TradePMR, a custodial platform serving registered investment advisors, has poached four technology executives from competing custodians, as the company doubles down on third-party integrations and improves the user experience within its Fusion technology platform.
The company has hired Marcel Tsai, a former senior director of advisory at Apex Fintech Solutions, as director of vendor integrations. Tsai was also one of WealthManagement.com’s Ten to Watch in 2023. Rob Deguzman, a former vice president of platform integrations at Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions, joins as senior technical product manager.
“We have a comprehensive custodial platform that includes advanced trading, model rebalancing and a fee calculator,” said R. Scott Victoria, chief operating officer at TradePMR. “What some do not realize is that we play very nicely with others already. This is further doubling down on that.”
Tsai will be the external face of that integrations strategy, while Deguzman will be the internal part of that, from a technical product aspect, Victoria said.
On the user experience side, TradePMR has hired Laura Villanueva, a former senior UX team manager for Schwab Advisor Services, as senior UX product designer. Matt Feigenbaum, a former director at Schwab, joins as senior quality assurance manager. Villanueva will be responsible for taking TradePMR’s Fusion platform to the next level, while Feigenbaum will be tasked with eliminating any errors in the system.
All four execs will report to Victoria. The addition of Jon Patullo, former chief product officer at Apex, into the same role at TradePMR was the first hire this year in building out this team.
Victoria says TradePMR plans to expand the number of integrations, but also deepen the ones they already have, especially with CRM systems and all-in-one platforms.
“There are some all-in-one platforms that we’ve had conversations with, where the integrations that we already have with them—single sign-on, the data feeds that we have established with them—are obviously already in place. But we want to expose new account opening in their native platforms as well.”
Victoria said the firm is always hoping to compete with the big custodians, such as Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing, and this latest move will help them do so. TradePMR currently serves about 350 RIA firms.
