Two executives at Dynasty Financial Partners, the service provider to roughly 50 independent RIAs managing $60 billion, plan to leave the company this month, according to a memo sent to employees and reviewed by RIA Intel.
Eric Castillo, Dynasty’s chief technology officer, is leaving the firm June 11. Before joining Dynasty in 2019, Castillo was the CTO and chief operating officer at Stelac, an RIA focused on European, Middle Eastern, and Latin American families and endowments.
“Eric brought a level of professionalism to our technology capabilities across the entire firm. We truly appreciate Eric’s great attitude and tech expertise and look forward to keeping in touch with him in the future,” Ed Swenson, chief operating officer at Dynasty, said in the memo.
[Like this article? Subscribe to RIA Intel’s’ thrice-weekly newsletter.]
Joseph Dursi, Dynasty’s chief investment officer, is also leaving this month. Dursi joined the company in 2017 after years at Lehman Brothers, Barclays, and then Deutsche Bank. In the memo, Swenson said Dursi “made a meaningful contribution to Dynasty during his time at the firm. We will all miss Joe’s dedication and we wish him well in his new position.’
Castillo and Dursi could not be reached to comment on their departures, which were first reported by WealthManagement.com.
The New York City-based executives have accepted positions at new companies there. But their replacements will be located in St. Petersburg, Fla., where Dynasty moved its headquarters in 2019 for its ease of transportation to other cities, affordable real estate, lower taxes, and high quality of life.
The company closed its longtime headquarters that overlooked Manhattan’s Central Park but still maintains office space in the city.
Dynasty has not hired anyone to replace Castillo, but a current employee is taking the place of Dursi until a new chief investment officer is found.
In the memo, Dynasty promoted its head of Strategic Development, Joe D’Agostino, to director and to lead the company’s Investment Platform and Product Strategy. He is already based in St. Petersburg and will report to Dynasty President and CEO Shirl Penney.
D’Agostino was previously a managing director and the head of Investment Products at Morgan Stanley, where he oversaw over $500 billion on its platform. At the investment bank, he collaborated with asset managers and insurance companies to design investment solutions for its thousands of financial advisors. During his 25-year tenure at Morgan Stanley (which created Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in a joint venture with Citi in 2009) D’Agostino was also a financial advisor and managed one of the wealth management branches.
“Having worked with Joe in the past at Citi/Smith Barney, I am looking forward to working with him in his new role,” Penney said.
D’Agostino has been tasked with continuing to scale and professionalize Dynasty’s investment platform and will be “invaluable” in managing its third-party asset managers and turnkey asset management platform. Dynasty’s TAMP is one of the largest and was managing about $27 billion as of March.
Business lulled in 2020, but Dynasty said “spring-loaded” demand caused it to begin a hiring spree in anticipation of its growth this year. In addition to the core back and middle office services it provides a network of RIAs, Dynasty also continues to expand its business. In May, the company announced it would begin purchasing minority stakes in RIAs to meet the demand of its partners.
Michael Thrasher (@Mike_Thrasher) is a reporter at RIA Intel based in New York City.
Subscribe to RIA Intel’s thrice-weekly newsletter and follow the publication on Twitter and LinkedIn.
