Osaic puts AI at the center of its retention pitch

WealthManagement.com reports that Osaic has hired Sayee Bellamkonda as chief artificial intelligence and technology officer, pulling him from Vialto Partners, where he was executive vice president and chief digital and technology officer, and that he will report directly to CEO Jamie Price. The role fills the chief technology officer chair that has been open since Ed Obuchowski left last year and adds an AI mandate that Osaic had not assigned to the C-suite; Matt Schlueter had been covering the technology function as chief product and operations officer in the interim. Osaic framed the hire as a strategic investment in integrated technology, and Price described Bellamkonda as someone who connects technology strategy with business outcomes. The software fight has moved into the C-suite.

The executive bench had already been thinning before Bellamkonda signed: Dimple Shah, head of strategy and client experience, and Sudhakar Kanagarajan, head of application engineering and architecture, left in May for Humanity Labs and Fidelity Investments; Kristen Kimmell, head of business development since 2021, left in June to rejoin RBC Wealth Management; and Greg Cornick, executive vice president of wealth management solutions, and Kristy Britt, the chief financial officer, left last month. In April, Reverence Capital Partners closed the recapitalization that brought Bain Capital in as a new investor and raised more than $2 billion in fresh capital, with Reverence retaining majority ownership, and it is that balance-sheet event that made a hire of this scope possible. Osaic added a retention-focused executive in December when it hired Shannon Reid as president and head of advisor growth and engagement in a newly created role, and Bellamkonda's appointment extends the same outside-recruiting template to a chair that sits closer to the firm's product.

Bellamkonda comes from Vialto, a tax and mobility technology firm, which suggests Osaic is buying expertise in the integrated data systems that underpin tax workflows: the same layer where AI is moving from advisor productivity into the workflows that decide client retention. The AI title is not a vanity plate; it is a retention strategy.

WealthManagement.com also reported a technology hire at LPL this week, extending a run in which independent-channel platforms are competing on software as much as on recruiting. PWD reported earlier this month that the talent war moves to the C-suite; Bellamkonda is the latest evidence.

The company has made the software bet, and where Bellamkonda's tools surface in the next product releases will determine whether it pays off: AI in the daily tax and planning workflows an advisor touches makes the retention story concrete, while AI that stays in back-office infrastructure means the $2 billion recapitalization has bought plumbing.