primary advantage of joining an RIA consolidator is that it can offer RIAs a centralized platform with an integrated technology stack that’s vetted and maintained by them, not the advisors. The addition of a CTO further enhances the firm’s ability to deliver this value proposition to advisors, she says.
