narayan
Hightower Advisors is set to launch a new centralized wealth management platform called Hightower One this summer, with full rollout at the end of 2026, according to a top-level executive and regulatory filings.
Hightower One will be the wealth management platform used by Hightower firms in its new Signature Wealth division, but also ultimately an option for all Hightower advisors, said Randy Bullard, head of investment management for Hightower.
Bullard, who has been head down on the project since his hiring last September, said the platform will be “very flexible, very open architecture,” and backed by investment strategies and funds created by Hightower’s NEPC institutional consulting and OCIO division.
“It’s not a small ambition and not a small platform,” Bullard said. “In time, it will come to host the vast majority of assets currently serviced by Hightower, both public and private, in a very open architecture framework.”
On Tuesday, Hightower also announced that it had hired Roberto Stewart as president and chief business officer to lead “enterprise services and support the firm’s next phase of growth by advancing Hightower One, Hightower’s back- and middle-office platform.”
Gurinder Ahluwalia, who had been the interim president since 2024, will continue as an advisor to the company and remain on its board. Ahluwalia is an executive partner to the financial technology and services vertical at Thomas H. Lee Partners, Hightower’s private equity owner.
Stewart joins from Engle Martin, a portfolio company of BW Forsyth Partners, where he was chief operating officer.
“My focus will be on creating greater clarity, efficiency, and alignment across Hightower One, enabling advisors to spend more time with clients and grow their practices,” Stewart said in a statement.
Bullard said Hightower One “dovetails” with the Chicago-based firm’s Signature Wealth business strategy launched as one of the first major initiatives by CEO Larry Resteiri in October. That W-2 employee channel is designed to bring together both existing Hightower-affiliated advisors and external firms into a branded unit operating as a cohesive firm. The advisors in Signature Wealth, which is on its way to holding $29 billion in assets, will start transitioning clients over to Hightower One starting this summer, Bullard said.
One of Hightower’s goals with the new platform is to reduce the complexity of having advisors across the country run their own strategies and the various compliance needs that come with that.
“Think of it as an internal TAMP,” Bullard said. “It’s our platform providing front to back-offices services in an integrated offering.”
Bullard said the firm is working to layer other capabilities, including tax strategies that can be proposed to advisors to adjust client accounts, as well as a direct indexing option. It will also offer investment strategies created by Hightower’s Stephanie Link, the firm’s chief investment strategist and portfolio manager.
The one platform strategy was laid out by Restieri and Bullard after he was hired. But a March 31 regulatory filing by the firm signaled a step toward launch.
The filing cites that the platform will be “managed and monitored by a home-office trading and operations team responsible for implementing investment management services, including portfolio rebalancing, processing of client cashflows and other advisory trading activities.”
Hightower also notes in the filing, as is customary with proprietary investment options, that additional fees associated with its investment solution options can present “a conflict of interest for Hightower and the advisors.”
RIAs commonly tout their fiduciary obligation to put clients only in the best investment products to differentiate themselves from wirehouses with proprietary investments. But as RIAs have grown and scaled, they’ve increasingly begun to market proprietary investment options, particularly in areas such as private markets or real estate, as differentiators for upper-high-net-worth clients.
Bullard stressed that the platform would offer all third-party options to its roughly 663 advisors, and that they wouldn’t be forced into in-house options.
NEPC, the institutional consulting and OCIO that Hightower acquired in 2024 under former CEO Bob Oros, will play a key role in teeing up investment strategies both as part of the product shelf and in guiding personalized portfolio construction for clients.
“An advisor can come into the platform and say, ‘I’ve got a client that comes with these issues,’ and the platform will then curate from a large product shelf what’s appropriate,” Bullard said. “Some advisors won’t use that guided journey, in which case they can opt out and create their own.”
The former global head of wealth at State Street said he has been working with advisors in the Signature Wealth channel, as well as those in the greater firm across the country, including its largest affiliates.
“All of them are extremely interested as long as they can control the investment product selection,” Bullard said.
admin
