Fintech bytes: Advisor360, Dispatch, Opto add senior tech leaders
From left: Hrishi Dixit, chief technology officer, agentic innovation at Advisor360; and Russ Hughey, vice president of customer success.
Former Hightower COO and ex-Yieldstreet CTO headline wealth technology hires as advisor platforms push deeper into AI and private markets
Advisor360 has hired Hrishi Dixit as chief technology officer, agentic innovation, and Russ Hughey as vice president of customer success.
Dixit is an engineering executive with more than 30 years in software and fintech. He will run technology strategy and oversee development of AI-native products for advisors. He joins from Autonomy Finance, an AI platform for advisors that he co-founded and where he served as CTO.
Before that, he spent nearly a decade as founding CTO of Yieldstreet, now called Willow Wealth. Earlier, he held the same role at LearnVest, which Northwestern Mutual acquired in 2015 and subsequently shut down in 2018.
The hire reunites Dixit with Milind Mehere, who founded both Yieldstreet and AutonomyFinance.ai. Milind became chief executive after Advisor360’s board selected him for the top job.
Hughey will oversee customer success and strategic relationships with the company’s wealth management clients. He previously held senior client and relationship roles at First Rate, InvestEdge, Vestmark, Advent Software and Charles River Development.
“Hrishi and Russ bring experience building technology businesses, modernizing platforms and working directly with financial institutions and advisors,” Mehere said.
Former Hightower COO joins wealthtech firm Dispatch
Dispatch, the New York-based data infrastructure startup focused on wealth firms, said it has named Patrick Dunne head of wealth and asset management.
Dunne has more than 25 years of experience in operations and financial services, most recently as chief operating officer of Hightower Advisors. There he ran operations through a stretch of rapid growth, integrated numerous acquisitions and helped launch Hightower Signature Wealth, the firm’s first national direct-to-consumer advisory practice.
Just last month, Dispatch announced a partnership with Hightower Advisors, making it responsible for managing client data workflows across the Signature Wealth business.
Dunne previously held leadership posts at Jordan Park and LendingClub. He spent much of his career at BlackRock, where he led teams across iShares, global markets and securities lending and sat on the firm’s global operating committee.
At Dispatch, he will advise clients on modernizing infrastructure, streamlining workflows and adopting AI. He will also work with the product and sales teams to shape the company’s roadmap.
“Throughout my career, I’ve seen how fragmented technology and manual processes can limit a firm’s ability to scale, even when the business itself is growing rapidly,” Dunne said.
The appointment follows two launches: the Dispatch API, which lets other technology providers embed its account-opening workflows, and Advisor Transitions, the firm’s software for moving advisors and client assets between firms.
Dispatch says it has helped transition more than $20 billion in client assets, while assets managed by customers on its platform grew from approximately $900 billion to more than $9 trillion over the past year.
Opto taps BlackRock and Carta alumni
Opto Investments has hired Justin Mills as principal product manager and Rachel Hallock as head of design. Opto is a New York-based private markets outsourced chief investment officer for wealth managers, family offices and institutions.
Mills, who holds the CFA designation, will lead work on Opto’s technology products, and his first priority will be to make client onboarding simpler and more tailored. He spent 15 years overseeing the risk, research and quantitative analytics products behind more than $80 billion in hedge fund, private equity and real asset investments at Quellos Capital Management, which BlackRock later acquired. He later built product and program teams at Smartsheet.
Hallock will oversee design across the app that advisors and CIOs use to bring clients into private markets, as well as Opto’s internal tools. She has more than 14 years in product design and fintech, including five years at DesignMap. She was later director of product design at Carta, where she led design for the fund administration business as it grew from 300 to 4,000 firms.
Earlier this year, Opto brought on a veteran leader from CAIS, Warren Seubel, as vice president of sales and revenue, with a mandate of expanding its AI-driven private markets platform.
“We’re bringing on senior, seasoned talent to take advantage of the growth that’s ahead of us,” said Opto CEO Ryan VanGorder. “Justin and Rachel will help advisors and CIOs act with confidence on private markets opportunities for their clients, which has been our mission since day one.”
