A former financial advisor who grew frustrated with the limitations of existing CRM tools has launched a platform he says is designed around how advisory firms actually work — and landed an $8 billion RIA as its first enterprise customer.
FinTurk, an AI-powered CRM built specifically for advisors, officially came out of beta this week alongside an announcement that Chicago Partners Wealth Advisors has adopted the platform. The Chicago-based RIA, which manages more than $8 billion in assets for high-net-worth clients across a team of more than 50 advisors, made the switch in the first quarter of 2026.
Mitchell Bratina, a CFA and the firm's founder and CEO, said the idea grew out of tools he built for himself while still working as an advisor.
"While working as an advisor, I found myself building tools to handle manual processes and fill gaps in existing CRM systems," said Bratina. "As those tools gained traction, it became clear there was a broader need for a platform designed around how firms actually operate, which led us to build FinTurk. Today, firms like Chicago Partners can rapidly move to a more flexible, AI-powered CRM without the long, costly implementation cycles that have historically defined CRM transitions, delivering meaningful productivity gains more quickly."
The platform combines portfolio management, workflow automation and AI into a single customizable system. It generates client insights, recommends tasks and automates manual processes — positioning itself as an alternative to what Bratina describes as rigid legacy systems that force advisors to adapt their workflows to the software rather than the other way around.
Chicago Partners is also serving as an active design partner, feeding real-world workflow needs back into FinTurk's product development process. The RIA's chief operating officer said the switch has already changed how advisors spend their time.
"When reevaluating our CRM, we needed technology that could keep up with our growth and ambitions and provide deep customization options," said Nicholas Guido, partner and chief operating officer at Chicago Partners. "Instead of wrestling with workflows, FinTurk has allowed our advisors to focus on client relationships while streamlining day-to-day operations. The result is faster response times, more thorough meeting preparation and the ability to serve more households without sacrificing service quality."
The platform supports meeting preparation and note-taking, automated client reviews, portfolio tracking and household-level views, and integrates with existing technology stacks including portfolio management systems and document management tools.
The name FinTurk is a nod to the Mechanical Turk, an 18th-century chess-playing automaton that appeared to operate on its own but was actually driven by a concealed human operator — a metaphor the company uses to describe its approach of augmenting advisor workflows while keeping humans in control.
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