Financial Engines
FINANCIAL ENGINES® HIRES LARRY RAFFONE TO EXTEND ITS WEALTH MANAGEMENT PLATFORM TO FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS
Former Fidelity Investments Executive Joins Leading Advice Platform Provider
PALO ALTO, Calif., January 9, 2001 – Financial Engines, Inc., a recognized leader in online investment advice, today announced the appointment of Larry Raffone as the company's new executive vice president of Distributed Services. Raffone joins Financial Engines from Fidelity Investments, where he served as group executive of Fidelity's Institutional Brokerage Group (IBG). Raffone will oversee the strategy, sales and distribution of Financial Engines' wealth management platform to retail financial institutions and financial professionals.
Hiring Raffone is the most recent step in Financial Engines' strategy to expand its wealth management platform to help brokerages, fund companies, banks, insurance companies, and independent financial professionals provide total portfolio advisory services to more clients through the web, phone, and face-to-face. As part of this strategy, Financial Engines announced last October that E*TRADE and Ernst & Young's new service, eAdvisor, would be powered by Financial Engines.
"Over the past four years, Financial Engines has built a large and rapidly growing business providing advisory services to hundreds of thousands of employees at some of America's most well-known companies," said Jeff Maggioncalda, president and CEO of Financial Engines. "Larry's character, talent, and industry reputation make him the perfect person to expand our services beyond the workplace to retail financial institutions and financial professionals."
Raffone, who has been with Fidelity since 1988, was most recently a group executive for Fidelity Investments' Institutional Brokerage Group (IBG). He had full P&L responsibility for over 1,000 intermediary relationships and over 300 employees within Fidelity's brokerage group. At Fidelity, Raffone oversaw the correspondent services business, which was the second largest in the industry serving the banking, insurance, and independent broker/dealer channels. Raffone has been responsible for aggressively growing Fidelity's market share over the past two years to the number two position in the registered investment advisory business, according to research firm Cerulli Associates.
"Technology will not replace human advisors, but it will fundamentally redefine the way they do business," said Larry Raffone, Financial Engines' new executive vice president of Distributed Services. "Almost every financial organization I know wants to develop stronger advisory relationships with their clients through the web, phone, and face-to-face, and the Financial Engines wealth management platform is an ideal solution to help them do this."
Raffone is a member of the International Association of Financial Planners and received a Bachelor's degree from Bryant College and an MBA from Babson College.
About Financial Engines
Financial Engines offers its wealth management platform to help corporations and financial institutions offer consistent personal advisory services to individual investors through the web, phone, and face-to-face. Financial Engines combines the power of the Internet with an investment methodology used by pension fund managers and based on scientific research to make high quality advice available to all investors. Founded by Economics Nobel Laureate William F. Sharpe, Financial Engines is dedicated to helping individuals make better investment decisions to meet their financial goals. Financial Engines was founded in 1996 and is located in Palo Alto, Calif. For more information, visit Financial Engines' web site at www.financialengines.com.
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Financial Engines® is a registered trademark of Financial Engines, Inc. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. All advisory services are provided by Financial Engines Advisors LLC, a federally registered investment advisor.