Obama headlines Creative Planning event as RIA crosses 1,000 employee equity partners

Former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will headline Connect26, a private conference hosted this week by Kansas-based Creative Planning near the RIA giant’s Overland Park headquarters 

The pair will speak Sept. 26 at the Overland Park Convention Center and includes a moderated conversation between Obama and Creative Planning CEO Peter Mallouk, reported KCTV 5 news in Kansas City. A source told InvestmentNews that about 6,000 people are expected to attend the event on Saturday, which is closed to the public but open to Creative Planning clients and employees. 

The multi-day summit covers finance, technology, health, and politics. Creative Planning has been hosting the conference for about 15 years. Previous guest speakers have included former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Van Jones and Newt Gingrich. 

On Friday, the day before Obama’s appearance, Creative Planning will host its annual event for employees, with about 3,000 anticipated attendees. The mega-RIA has more than $780 billion in assets under management or advisement, and recently expanded its employee equity ownership program to over 1,000 employees. 

"Basically, every year we dramatically expand the shareholder base. We've now crossed the 1,000-partner mark,” Mallouk told InvestmentNews. “We have varying degrees of partnership depending on someone's contribution to the success of our clients and Creative Planning.” 

Creative Planning debuted its employee equity program in 2021 to 86 employees, which at the time was about 10% of its workforce. At the time of that program launch, Creative Planning said it managed about $75.6 billion in assets. The firm now reports managing more than $780 billion as of the end of June 2026, an increase of roughly 932% since launching its employee equity program. 

“We look at things like within your group, are you within a certain percentile of performers? How long have you been here? Do you match the values that we have, things like that,” Mallouk said of the equity program. 

Creative Planning announced a major acquisition earlier this week, adding Oregon-based institutional investment consulting firm RVK, which oversees $4.3 trillion in assets across 200 institutional clients. The RVK purchase is part of Creative Planning’s broader push into retirement and institutional assets, after it bought the $640 billion retirement plan advisory firm SageView Advisory Group last year and became the new investment manager for Mississippi's state-sponsored 529 college savings plan. 

“I really view the retirement and institutional space as a winner-take-all space. We're seeing this really come down to just a few players, and retirement is a subset of institutional,” said Mallouk. “RVK really matches our culture and values and strengthens retirement. But across the board and all of institutional, I think makes us the leader among the true independent firms.”