When Marwa Zakharia took over as CEO of AssetBook in 2020, she was tasked with turning around the performance reporting technology company and finding a potential buyer. She says that work is done, and has confirmed she has left the company.
“When I took the helm at AssetBook, my mission was clear: make it a company poised for acquisition and establish a solid market presence within five years. I set that vision, executed the strategy and delivered the results,” she said.
Zakharia said she’s had several conversations with wealth management executives and is in advanced talks with an RIA in “aggressive growth mode” to become chief executive. She declined to name the firm.
She started her tenure with AssetBook as a consultant in 2017, then joined as head of operations before moving into the CEO role in 2020. During her time at AssetBook, the firm’s flagship portfolio management and reporting platform, Pulse, was rebuilt and migrated to a fully cloud-based system running on Microsoft Azure.
Under her guidance, the company launched Valian, its client engagement application, in 2022. Valian’s SEC-compliant chat feature can facilitate live, in-app conversations between advisors and clients. It also includes a texting feature to ensure text communications are documented and recorded for compliance purposes.
These initiatives improved user engagement by 35%, she said.
Before AssetBook, Zakharia drove turnaround strategies for several companies across media, wealth management and software, resulting in over $5 billion in company exits, she said. That included Smart Media Agency, ACG-ITF and NextMove. She has served as CEO of MZ Global Consulting and held senior leadership roles at Hexion, a chemicals company, First Data Corporation and Wilmington Trust.