Edelman Financial Engines taps OneTrust alum as first retirement advisory chief. Christian Mango, senior vice president and retirement advisory practice leader at Edelman Financial Engines. Christian Mango is joining the PE-backed RIA giant to grow retirement plan services as it deepens its workplace-to-wealth strategy AUG 11, 2026 Edelman Financial Engines has named Christian Mango as senior vice president and retirement advisory practice leader, tapping a nearly 30-year veteran of the retirement plan business to scale one of the firm's most closely watched growth bets. The newly created role announced Tuesday puts Mango in charge of growing Edelman's Retirement Plan Services business through acquisitions, advisor recruitment and organic growth, while tightening the link between workplace retirement plans and individual financial planning. Retirement plan advisory is not new territory for Edelman. The business traces back to Financial Engines, founded in 1996 by Nobel laureate economist William Sharpe specifically to help workers manage 401(k) plans, and it has operated under the Edelman name since the 2018 merger with Edelman Financial Services. Mango arrives from OneDigital, where he most recently served as senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions, helping steer dealmaking for the insurance broker's retirement plan advisory and work-to-wealth businesses. Before that, he ran the Retirement Plan Services division at Alera Group as executive vice president and national practice leader, a stint credited with turning that unit into a nationally recognized retirement plan advisory platform. His arrival lands squarely in the middle of a trend independent-minded advisors have watched play out for years: insurance brokers and RIA aggregators buying their way into retirement plan advisory work. OneDigital itself built much of its retirement business through acquisition, breaking into the retrement plan business with its 2020 acquisiton of $45 billion RIA Resources and some of its affiliates. Building the workplace-to-wealth pipeline. For Edelman, the hire helps flesh out a broader thesis it has been building for more than a year: that a 401(k) participant today can become a full financial planning client tomorrow. "For millions of Americans, their financial journey begins in the workplace," said president and CEO Ralph Haberli. "Retirement Plan Services is an important extension of our mission - helping employers deliver exceptional retirement programs while creating more pathways for individuals to engage with fiduciary advice throughout their financial lives." Haberli added that Mango "has built and scaled retirement businesses throughout his career," and that his relationships across the industry would help Edelman build "one of the country's leading retirement advisory platforms." The Santa Clara, California-based firm manages roughly $308 billion in client assets across 1.3 million clients and more than 430 advisors. As of June 2025, it reportedly provided 401(k) advice to more than 10 million employees and partners with over 600 large employers. A leadership team taking shape. Mango's hire is the latest in a string of senior appointments at Edelman since Haberli took over as acting CEO in October last year, following Jay Shah's decision to step down after two years running the firm. Haberli, who had joined a few months prior as president after leading the Institutional and Retirement Client Group at Capital Group, was elevated to the top job as Edelman Financial Engines works to reshape its executive bench under owners Hellman & Friedman and Warburg Pincus. In May, Edelman announced its hiring of chief financial officer Steve Gaven from SageView Advisory, alongside three newly appointed senior vice presidents focused on wealth clients, planner growth and wealth strategy. Industry observers have noted that Edelman's private equity backers have pushed for faster organic growth after the firm pulled back from a reported $8 billion sale process last fall.

Edelman and Prime Capital end legal battle with advisor transition rules. From left: Prime Capital Financial CEO Glenn Spencer and Edelman Financial Engines CEO Ralph Haberli A settlement between the two RIAs requires 14 days' resignation notice and bans solicitation of former clients for a year after departure. AUG 06, 2026 Edelman Financial Engines and Prime Capital Financial have reached a settlement in their legal battle over alleged advisor poaching and client data theft, establishing terms for future advisor transitions between the two RIAs. Court filings submitted August 4, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware show the two firms have agreed to a joint stipulated permanent injunction governing the movement of financial planners. The settlement is conditioned on the court's entry of the injunction, after which the parties have agreed to file a stipulation of dismissal. "We are pleased to have reached a resolution that reflects the importance of protecting client relationships and the confidential information entrusted to our business," Edelman Financial Engines wrote in a statement to InvestmentNews. "Our focus remains on investing in our planners, empowering them to do their best work, and helping more people achieve their financial goals through trusted, long-term relationships." Edelman, a mega-RIA aggregator with nearly $330 billion in assets, filed suit in November 2025 that claimed Kansas-based Prime Capital deployed a "playbook" to successfully recruit a dozen of its advisors and steal confidential client information on clients totaling $1.5 billion in assets. This week's settlement follows a previous temporary restraining order granted to Edelman in March that prevented two Prime advisors from soliciting clients they previously worked with at Edelman. "The matter, including all of the underlying cases between Prime Capital Financial Advisors and Edelman, have been resolved to our satisfaction including a stipulated process for hiring in the future," said a spokesperson for Prime Capital Financial, which manages about $40 billion in client assets. Transition rules now locked in. The injunction establishes a transition protocol that applies any time an Edelman financial planner departs to join Prime Capital. Departing planners