Savvy Wealth has hired David Weiner as its new chief growth officer. The tech-driven advisor platform is seeking to more than double the number of affiliate registered investment advisors on its network this year.
Weiner will take on the newly established role of leading Savvy’s RIA recruitment efforts just after the firm announced crossing the $1 billion in assets under management milestone earlier this year.
Weiner’s background attracted Savvy founder and CEO Ritik Malhotra partly because of his track record of successfully leading growth initiatives at firms in legacy industries transitioning to digital models, including real estate, electricity and automotive repair.
“We felt that he had a unique angle in both understanding what it takes to be a small-to-medium business owner and what it takes for someone to really transition over (to digital) in a really empathic way,” Malhotra said.
Weiner had previously led sales and go-to-market strategies for firms such as Compass Real Estate, David Energy and Tekmetric, an automotive software company.
Malhotra, whose firm last year raised $26.5 million in Series A funding, said Savvy’s strategy is to lead by continuing to bolster its tech-driven offerings to advisors, which include an AI-powered customer relations manager, digital client onboarding and automated investment management tools.
But as those offerings draw advisors to Savvy’s platform, the firm is also converting them to join as affiliates at growth rates Malhotra estimates will more than double that $1 billion AUM by the end of 2025.
“We are able to scale the support and benefits to existing advisors, but also safely bring on board other advisors as well,” Malhotra said, adding that, more recently, Savvy has been able to add teams of advisors with larger AUM pools.
Andrew Besheer, managing principal of Besheer & Associates, said via email that Savvy hitting the $1 billion milestone and growing to more than 40 advisors indicates that it can continue to scale well.
“The growth hasn’t been over-rapid, but seems like it’s been thoughtful and well managed,” Besheer said.
On Tuesday, Savvy said it added a team with Reno-based RIA Universal Value Advisors. That firm was founded in 1999 by Robert Barone and Joshua Barone and manages more than $300 million in client assets.
According to the announcement, the father-and-son team made the move to Savvy partly for its “proprietary technology platform and its ability to provide a seamless financial planning experience for clients.” The duo had been with Farther before leaving that tech-driven platform provider in 2024.
Additionally, Savvy has hired Jason Craine, who is based in Wichita, Kan., and spent the past decade with Mariner Wealth Advisors and has over $100 million in client assets.
Craine offers high-net-worth families holistic financial planning services across generations and tax-conscious investment strategies.
Last summer, Mariner filed a lawsuit against Savvy, alleging that advisors who had joined from Mariner took confidential customer information with them, resulting in $60 million in losses. That case, Mariner Wealth Advisors, LLC v. Savvy Advisors, Inc. et al., is still pending in court.
Savvy declined to comment on the litigation.
The New York-based firm announced earlier this year that it had quadrupled its AUM and more than tripled its headcount in 2024. But it is also operating in a competitive recruiting landscape in 2025, as echoed by broker/dealer heads on earnings calls last week, including LPL Financial and Stifel Financial Corp.
Consultant Besheer said Savvy has recently been facing competition from several tech and AI-focused challengers, partly due to “so much investment in enhancing platforms with AI.”
He pointed to incumbent platforms such as Orion Advisor Solutions, Envestnet, and Addepar, newcomers such as Munin and work being done by TradePMR, as well as AI advisor aides from Cashmere, Wealthawk, Finny and Anasova. (On Monday, AI-advisor assistant startup Jump announced $20 million in series A funding.)
“I think as these tools and platforms become more AI-enabled, the choices they give to advisors might impact the need/desire to move to an entirely new entity to take advantage of those functionalities,” he said.
Besheer also noted general macro-conditions in 2025 that may make people cautious about moving. “I think this is just generally going to be a challenging year in the space because it’s so hard to predict what the external factors are and how they’ve going to impact RIAs,” he said. “There may be a slight hesitancy to move or change platforms until folks have had a chance to see how these external (economic/political) factors shake out for the industry.”