Triad Partners, a field marketing organization specializing in retirement saving products, including annuities and insurance, has hired a chief technology officer and chief operating officer to further evolve its practice across wealth and insurance.
Lawrence, Kan.-based Triad has hired former Carson Group head of technology Quin Kilgore as CTO. It promoted Jessica Daniels, who was brought on last year as chief human resources officer, to COO. She joined from retirement savings firm Security Benefit.
“We see real value in being able to marry Quin’s background on the wealth side with Jessica’s on the insurance side,” said Brad Johnson, co-founder of Triad Partners, who has a background in training advisors and hosts the podcast “Do Business. Do Life.”
Since its founding in November 2020, Johnson said that Triad has “grown to a level where we have earned the right to build out the C-Suite.”
Triad’s insurance advisors, whom the firm calls “members” to highlight their independence, now approach 70. The firm, which didn’t start leaning into the RIA side of the business until 2023, currently has $460 million in assets under management with 14 advisors and is on a trajectory to reach $1 billion by the end of the year, according to Johnson. Triad has also eclipsed around $1.5 annually in annuity distribution and is approaching $10 million on the target life insurance side.
Kilgore joined after 11 years at Carson, where he led a team that developed proprietary platforms for the firm’s advisor networks. At Triad, he will play a similar role, building the firm’s platform and internal infrastructure and innovating its offerings for members.
Johnson said integrating Triad’s wealth management and insurance services is key to that work.
“Wealth and insurance are really in two different worlds when it comes to compliance, and bringing them together is not intuitive and not easy,” he said. “What we want to do from a technology perspective is to make that convergence seamless and easy so we can serve our advisors at the highest level.”
Kilgore said his role will be to “unify wealth management and insurance technology, creating a seamless, AI-driven platform that makes data more actionable, workflows more intuitive and advisors more efficient,” according to a statement.
Daniels will oversee Triad’s day-to-day operations, focusing on maintaining “high-touch” advisor support as the firm grows its membership base and offerings.
Johnson said Daniels’ experience on the insurance side and earlier stints in wealth management with Capstone Financial Advisors and Edwards Jones give her the background to combine the two needs at Triad.
Johnson, who founded Triad with another advisor coach, Shawn Sparks, said the firm is selective in creating its membership base. Triad is focused on advisors who want to lead firms that deal in insurance and wealth, have a desire to be coached and to learn, and have an interest in maintaining robust personal lives and building their practice.
“We talk to a lot of advisors who say, ‘I’m hitting big numbers, but I’ve also missed a lot of family dinners and a lot of my kid’s ball games,’” Johnson said. “We think that’s bad math …. we don’t believe in sacrificing your life for your business.”
On the technology side, Johnson said he would work with Quinn on developing a system that can focus on the insurance and wealth “convergence,” as the insurance side, in particular, has operated on outdated models.
“Wealth was probably a decade ahead of the tech when you compared it to the insurance counterparts,” Johnson said. “What do the members want? What do their clients want? …. We all have access to everything on our cell phones now and want that full integration in our financial lives. Somebody has got to make that happen.”