SageView Names New CFO, Adds Chief Growth Officer

SageView Advisory Group has named a new chief financial officer and brought on a chief growth officer as the firm seeks to continue building out its retirement plan advisement and wealth management business.

Christina Walsh is replacing Tony Nottermann as CFO of the Newport Beach, California-based firm, and Steve Gaven will take the newly created role of growth officer. They will both report to CEO John Longley, who has been at the helm of Sageview for more than six months after taking over for founder Randy Long, who remains chairman of the firm.

Christina Walsh

“These are the ideal leaders to put in place for this next phase of growth for SageView,” Longley says. “Our growth plan remains intact. We have a foundational retirement business that we will continue to grow both organically and inorganically through acquisitions. We have a rapidly growing wealth business that we will continue to scale significantly. … Our force multiplier is the opportunity to partner, within SageView, our retirement business with our wealth business to increase the value we offer to our clients.”

CFO Walsh takes the role after being a principal with SageView’s private equity backer, Aquiline Capital Partners, and a member of SageView’s board. While at the private equity firm, Walsh focused on growth transactions and expansion strategies for wealth management firms.

“Her leadership positions at Aquiline give Christina a thorough understanding of what we do at SageView and how those goals align with those of our capital partners at Aquiline,” Longley says. 

Since Aquiline’s 2021 investment in the advisory, SageView has acquired 10 wealth management firms to work alongside its roughly 2,000 retirement plan sponsor clients.

Prior to her role at Aquiline, Walsh worked on mergers and acquisitions and partner relationships with independent wealth managers at Focus Financial Partners. Notermann, who took the CFO role in June 2021, will be leaving the firm, according to a spokesperson.

“SageView is incredibly well-positioned to take full advantage of the opportunities we see in the market,” Walsh said in a statement. 

Steve Gaven

Growth officer Gaven joins from RWA Wealth, formerly Adviser Investments, where he was chief financial officer for the registered investment advisory aggregator. In that role, he led two acquisitions which doubled the firm’s assets under management to $15 billion in less than two years, according to the announcement. He also helped the firm create a new operating model for its wealth management platform and extend offerings to include trust and estate services.

“I’m thrilled to take on this new role at a pivotal moment for SageView and the industry,” Gaven said in a statement.

Longley calls Gaven “a talented, seasoned RIA corporate strategist who is a business development expert. He brings with him highly relevant experience in driving both organic and inorganic growth.”

When it comes to SageView’s acquisition plans in retirement plan advisement, “there’s always the opportunity to expand, certainly from a geographic standpoint, and bring in talent to our team,” Longley says. On the wealth side, he points to a focus on “industry-best talent” who will work well with the firm’s institutional retirement advisers and geographic fit.

SageView has more than 30 offices nationally and is among the RIAs with retirement plan practices that are bringing on wealth management divisions to build out services to individual savers.