Senior Municipal Credit Analyst

Raymond James has recruited a three-advisor team managing $5.4 billion in client assets from Comerica, a regional commercial bank acquired by Fifth Third Bank earlier this year. The team, operating as Capital Reserve Group of Raymond James, joins the firm's employee advisor channel in Newport Beach, California. Advisors Cory Matsumoto, Rey Carandang and Genae Affrunti become senior vice presidents of wealth management at Raymond James & Associates. Matsumoto had been with Comerica for 20 years, whilst Carandang and Affrunti had 14 and 12 years' tenure respectively. The recruitment follows Raymond James adding a $1 billion team from Stifel last week. During the second quarter of 2025, the firm recruited advisors with $156 million in trailing 12-month production and nearly $23 billion in client assets.

Mercer Advisors launches AI platform for family office services. Mercer Advisors has launched Aspen 2.0, an AI-enabled platform that unifies client data and workflows to enhance family office services across its 42,000-plus clients. Developed over the past three years by the technology team at Mercer Advisors, the firm has now rolled out its second AI-enhanced version of the platform. Aspen 2.0 is now deployed across the firm's more than 1,100 interdisciplinary wealth professionals. Built to address one of the most persistent industry challenges, fragmented data and technology that hinders collaborative service delivery, Aspen creates a single, unified environment that allows advisory teams to work together to deliver the full power of the Mercer Advisors platform to clients. Mercer Advisors built Aspen as a family office platform, to support its advisory teams in local markets in delivering its comprehensive offering and orchestrate its deep bench of interdisciplinary professionals. As wealth firms add services for their clients (planning, investing, tax, estate, insurance, financial administration, and more) it becomes increasingly important to provide team members with a real-time view of each client and a shared environment for client service. Unlike many advisor systems that simply display data, Aspen maps the relationships between the firm's clients, team members, and the services being provided. It forms a unified knowledge graph that connects client data, acts as a system of record for the work that is being done and integrates directly into specialist systems in each advisory domain. Because of its unique architecture, Aspen allows Mercer Advisors to deploy AI tools within workflows, directly alongside team members, in a supervised manner. The platform's name reflects its design and philosophy. In nature, what appears to be a forest of Aspen trees is often a single living organism, connected by an extensive underground root system. In the same way, Aspen connects data, workflows and communication across Mercer Advisors into a single platform, allowing individual advisors and teams to operate as local boutiques while remaining deeply connected to a shared source of intelligence and capability. "Our ultimate aspiration is to deliver the highest standard of financial care to families and create the context where leading fiduciary professionals can do the best work of their careers," said Daniel Gourvitch, president of Mercer Advisors. "For families, Aspen allows us to deliver the full capabilities of a $110 billion+ family office through each of 450 advisors. For our teams, it is the engine that simplifies the coordination and execution of work, so they can spend more time with clients while also doing more for them. And at the firm level, Aspen supports consistent delivery, rapid innovation, and the integration of innovative technology partners directly into advisory workflows. Aspen represents the future of wealth management, where AI, automation and personalisation converge to support fiduciary advisors in delivering institutional-grade outcomes to individual families." Aspen features integrations with industry-leading technology providers Orion, Box, eMoney, Estately by FreeWill, Pontera, Salentica, Salesforce, Zoom and Microsoft, as well as multi-custody integrations with Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, Raymond James Financial, Goldman Sachs and others. "Orion is excited and proud to collaborate with Mercer Advisors as an Aspen integration partner," said Reed Colley, president of Orion Advisor Technology. "As an AI-native company, we are building solutions that make advisors more human, not less. Aspen delivers a true, AI-enabled family office experience by connecting teams, data, and client goals into one coordinated platform that helps set a new standard for how advice is delivered at scale." "AI is fundamentally changing the way work gets done, and agents will define this next era by understanding context and actively participating in complex workflows," said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box. "Aspen is helping to set the pace for what agentic AI looks like in the real world, bringing intelligence directly into the day-to-day work of advisors in a secure, compliant way. We're excited to collaborate with Mercer Advisors to demonstrate how organisations can use AI to scale expertise, surface insights faster, and help deliver better outcomes without losing the human element that matters most." Serving as Mercer Advisors' primary system for its wealth management teams, Aspen powers hundreds of thousands of discrete actions each year for its 42,000+ clients. Each of Mercer Advisors' services is powered by Aspen, from core advisory work like building financial plans, managing portfolios, and preparing tax returns to daily distributions and contributions. And by embedding documents, email, meetings and other communications, it provides shared context across every interaction, and connects them to the related work. This positions the firm's advisors, specialists, and client services professionals to collaborate more effectively and allows them to deliver stronger insights and recommendations. "Aspen is a testament to our belief in working as one team for the benefit of every client. At its core, Aspen orchestrates the collective intelligence and capabilities of our planning, investing, tax, and estate professionals in delivering a cohesive family office experience," added Dave Welling, CEO of Mercer Advisors. "Aspen is the result of focused execution and innovation from our technology team, led by chief technology officer Christine Cataldo and our technology partners, including Avantos, who have worked together to create a platform that strengthens how we serve clients today and positions Mercer Advisors for continued growth and innovation in the years ahead." Founded by longtime fintech entrepreneurs, Avantos is an AI-native operating system that provides financial services firms with a platform to systemise and institutionalise client data and servicing at scale. Supported by a team of 50+ AI engineers, the company is backed by leading venture firms, Mercer Advisors and strategic partners including Vanguard, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America(R) and SEI(R). As Mercer Advisors continues to establish itself as the destination of choice for like-minded advisory firms, Aspen also plays a critical role in accelerating post-acquisition integration and preserving service quality at scale. The platform helps reduce operational friction by bringing newly acquired teams onto a single, unified system, streamlining onboarding, simplifying training, and enabling more consistent workflows across the firm. By quickly connecting advisors, specialists, and client data to the same shared foundation, Aspen helps provide continuity for clients while allowing new teams to integrate faster and contribute more effectively from day one. Re-disseminated by Wealth and Society

