Edelman Financial Engines names new head of technology

One of the largest investment advisers in the U.S. has promoted a relative newcomer to oversee the firm’s technology.

Edelman Financial Engines, which manages $275 billion in assets from 1.3 million clients, named Tom Kimberly chief product and technology officer and executive vice president. Kimberly first joined Edelman Financial Engines in 2020 as head of product, and in 2021 he assumed interim leadership over the firm’s product and technology teams.

Kimberly will be responsible for leading the firm's product, design and engineering teams, as well as its IT, infrastructure and information security. He replaces Hamesh Chawla, who had been in the role since 2018 before leaving the firm last summer, a spokesperson for Edelman Financial Engines said.

“Tom quickly earned the trust and respect of key stakeholders across our organization, put a new Agile operating model in place, maintained a focus on our strategic initiatives and filled key leadership positions across our product and technology organization,” Larry Raffone, president and CEO of Edelman Financial Engines, said in a statement. “The entire management team is impressed by what Tom has been able to accomplish in a short time frame.”

Prior to joining Edelman Financial Engines, Kimberly was a senior vice president on Fidelity Investments’ innovation team and a general manager of robo-adviser Betterment’s retail and RIA custody business. He was also co-founder and CEO of Upside, a white-label robo-adviser that Envestnet acquired in 2015.

Financial Engines was founded in 1996 as a digital retirement planning software and is sometimes referred to as the first robo-adviser. The company merged with Edelman Financial Services, the RIA founded by Ric Edelman, in 2018 to combine technology with access to human advisers.

The firm recently launched a new digital advice service for retirement plan participants that gives investors nearing retirement access to a financial adviser and online tools to optimize withdrawals across tax-deferred and taxable accounts.

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