Aspire Wealth Advisory Group, an RIA founded by former Citi executive Edward Karan, announced it has surpassed $100 million in assets under management.
Karan, a 30-year veteran in money management, was registered with Citi from 2004 to May 2025 before he launched Aspire Wealth in November 2025, according to SEC disclosures. He most recently served as managing director and global head of institutional sales at Citi Global Wealth at Work, where he advised institutions, executive teams, family offices and high-net-worth individuals.
Aspire Wealth aims to deliver a family office experience to clients with under $100 million in assets, spanning investment management, cash management, tax-planning, estate planning, philanthropy, insurance, and coordination with banking, tax, accounting, and legal professionals. Karan is based in New York and told InvestmentNews that his RIA has 12 clients so far.
“A lot of family office services at a lot of the private banks, because of the infrastructure that's needed to create that client experience—to have a dedicated tax person, an investment specialist, a service person—they start at $20 million or some higher amount,” said Karan. “I can deliver that family office experience at a much lower starting point. Not $100,000, but not $20 million. I feel there is a sweet spot between the $1 [million] and $10 million and even the $10 to $100 [million] that I want to be able to scale into.”
Aspire Wealth is leveraging wealthtech software provider Orion as well as Obsidian CIO as its outsourced chief investment officer for portfolio strategy and access to alternatives.
“I don't know if I could have created this five or 10 years ago,” said Karan. “I decided to start my own firm after learning about the independent channel—I was closed off from that by virtue of just operating in a bank for 20 years. “The technology to be able to deliver best in class products for clients was a key factor in my deciding to take the leap and start my own thing, as opposed to attaching to another existing infrastructure.”
Charles Schwab has been selected as Aspire Wealth’s custodian. “I've just been amazed about how they support advisors to do what needs to get done, to be able to open accounts and move money and set up trading mechanisms in a user way,” Karan said of Schwab.
Karan has hired one full-time employee focused on marketing and lead generation. His business plan for Aspire Wealth includes both acquisition growth and organic growth.
“I managed a large team at Citi, and I went into this not to have this lifestyle practice, that wasn't my motivation. I enjoy serving clients, but I equally enjoy creating something that is bigger than myself. Attracting the right talent and growing is part of my strategy. I had success at Citi in cultivating talent and creating good producers.”
There have been sweeping changes within the bank's wealth management division. Former Merrill Lynch executive Andy Sieg joined Citigroup in September 2023 to lead its wealth business and has since spearheaded a broad restructuring of the division. The revamp has coincided with legal challenges, including a lawsuit by a former Citi Wealth executive Julia Carreon that alleges a culture of sexual harassment. Citigroup has rejected the claims.
Karan said he has received some outside funding to launch Aspire Wealth, and is open to further investment as his RIA continues to scale. “I'm looking at this space that is very active once you get to a certain size above a billion, both on the equity side and even on the debt side, which is exciting to know that there is a lot of interesting ways to monetize if one wanted to,” he said.
“There were just some changes happening at Citi. I had a great 20 year run,” Karan said. “I had a management team that I was working with really closely for a good portion of that time, and there were some leadership changes that were happening at Citi that opened me up to start thinking about, okay, what should I do next?”
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