Early Investor and Former Amex CEO Harvey Golub Takes New Role on Dynasty’s Board

Dynasty Financial Partners made a leadership change to its board this week.

Harvey Golub, the former CEO and chairman of American Express, was named the interim non-executive chairman of Dynasty’s board on Thursday. Golub was a founding board member and an early investor in the service provider to RIAs founded in 2010. 

Since then, Dynasty’s network of partners has grown to 45 RIAs managing an aggregate of more than $40 billion in client assets. The private company also has a turnkey asset management platform, or TAMP, that surpassed $20 billion in assets late last year, according to the company.

Golub replaced Todd Thomson, the chief operating and chief financial officer of Los Angeles-based Kairos Ventures, which makes early-stage investments in physical and life science research at universities and research institutions.

Thomson, a co-founder of Dynasty, is remaining on the board and will continue to be a member of the executive committee. He stepped down because of a new role at Kairos Ventures, a Dynasty spokesperson told RIA Intel.

“Harvey is an icon in our industry and I have enormous confidence in him as Interim Chairman and am appreciative of his talent and enthusiasm that he has brought to the Board of Directors since day one for the business,” Thomson said in a statement.

Like Shirl Penney, the president and CEO of Dynasty and a co-founder, Thomson previously worked at Citigroup, where he was CFO of the company and CEO of its Global Wealth Management division.

But Golub has been “a proven leader over the last four decades at the highest levels of finance” Penney said.

Since he retired as CEO and chairman of American Express in early 2001, Golub has continued to work in finance and hold board positions at other companies and institutions, including the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He has been a non-executive chairman on the boards of American International Group (AIG), Campbell Soup Company, and The Reader’s Digest Association. Early in his career, he was a director with management consultant McKinsey & Co.

In January, Envestnet (NYSE: ENV), a software company used by over 4,700 wealth management firms and 100,000 financial advisors, took a minority stake in Dynasty and Bill Crager, the co-founder and CEO of Envestnet, joined Dynasty’s board shortly after. Crager, the former president of Envestnet, was the interim chief executive following the death of Chairman and CEO Jud Bergman, who was killed in a car crash last fall.

The nine-member board also includes Director Jim Brown, a founder and managing partner at Long Ridge Equity Partners; Director Sam Levinson, a principal and managing partner at Glick Family Investments, a private family office in New York City; Director Jerrold Eberhardt, a former Smith Barney executive who spent 40 years at the firm; and William Donaldson, the chairman of Donaldson Enterprises and chairman of the Advisory Council of Perella Weinberg Partners.

Edward Swenson, the chief operating officer at Dynasty and another co-founder, is also a member of the board. 

Outside of Envestnet’s recent investment, Dynasty is owned by founders, employees, and board members.

Earlier this week, Dynasty also announced it hired Harris Baltch to lead Dynasty Capital Strategies, the financing program that helps independent RIAs with succession planning and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining Dynasty, Baltch was an executive director at UBS Investment Bank’s Financial Institutions Group, where he was part of more than $5 billion of strategic M&A and capital market transactions.

Last year, Dynasty moved its headquarters from New York City to St. Petersburg, Fla., to the delight of employees enjoying world-class beaches, golf, sailing, a burgeoning arts scene, and favorable taxes. Among its 68 employees, about 40 live and work in the Tampa Bay area now, a spokesperson said.