How Focus' new chief strategy officer is considering organic growth, external M&A, and unification

It's been roughly two weeks since Focus Financial Partners elevated Travis Danysh to the role of chief strategy officer, a newly created position at the firm. And while Danysh is honored to have the new title, he's also quick to say that it's not all about him.

"I think it's indicative of the evolution of the company and the evolution of my role. And I always like to say, there's a team that does all this," he told InvestmentNews in a recent interview. "We've become one company. And so now we can think about strategy in kind of a more holistic way. ... [Having] a strategy group makes a lot more sense now."

Danysh has been part of the leadership at Focus for nearly a decade, helping make key decisions in business development and M&A along the way. Those contributions helped elevate him to C-suite status in July last year, when he was announced as chief corporate development officer.

Since the beginning of 2024, Focus – which describes itself as "an interdependent partnership of wealth management, business management, and related financial services firms" – has also been going through major changes. Its internal merger strategy, kicked off after its $7 billion take-private acquisition in 2023, led to the formation of five wealth hubs within the network. 

In January this year, it announced a brand refresh, embedding the "Focus" name into each of its hubs. That includes Focus Partners Wealth, which consists of The Colony Group, Buckingham Strategic Wealth, and the firms that chose to integrate with them. 

"We've been able to build Focus Partners as quickly and as successfully as we have, because we've had some of our best and most capable firms get on board," Danysh says.

So far, over 25 of the 85 fiduciary firms within the Focus network have joined its wealth hubs. Danysh says there's no mechanism in place to force its member firms to join Focus Partners, which means the road to continued unification has to be paved with trust-building and earned buy-in.

"For us to get their trust and to get their interest, we have to present them with a brighter future for themselves, their employees and their clients," he says. "So we need to be more capable around client [service]. We need to be more capable around career progression."

On top of building up those capabilities, Danysh says Focus Partners has a common equity and common incentive structure. That's in contrast to the old model, where he says "you were mostly aligned, [but] things were not always perfectly balanced."

Beyond its consolidation strategy, he sees organic growth as a key priority for Focus, with more time and resources being invested there under the leadership of Chief Growth Officer Zinovy Iosovich, who was appointed to the role in May. Part of that, Danysh says, involves taking a harder look at opportunities for client referrals and digital marketing.

Focus is also expecting to ramp up its external M&A, which it resumed this year with three outside firms joining Focus so far in 2025. But while it historically leaned toward succession-oriented deals, he says the strategy will now focus on "firms where there's a symbiotic need." That includes its acquisition of Los Angeles-based Churchill Management Corporation, which offers investment management and financial planning to its clients across the country.

"[It was] a firm that brought real, unique capabilities to us, and vice versa," he says. "We brought them things that they were really looking for."

One new item on the agenda for Danysh's team involves maximizing the impact of the consolidation at Focus. After roughly two decades spent investing in best-in-breed RIAs, he says there's now a formidable pool of in-house growth capabilities within its network.

With more than $400 billion in client assets and over 6,300 team members across the Focus network, which includes footprints in Canada and Australia, Danysh says the challenge lies in how to use its scale effectively, drive more efficiencies, and find more win-wins as it continues to shift away from a decentralized model.

"I think it's been a great year on top of several great years ... You've seen a continued consolidation in the industry. You've seen significant private equity investment in the industry. And all those are great things," Danysh says. "The most scaled firms and the most well-capitalized firms are starting to separate themselves from the pack. And I think that's just going to continue."