Jay Shah, former CEO of Empower Retirement’s Personal Capital, will become the new CEO at Edelman Financial Engines, effective August 18.
Shah will replace Larry Raffone, who has held the position since 2015. Raffone will transition to Edelman’s chairman of the board and will remain a “meaningful shareholder,” the company said in a statement.
The news comes on the heels of another executive change in March, when Neil Gilfedder replaced Edelman’s longtime CIO, Chris Jones.
Raffone has a long history with the company, which is now one of the largest RIAs. He joined Financial Engines nearly two decades ago, was named president in November 2012, and became a board member and CEO in January 2015. (Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman bought Financial Engines in 2018 for $3.02 billion, then merged it with Edelman Financial Services and renamed it Edelman Financial Engines).
“For the past two decades, Larry has been an integral part of the growth and success of the firm, helping us to become the top investment advisory business,” Allen Thorpe, partner at Hellman & Friedman and majority shareholder in Edelman, said in a statement.
Under his leadership, Edelman grew from a small, venture-backed startup to one of the largest independent RIAs, with more than $246 billion in assets under management. The company now serves about 1.3 million clients and employs more than 340 advisors in more than 145 offices.
Shah is no stranger to running large wealth management firms. He joined Personal Capital in 2009 as its chief information officer, then became the firm’s chief operating officer in 2012. In 2017 he became the company’s president, CEO, and a board member, and he remained in those positions when the company was acquired by Empower Retirement in 2020. At the time of the deal, the company was valued at $1 billion.
“I have long admired Edelman Financial Engines, and I see incredible opportunity in pairing the distribution opportunities of the workplace business with the best financial planners in the industry,” Shah said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to join a firm that is committed to always doing the right thing for its clients. And we have an incredible opportunity to deliver world-class, face-to-face, phone-based, and digital financial planning experiences to help more people lead better lives — from their first paycheck through retirement.”
