Issue link: https://resources.envestnet.com/i/1536460
What's Next For Envestnet? Amid an AI boom, a new CEO manages the fintech firm's pivot to a new age. By Evan Simonoff But things took a tragic turn in October 2019, when En- vestnet lost its chairman, CEO and founder, Jud Bergman, in a car crash. (Bergman was succeeded by his longtime colleague and president, Bill Crager.) e tragedy occurred shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. HILE BAIN CAPITAL AND OTHER PRIVATE investors were acquiring Envestnet, the portfolio management soware giant, for $4.5 billion last year, the fintech world was facing unprecedented upheaval. Many small fin- tech concerns had been seeking capital infusions, and AI was standing the broader technology industry on its head. Meanwhile, Envestnet's largest base of users—advi- sors—are seeing their own industry go through structural changes. ere's not only been a surge in demand for their services but there's been consolidation as the advisory in- dustry's founding generation starts to sell their businesses and head into the sunset. In 2010, Envestnet became one of the few fintech companies in the advisory space to reach the scale to go public, giving it a status and capital that few of its rivals could reach, including the ability to purchase other so- ware companies serving advisors. However, its record as a public company was mixed. Activist investors and oth- ers were quick to criticize management and demanded changes to beef up shareholder value. Initially founded in 1999 to help the independent bro- ker-dealer industry introduce and oversee separately managed accounts, Envestnet was able to expand beyond that market aer its IPO. It acquired Tamarac, a so- ware platform targeting the RIA market, in 2012. en it bought Yodlee, a leading data aggregator, in 2015, and aer that MoneyGuidePro, the leading financial planning soware program, for which it paid $500 million in 2019. W Chris Todd, Chief Executive Officer at Envestnet PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF ENVESTNET