Raymond James lands $5.4B advisor team from Comerica. The California-based veteran advisors are joining RayJay's employee advisor channel as billion-dollar-plus moves continue to reshape the independent channel in 2026. JUL 30, 2026 Raymond James has added pulled in another nine-figure advisor team, welcoming a trio of advisors managing $5.4 billion in assets from Comerica to its employee channel. In a move that could be one of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based firm's largest recruiting wins this year, West Coast Regional Director announced that Cory Matsumoto, Rey Carandang and Genae Affrunti have joined Raymond James & Associates, RayJay's employee advisor channel. The team, operating as Capital Reserve Group of Raymond James in Newport Beach, California, brings financial planning, investment management and institutional consulting services to families, business owners, corporate executives, endowments and foundations. Two client relationship associates, Julia Bica and Brian Toyama, made the jump with them. Matsumoto, a senior vice president of wealth management who began his career in 1995, cited the firm's fixed income capabilities and technology investment as decisive factors that won the team over. On the AI front, Raymond James has logged several milestones this year including the launch of a proprietary AI operations agent in January, establishing an AI Academy to train advisors across the organization in May, and last month's hiring of Seth Ford, a veteran executive from Vanguard to lead its AI agenda as senior vice president and chief architect. Raymond James "distinguished itself through its institutional capabilities, nationally recognized fixed income platform, financial strength and long-term commitment to advisor independence," according to Matsumoto. Carandang, who holds 25 years of industry experience, and Affrunti, who joins with 24 years in the business, round out the leadership group at Capital Reserve Group. The hire adds to a run of billion-dollar-plus teams that have come through Raymond James' recruiting pipeline so far in 2026. Earlier this month, Raymond James Financial Services, the firm's independent contractor channel, picked up KWM Wealth Advisory, a four-advisor Pasadena team managing more than $1 billion in assets that had been affiliated with Stifel. Two months earlier in May, RJFS welcomed Financial Strategies Retirement Partners, a 24-person, Bedford, New Hampshire-based team overseeing $2.8 billion in client assets that had spent decades with Commonwealth Financial Network. "Cory, Rey and Genae bring a sophisticated practice to Raymond James, and they make an impactful addition to our Western presence," Simmons said. The supersized West Coast addition comes on the heels of another significant move this week at RJFS. Laetitia Boyle, a seasoned leader with more than 20 years of experience supporting financial advisors and firm leaders, was named director of the Central Division within RJFS' independent contractor division (ICD). During her tenure at Raymond James, she has held leadership roles at different areas within the organization including private wealth, Raymond James Bank, and most recently, the investment banking division. Kirk Bell, who was promoted to president of ICD in March, commended Boyle's record of "[building] strong, authentic relationships across Raymond James. "She brings a deep understanding of advisors in addition to strategic perspective, energy and accessibility that will serve the division well," Bell said.