Triad hires Fidelity executive as CFO, eyes $1B RIA

Kansas-based Triad Partners has announced two executive hires as it aims to further expand beyond its insurance roots and into wealth management through Triad Wealth Partners. Triad Wealth Partners is an RIA expected to hit $1 billion in assets under management by the end of this year.

Derek Sullivan has joined Triad Partners as CFO following 17 years at Fidelity Investments, where he most recently served as CFO and COO of NovoEd, a Fidelity-owned learning software. Sullivan will lead financial management, strategic capital allocation, and risk oversight at Triad Partners, a field marketing organization founded in 2020 that specializes in retirement products such as annuities and insurance. 

“As I look at the future of Triad, we're building an insurance division, we're building a wealth management division, and we're continuing to build out divisions that serve independent financial advisors at the highest level. So [Sullivan’s] experience both in the Fidelity world, but also the ability to dive down into different business entities within that family of businesses, was highly attractive for Derek as a candidate,” Triad co-founder Brad Johnson told InvestmentNews.

Scott Rinehart, who has been chief planning officer at Triad since 2023, is being promoted to the newly created role of president and chief wealth officer at Triad Wealth Partners. Johnson explained that Triad Partners currently has 79 members financial advisors, and about 22 of those advisors have also joined the Triad Wealth Partners RIA to manage wealth for clients. 

“At Triad, we're building a wealth management platform for the top performing independent financial advisors in this space that utilize both insurance and wealth management for their clientele,” Johnson said. “Our financial advisor clients, the niche we've been working with are some of the most successful independent advisors in the US that also philosophically believe insurance is a big piece or tool that can be utilized inside of a retirees portfolio.”

The latest form ADV from Triad Wealth Partners, dated June 11, 2025, lists nearly $425 million regulatory assets under management across nearly 3,000 accounts. Johnson said Monday in an interview that Triad Wealth Partners now hovers around $750 million in AUM with $1 billion anticipated by the end of this year.

“We're approaching a billion dollars under management. Should be there by the end of 2025 and we're literally just brand new as an RIA,” Johnson said. 

Sullivan and Rinehart’s new roles atop the firm’s leadership follow the March appointments of Quin Kilgore as CTO and Jessica Daniels as COO of Triad Partners. Kilgore spent over a decade as a technology executive at the mega-RIA Carson Group.

Earlier this year saw Triad Partners lose its president Sara Baker, who departed the firm in May to start a new role as EVP of mergers and acquisitions at the California-based RIA, Allworth Financial.