People Moves: Kestra Taps Planner; Aventura Hires for Growth
Kestra Hires Advanced Planning Head, Syncs with RightCapital
Kestra Financial, an Austin, Texas-based broker/dealer with over $142 billion in assets under advisement, has hired trust and estates veteran Christine Brown to head a new advanced planning division.
Brown, who had most recently been a managing director with Laurel Trust Company, is leading a team to support Kestra’s advisors and clients in wealth management, including trust administration, wealth transfer strategies, and estate planning. Brown is a licensed attorney in California who has been doing trust and estate work for ultra-high-net-worth families at several firms, including a stint at UBS and Credit Suisse.
Kestra announced with the hire that it was also making an investment to work with RightCapital to provide financial planning software to its network of more than 1,300 advisors.
RightCapital, which competes with platforms such as eMoney Advisor, will be the vendor to Kestra advisors for tools such as retirement planning, tax planning, and insurance needs analysis, that will integrate into advisors’ technology stacks, according to the announcement.
Aventura Private Wealth Hires Chief Growth Officer from Wells Fargo
Aventura Private Wealth, a multi-family office and registered investment advisor based in Aventura, Fla., has hired a chief growth officer from Wells Fargo Advisors, where she had been a senior vice president and area manager for about two years.
Dayana Velasco is now overseeing the firm’s growth initiatives after it has grown from about $200 million in assets under management to nearly $400 million in the past year, according to founder and managing director Shmuel Maya.
Maya had worked with Velasco at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, where she had been a market director for wealth and executive director of investments, and he had been a top producer in the Miami-Dade region.
“Dayana brings a rare combination of strategic vision, operational discipline, and genuine commitment to helping advisors succeed,” Maya said.
The founder, who started Aventura in November 2023, said Velasco will help the firm recruit advisors looking to join a fee-only RIA that leads with planning. He said offers will come with equity stakes in the growing firm.
“My career has been focused on helping advisors grow with clarity and discipline while delivering exceptional, long-term outcomes for clients,” Velasco said in a statement. “I’ve seen firsthand that when advisors have the right platform, leadership, and culture, they don’t just scale; they build something truly sustainable.”
Benefits and 401(k) Firm Sentinel Hires Growth Head from SageView
Sentinel Group, a Wakefield, Mass.-based employee benefits and retirement plan provider, has hired a former SageView Advisory Group leader to be its head of growth for wealth management.
Sophie Benander took the role this year after spending over three years at SageView, culminating in the position of senior vice president of growth partnerships, according to her LinkedIn profile. She made the move shortly after Creative Planning closed on an acquisition of SageView, which at the time had $250 billion in client assets under advisement and management, in October.
“Excited to get to work with an incredible team and help build and scale what’s next across the business,” Benander wrote on LinkedIn.
Benander is part of a wider reshuffling as Creative Planning incorporates SageView and its many 401(k) employer-plan-sponsor clients, along with individual wealth clients. In October, Creative Planning named former SageView President Jon Upham to a role leading the RIAs’ combined retirement solutions division.
Randy Long, who founded SageView and had moved from CEO to a chairman role in 2023, also announced on LinkedIn that he was stepping out of that role as of 2026. He is now fully focused on his charitable work as founder and CEO of the SageView Foundation.
Empower Promotes Institutional Head to Oversee Workplace Solutions
Empower, the Greenwood Village, Colo.-based 401(k) recordkeeper and wealth advisory, has promoted Joe Smolen to the newly created role of president of its workplace solutions division.
Empower, which by assets ranks as the country’s second-largest retirement services provider behind Fidelity Investments, promoted Smolen to the position from a role as executive vice president and head of its core and institutional market segments. In the new role, Smolen will focus on strategy, growth, relationship management and product for Empower’s workplace offerings.
“His deep understanding of the workplace retirement landscape, combined with his ability to lead high-performing teams, makes him exceptionally well-suited to lead our Workplace Solutions business as we continue to innovate and grow,” Rich Linton, president and chief operating officer of Empower, said in a statement.
That workplace division services more than 61,000 employer-sponsored retirement plans and over 18.8 million plan participants, with assets under administration totaling about $1.9 trillion as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Smolen joined Empower in 1999 as a regional sales director, rising to lead core and mid-market sales in 2017.
With his move, Ken Munro is being elevated to executive vice president and head of Empower’s core and mid-market segments, according to the announcement. He had previously been a senior vice president and national sales director.
The firm’s core and mid-market segments work with advisors managing plans with assets of up to $150 million, including start-up, pooled employer, and multiple employer plans. As of Sept. 30, 2025, that segment includes 44,000 retirement plan sponsors, 4.8 million plan participants, and $360 billion in AUA.