$1.5B RIA Brookwood Hires Four Executives to Partnership Model
Brookwood Investment Group, a Phoenix-based registered investment advisory platform with $1.5 billion in assets under management, has hired four executives to its leadership team.
CEO and co-founder Kimberly Raimondo said the firm’s growth from $515 million in assets in 2024 and more than 75 advisors had her thinking about adding experienced leaders to keep growing the firm while also positioning it for longevity. She also wanted to bring them on in a partnership model, an idea she said came from her background in law firms before going into wealth management.
“I was looking really for intentional people who wanted to be part of something that was bigger than them, and that would give them a chance to own something and partner in something that could outlive them and outlive what we believe in together,” she said. “I needed to be at a moment where I could support partnerships, and we’re there now.”
Brookwood’s new partners are President Claire Alexander, founder and CEO of RIA consultancy Arch’s Anvil; Chief Growth Officer Michael Jones, who has held roles at BlackRock, TD Ameritrade Institutional and AssetMark; Chief Operating Officer Jasmine Yu, formerly COO of wealth manager e3 Wealth; and Chief Financial Officer and Head of Institutional Operations Jeffrey Williams, who has held senior positions at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs before joining a hedge fund as as their financial controller.
Brookwood’s move comes at a time when many RIAs are growing to the point where scale and operations have become difficult for producing advisors to manage. There are other RIAs using a partnership setup, including one of the country’s largest in Corient. But many other mid-sized RIAs are either seeking external capital for growth or selling to a larger firm with capital backing.
Raimondo said she wanted people who could advance the organization, as well as those who could take over from her in the future as part of a succession plan. That team, she said, came together in her mind in a matter of months. She met with each of them individually and said that after they had heard about each other, they were willing to wait until they could all join at once.
“I hired them at the same time because I was waiting for the right people—not just the build-out of the leadership, but the right leaders at the right time,” she said. “I needed leaders who understood the vision and were willing to be curious enough to come along with it.”
Raimondo and her co-founder and chief development officer, her husband Robert Raimondo, are building their RIA platform similar to how law practices are run, which Kimberly Raimondo saw as the best way for an RIA firm to have longevity.
President Alexander said she agrees with that vision. She joins the firm with experience in both consulting advisory firms on growth and directing advisor transitions—40 of which she has overseen with AUMs ranging from $20 million to $600 million.
She said joining Brookwood was a way to use those skills to build out a single firm with a vision she believes will work for the RIA sector.
“When I talked to Kim, it was like the possibilities just became a lot better, and I didn’t have to stop the momentum I had kind of nurtured and built,” Alexander said. “The partnership model is not something we really see in this space. Her unique vision, the way that she was able to articulate it, the way that I was able to envision what that looked like for myself, but even beyond myself, which I think is even more important—it really kind of checked the really critical boxes for me.”
