TradePMR, a custodian platform serving registered investment advisors, has poached four technology leaders from competing custodians as the company doubles down on third-party integrations and improves the user experience within its Fusion technology platform.
The company has hired Marcel Tsai, a former senior director of consulting at Apex Fintech Solutions, as director of vendor integrations. Tsai was too one of WealthManagement.com's Ten to watch in 2023. Rob Deguzman, a former vice president of platform integrations at Goldman Sachs Advisor Solutions, joins as senior technical product manager.
“We have a comprehensive custody platform that includes advanced trading, model rebalancing and a fee calculator,” said R. Scott Victoria, chief operating officer at TradePMR. “What some don't realize is that we play very well with others already. This is further doubling.”
Tsai will be the external face of that integration strategy, while Deguzman will be the internal part of that, from the technical side of the product, Victoria said.
On the user experience side, TradePMR has hired Laura Villanueva, a former senior manager of the UX team for Schwab Advisor Services, as senior product UX designer. Matt Feigenbaum, a former director at Schwab, joins as senior manager of quality assurance. Villanueva will be responsible for taking TradePMR's Fusion platform to the next level, while Feigenbaum will be tasked with eliminating any bugs in the system.
All four executives will report to Victoria, which said the hires stem from the addition of Jon Patullo, former chief product officer at Apexin the same role at TradePMR, in May.
Victoria says TradePMR plans to expand the number of integrations, but also deepen the ones they already have, especially with CRM systems and comprehensive platforms.
“There are some all-in-one platforms that we've had conversations with where the integrations that we already have with them — the single sign-on, the data feeds that we've built with them — are obviously already in place. But we want to expose opening new accounts even on their native platforms.”
Victoria said the firm always hopes to compete with the big custodians, such as Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing, and this latest move will help them do just that. TradePMR currently serves around 350 RIA firms.