Los Angeles-based fintech InvestCloud has appointed Josh Mayer as Chief Operating Officer of APL, the firm’s $3 trillion managed accounts platform. InvestCloud is charging Mayer with driving growth and expansion of the firm’s managed accounts platform APL, which already boasts 10 million accounts and uses 4 million models.
Further, InvestCloud is positioning APL as a tool for advisors to manage public and private investments in the same SMA management ecosystem. The firm is trying to address advisors’ pain points by centralizing private and public investment management in one place.
“It’s taking what we do well and incorporating it from a model-based trading perspective…It fits nicely in what we do already on a very scalable platform,” said Cheryl Nash, president of APL. “With this big trend taking private markets down to retail investors, it’s very easy for us to think of taking APL and adding a new category.”
APL’s private investment capabilities will start with semi-liquid vehicles, like interval and tender-offer funds. In the future, it will also support traditional drawdown funds. On the asset manager side, InvestCloud recently announced alternative asset manager Apollo Global Management as a founding partner in InvestCloud’s Private Markets Account Network and is in the process of adding more managers.
“All of this will be done in bulk versus one-off,” Nash said. “That includes the rebalancing that will take place. We will also be partnered with a processor for sub-docs and e-signatures. We are trying to address a pain point. Advisors at their desktop will be able to see any rebalancing that needs to occur, cash that needs to be held for capital calls and more.”
Mayer most recently served as COO of Envestnet and has more than 25 years of experience building and operating wealthtech platforms. He stepped away from the role last March.
“What attracted me to this opportunity is that APL has been the standard for managed accounts infrastructure at scale and is perfectly positioned to define this next evolution,” Mayer said. “Going from the original SMA infrastructure to private markets is a natural next step. I’m very excited to be part of that and to get to build, design and react to this next round of growth.”
InvestCloud’s PMA Network aims to connect asset managers, wealth managers, intermediaries, distributors and model creators. Within PMA accounts—essentially unified managed accounts that also include private assets—eligible clients can hold, value and rebalance alternative investments. It uses the InvestCloud platform to connect wealth managers to an array of alternative asset managers, making private markets products available for inclusion in portfolios.
InvestCloud is far from the only provider attempting to solve some of the pain points for advisors in managing private investments, but Nash argues that the firm’s current reach gives it a potential leg up.
“We think about APL as the moat,” Nash said. “The core infrastructure supports $3.4 trillion in assets, 10 million accounts and 4 million models and a network connecting asset managers and wealth managers. Think about trying to start from scratch. We have this massive infrastructure, client base, and a system that is scalable. We are leveraging that moat.”
InvestCloud is currently signing up what it’s calling “design partners” as first adopters of its new tech. It will work with those clients to test the current capabilities and to roll out rebalancing and other system enhancements over the summer.
Prior to serving as COO, Mayer served in various roles at Envestnet, including stints as executive vice president and director of operations, senior vice president and head of operations. He also served as director of operations for Oberon Financial Technology, which Envestnet acquired in 2004.
Mayer’s hiring is the latest in a string of moves as InvestCloud sets out to implement a strategic direction it sketched out about six months ago when it also updated its corporate logo and website and introduced a tagline: Wealth Connected.
That new tagline points to a world where personalization, or hyper-personalization, are the expectations of clients and one where “human-centered design that can enhance the level of that relationship” will be needed, Jeff Yabuki, chairman and CEO of InvestCloud, told WealthManagement.com at the time.
Yabuki was appointed chairman and CEO of InvestCloud in January 2024. He had previously served as chairman of Motive Partners and is a founding partner of the firm.
Also in October, Nash returned to the role of president of APL at Investcloud. She had previously served this function as president of investment services at Fiserv from late 2011 until 2020, when private equity firm Motive Partners took a majority stake in the business and then its ultimate move to the InvestCloud brand. Nash also served as InvestCloud’s chief customer executive for about 18 months.