Financial software company InvestCloud recently reconstructed its C-suite after the sudden departures of its founding executive cohort last year. Shawn Donovan was appointed as chief revenue officer on Feb. 7, less than month after a new chief executive was brought in.
The West Hollywood-based company, which supports more than $6 trillion in assets across its platforms, sustained the sudden departures of 12 executives last April amid pressure to grow its market share and revenue.
Motive Partners, the private equity firm that became a main backer alongside Santa Monica-based Clearlake Capital in a 2021 recapitalization deal, put its own leadership in InvestCloud’s top spots after four of the company’s five co-founders left.
Chief executive and co-founder John Wise was replaced by Richard Lumb, a partner at Motive. InvestCloud’s president Colin Close left shortly thereafter, and Motive put its own Heather Bellini in that role.
Now, investors are bringing in more permanent leadership after its own partners plugged the executive holes left by founders.
In January, Motive Partners’ chairman and founding partner Jeff Yabuki took the helm from Lumb. The newly minted chief executive brought in Donovan banking on a fresh sales strategy to pick up where his investment firm’s partners left off.
“For more than three decades, Shawn has been leading sales and operational teams serving the financial services industry with a focus on driving outstanding sales and revenue growth, said Yabuki. “We are thrilled to welcome Shawn to InvestCloud where we can utilize his deep expertise in building high-performing teams and enhance the value we deliver for our clients and partners.”
Donovan worked under Yabuki at Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based payment tech company, as the chief sales officer for five years, during which time the company’s revenue tripled.
The pair are now hoping for similar results for the wealth advisor software company.
Despite InvestCloud’s deep client roster, which includes the likes of Wells Fargo, BNP Baribas and Raymond James, the company has struggled to drum up revenue figures to pace the billion-dollar valuation Motive Partners and Clearlake Capital bought into three years ago.
Last May, interim chief executive Lumb told InvestmentNews the software company racked up $370 million in 2022. While a substantial improvement from the $80 million revenue figures reported at the time of Motive Partners’ acquisition, InvestCloud lacked, according to Lumb, the operational structure to scale its product quickly.
Part of Yabuki’s plan to jumpstart his firm’s return on investment includes tapping into his business network: he serves on several boards, including at the Royal Bank of Canada and the Nasdaq.
“We have an opportunity to pair one of the preeminent business builders and leaders in financial technology with a compelling global macro-opportunity that we believe will create value for InvestCloud’s clients,” said Rob Heyvaert, founding partner at Motive Partners as well as InvestCloud’s board director.
InvestCloud was founded in 2010 as a software platform for financial advisors. Through multiple acquisitions, the company now includes an outsourced investing business.
Fintech operations, particularly business-to-business software focused on wealth managers and financial services, are projected to bring in $400 billion in revenue by 2028, according to a report released by McKinsey & Co. in October.
