RFG Advisory, the Birmingham, Ala.-based hybrid RIA platform with about $4.8 billion in client assets, has hired former CAIS chief marketing officer Abby Salameh to serve as chief growth officer.
RFG has also added Brendan Frazier, founder of Wired Planning, as its new chief behavioral officer, and Kenneth Kim, who previously led corporate development and strategy for FNZ's North American region, as chief financial officer.
All three positions are new to the firm, which has retained an existing controller who now reports to Kim and a marketing executive who now reports to Salameh. According to RFG president Shannon Spotswood, both were invited to approve or veto the election.
“All of these roles are about growth,” she said, noting a deliberate focus on organic growth. “We are in the very early stages of building RFG 3.0 and defining what it means to be the platform of the future serving the advisor of the future.”
Known as WealthManagement.com Industry Awards 2023 Chief Marketing Officer of the Year, Salameh joined RFG to oversee advisor recruitment, marketing and organic growth initiatives for more than 50 partner practices. She leads a team of 15 growth officers after the firm combined its business development and marketing teams.
Forward joining the CAIS alternatives platform in November 2021, Salameh spent approximately two years as CMO for Hightower Advisors and six years in the same role at Private Advisor Group, a hybrid RIA and super office of LPL's supervisory jurisdiction. Prior to that, she was senior vice president and CMO of Fusion Advisor Network.
“RFG is the industry's most highly regarded company that firm advisors have never heard of, and we're about to change that,” Salameh said in a statement. “RFG empowers advisors to define success on their own terms. To join a team that is so focused on innovation and defining what the future of the industry means is incredibly exciting for me.”
Salameh joins Frazier, who has been a pioneer in the world of behavioral finance and has built a community of advisors who master the human side of advice. The work he has done at Wired Planning will be incorporated into RFG's platform.
“We're actually integrating Planning with Wired into our value proposition,” Spotswood said. “We're a big believer in providing strategic planning to our advisors, so he's bringing his podcast, he's bringing Wired, and we're incorporating all of that into the platform of services that we offer.
“The data shows that the customer of the future is looking for a financial life coach,” she said. “It's table stakes to be able to show up and do a lot of investment management and risk assessment and financial planning and goal assessment, but it's the emotional factor that's so important to building that bridge for the next generation, that customer retention, that emotional connection with prospects and customers.”
Kim completes RFG's executive leadership team. He brings over two decades of experience in fintech, investment banking and corporate development.
“For a company of our size and early in our RFG 3.0 growth cycle, posting our partnership with Long Ridge to attract the talent of Brendan and Ken and Abby is a hat trick,” said Spotswood.
Last August, RFG announced Long Ridge Investments had become its first equity partner with a “significant” investment that would go toward additional talent, improved technology and the launch of an equity ownership program in February. New recruits are already taking advantage of the equity program, and it will become available to existing partners in the near future.
RFG will introduce new leaders at its Annual Growth Conference next week in Naples, Fla.