Rob Pettman, former head of wealth management solutions at LPL Financial, has joined TIFIN, the startup incubator and holding company, as chief revenue officer and president. He will report directly to TIFIN CEO and founder Vinay Nair.
Pettman replaces Jack Swift, who left TIFIN last year, according to published reports. Swift’s LinkedIn profile says he’s now the co-founder and CEO of The Liminal Collective, a community of experts that works with top performers in sports, military, performing arts and business.
WealthManagement.com was first to report on Pettman’s departure from LPL last week.
He had spent 19 years at the nation’s largest independent broker/dealer, overseeing the full spectrum of LPL’s wealth management ecosystem, from investment products and commercial relationships to third-party technology partnerships and integrations.
In his new role, Pettman said he would have purview over the holding company’s four operating divisions and ecosystem, which includes TIFIN Wealth (its B2B technology for wealth management firms), Magnifi (its AI-driven end-consumer technology), TIFIN AI (its AI-specific technology development and collaboration unit), and TIFIN AMP, which is now run as an independent subsidiary.
“One of the things that has driven me throughout my career has been a client-focused outlook, and when I think about the macro trends of where we are, we’re at an inflection point here and what AI can do for the wealth management space,” Pettman said in an interview.
“We are on the cusp of seeing dramatic improvements [across the board]—probably the most significant in decades,” he said.
Pettman said he will work mainly from TIFIN’s small office in Charlotte, N.C., where he lives, but with frequent travel to the company’s headquarters in Boulder, Colo. The company currently has about 250 employees.
Pettman said there was plenty of room for expansion beyond TIFIN's current offerings, including core advisory and wealth.
“There are a number of different areas in wealth management that would benefit from embedding AI—insurance is one—there is a tremendous amount of opportunity there and in other areas,” he said.
Pettman said he had a good idea for the types of firms that would need TIFIN’s technology.
“Those firms that have scale and resources have made progress on determining their own path when it comes to AI, while some have or will decide to build themselves, but others that may have a strategy but not the ability to build in-house and need to figure out a partnership,” he said.
“And even for some of the firms that want to develop it themselves, there are a whole host of scenarios where external expertise can prove very valuable, and TIFIN has a menu of point solutions that can help solve for this,” said Pettman.
Compliance is another area of opportunity.
“Unless you know the rules and how that might affect the business, that can sometimes be a void in fintech,” he said.
In May 2022, TIFIN closed on a $109 million Series D funding round, when Franklin Templeton and Motive Partners joined investors Hamilton Lane, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Morningstar and Broadridge. Most recently, in February, TAMP SEI made its first strategic investment of $10 million in the firm.
According to an LPL spokeswoman, Aneri Jambusaria, managing director of LPL Services Group, will continue to lead the group, while the firm searches for Pettman's replacement.