must deliver written resignation notice to both their Edelman regional director and the firm's HR department at least 14 business days before their last day of employment. During that window, the planner remains bound by all contractual obligations to Edelman, including confidentiality and non-solicitation duties. Edelman retains the right to manage the transition period as it sees fit - including placing planners on leave, restricting system access, or reassigning client accounts. The injunction also requires Edelman to send a joint client notice to each affected client no more than seven business days before a planner's departure date. Prime Capital must reimburse Edelman for the cost of sending those notices by overnight mail. "The permanent injunction was negotiated between the parties and applies only to those two firms. It does not create a generally applicable hiring protocol for the industry," Max Schatzow, partner at RIA Lawyers, told InvestmentNews regarding the settlement between Edelman and Prime. "The settlement is interesting, but it does not establish any meaningful legal precedent and is unlikely to affect how firms recruit advisors, how advisors depart RIAs, or how attorneys counsel their clients," added Schatzow. Non-solicitation terms. For 12 months following a planner's departure, the injunction bars them from soliciting or initiating contact of any kind with former Edelman clients - by phone, email, text, social media, or through any third party. Prime Capital is prohibited from encouraging, facilitating, or acquiescing in any such contact, and assumes responsibility for ensuring advisors who join comply with those obligations. The settlement includes carve-outs for family members of departing planners and for advisors whose principal office, client base, and tax residence were all in California in the 12 months preceding their resignation - reflecting that state's limits on non-compete enforcement. The Delaware court will retain jurisdiction over both firms to enforce the injunction going forward. "For firms seeking a more structured framework for recruiting advisors and reducing risk and ambiguity, the Broker Protocol already exists for both RIAs and broker-dealers," said Schatzow. "Firms can continue to recruit advisors, but they should independently review applicable employment agreements, prohibit the taking, transfer, or use of confidential information, and avoid conduct that could support a tortious interference claim."

Bluespring Wealth launches RIA channel with centralized compliance. Texas-based Bluespring Wealth Partners is adding a compliance option to its existing legal, billing and HR support, aimed at easing operational burdens for independent advisory firms. Alex Ortolani, Senior Reporter, Wealth Management June 2, 2026 Bluespring Wealth Partners, the Austin, Texas-based hybrid registered investment advisor arm of Kestra Holdings, has launched the Bluespring RIA, a new channel that gives partner RIAs the option to access centralized compliance services, along with existing legal, billing and human resources functions. Partner RIAs that join the Bluespring RIA channel will be added to the Bluespring RIA's Form ADV and take on the Bluespring Wealth brand name, according to the RIA. The goal is to give firms a way to hand off back-office compliance work so advisors can focus on clients and growth, said President Pradeep Jayaraman. "We've invested heavily in practice management, and this was just the next evolution," Jayaraman said. "This was feedback that we consistently heard from firms wherein they wanted help with compliance, both from an efficiency perspective as well as the advisors spending time thinking about compliance." Five Bluespring partner firms will be among the first to transition into the Bluespring RIA in 2026: Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling, Capital Planning Advisors, Joule Financial, Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory and Vector Wealth Management. Rochelle Levy, Bluespring's chief compliance officer, will lead the expanded compliance function. Levy joined the firm in October 2025 from her role as chief compliance officer for wealth management at City National Bank, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had previously spent more than three years as the head of compliance for investment management in North America for BNY Mellon. Compliance has been a crucial area for acquisitive RIAs as they seek to attract firms by promising to take such back-office burdens off their plates. This year, Hightower Advisors poached Bob Lavigne from Edelman Financial Engines to be CCO. Similarly, Atlanta-based Aprio hired CCO Courtney Holt from Compound Planning for its $5.5 billion Aprio Wealth Management RIA subsidiary. Jayaraman said Bluespring began considering the setup in the middle of 2025, following discussions with partner RIAs. "A lot of firms started raising their hands and saying, 'You're helping with all these other things, can you help with compliance?'" he said. The new channel is optional for existing partners to consider, Jayaraman said, though he anticipates more will join in the coming months and sees the addition as a recruiting driver. "We will continue to invest significantly in practice management and organic growth capabilities, compliance, infrastructure and technology," Jayaraman said. "These are things that will make us a very differentiated wealth management platform, and one that people will come to us and see the value because we put our advisors and their clients' needs first." Bluespring hit a high mark for acquisitions in 2025 with nine transactions totaling $6 billion in assets. This year, the firm has made several more acquisitions, including a $1.1 billion New Jersey-based practice this May. It has 33 partner firms to date. Private equity firm Stone Point Capital is the majority owner of Bluespring, and Oak Hill Capital also owns a minority stake in the firm. Senior Reporter, Wealth Management Alex Ortolani is a New York-based senior reporter with Wealth Management with a focus on deals, moves and trends in the registered investment advisor space. In addition to financial and business reporting, he has worked in media relations and corporate communications for tech firms and Fortune 500 companies.