Choreo has made another addition to its C-suite, bringing on a former senior technology executive at LPL Financial as its chief technology officer.
Gabriel Rodriguez will be responsible for advisor technology, platform integration and artificial intelligence as the Chicago-based registered investment advisor works to scale its tax-focused wealth business.
The new hire adds a technology chief to a C-suite that Choreo has largely rebuilt over the past 15 months. Rodriguez will report to CEO Jason Van de Loo, sit on the executive leadership team and work from Choreo’s office in Charlotte, N.C.
The firm said Rodriguez’s job is to build a connected platform so that advisor teams can deliver coordinated tax and wealth advice consistently as Choreo grows. That work includes using AI to expand advisor capacity and upgrading the planning, reporting and client-engagement tools advisors use every day, as well as training to help teams adopt those tools.
“Gabriel has spent his career translating the needs of wealth management professionals into technology that helps them do their jobs more effectively,” Van de Loo said. “He brings the technical depth to lead our strategy and the discipline to deliver on it.”
Rodriguez has more than 20 years in the industry. At LPL he was senior vice president of technology and oversaw ClientWorks, the broker-dealer’s advisor workstation. Before LPL, he spent six years at Vanguard running technology architecture and engineering for its U.S. intermediary business. He earlier led investment research systems at Wellington Management and developed investment systems at Bain Capital.
Choreo said he has also led AI projects aimed at advisor productivity and at integrating technology for acquired firms, a skill set that matters for any aggregator that has been buying practices steadily and is now confronted with the challenge of assimilating disparate systems.
“Our industry faces several inflection points simultaneously as the wave of the great wealth transfer is about to crash while some industry observers expect more than a third of financial advisors may leave the industry within the decade,” Rodriguez said.
His projection matches a 2024 estimate from Cerulli Associates, which found that 109,093 advisors, or 37.5% of industry headcount, plan to retire over the next decade. Tracking with that is a much-cited McKinsey warning of a 100,000-advisor gap in 10 years, which the consultancy firm said could at least be filled in part with productivity gains from AI.
“[A] clear solution has emerged in artificial intelligence," Rodriguez said. "But that answer isn’t without additional questions, ones that must be considered carefully, strategically and in partnership with operational leadership and advisors in every firm.”
The hire extends a run of senior appointments that began when Van de Loo, formerly head of wealth management at Edelman Financial Engines, took over as Choreo’s chief executive in July last year. That same month, he was joined by fellow Edelman alum Keith Kotfica as chief growth officer.
In January, the firm named Erik Merkau to a new chief wealth advisory officer role, overseeing advisor development and planning. Roughly six months later in July, senior wealth advisor Ray Morrill was promoted internally to chief wealth officer.
In September, Choreo appointed Kelly O’Donnell as its first chief people and transformation officer, making her the fourth Edelman veteran to join the firm’s top ranks in about a year. Her responsibilities include the integration management office that folds acquired firms into Choreo.
Choreo, which is majority owned by private equity firm Parthenon Capital, reported roughly $28.6 billion in assets under management and advisement at the end of 2025. The planning-focused firm notched a key win this summer by negotiating to manage the post-IPO wealth of hundreds of SpaceX employees.
Its calendar of deals announced this year has been lean, starting with Northeast Financial Group and Herbein Financial Group, which held $1.3 billion combined when the deal was announced in January, up to its agreement to acquire assets from Resource Financial Group in Illinois.
The firm operates more than 40 locations nationwide.
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