We’ve been in your shoes.

We started WAGN after realizing that something was missing in the independent advisor space: Growth.
With more than 55 years of experience in this space, we have helped hundreds of firms across the country, including some of the largest RIAs, aggregators, and asset managers.
We’re experts in this field because we have run firms, built firms, grown firms, and sold firms. Now we’re focused on helping independent advisors like you – and the best-in-class companies that serve you – accelerate growth and realize potential.

We’re grounded in a few big ideas.

We’re strong believers in coming back to our foundational principles when making decisions. We believe this foundation is the key to our strategic growth; when considering like-minded partnerships, we keep this foundation at the forefront of our minds.

Culture matters

Growth leads to unique opportunities

Work with collaborators

Outsourcing effectively spurs growth

Reinvestment is the key to growth

Independence is paramount

Best of breed partners are hard to find, but key to success

Compete where others aren’t

Increasing advisor yield brings success

Leadership

Jay Hummel

Partner & Founder
Prior to founding WAGN, Jay was a Senior Vice President and Head of American Century Investment’s Personal Financial Solutions Business. Jay was responsible for the strategic and executional oversight of teams serving 600,000 individual and small retirement clients with $40B in assets under management. He is a former Managing Director of Envestnet where he served as the Head of Strategic Initiatives and Thought Leadership. Jay is the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Lenox Wealth Management, a Cincinnati-based multi-family office and started his career in accounting and consulting at Deloitte.

John Phoenix

Partner & Founder
Prior to founding WAGN, John was the National Sales Manager for the Institutional Business Development team at Envestnet. He was responsible for leading the new business efforts around large enterprise firms looking to deploy the Envestnet suite of services. John supported the firm’s efforts in the bank, independent broker dealer, regional broker dealer and registered investment advisor channels. John also led the high-net-worth sales division at Envestnet working with RIAs, hybrid RIAs, and independent advisor networks that deployed Envestnet. He was CEO and Founder of Metamorphosis Money Management an RIA in Denver, Colorado a company that he eventually sold to Envestnet.

Rick D’Amico

Partner
Rick is a Partner of Merchant and currently serves as the head of Merchant Credit Partners. He is also an investment principal at GPS Investment Partners. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of CoVenture and as a strategic advisor to several of the GPS Portfolio companies. Previously, Rick worked in the Investment Management group at Merrill Lynch where he focused on alternative investments for the duration of his tenure. He was on the portfolio management team that ran a suite of products with approximately $1billion assets under management. Rick graduated with a B.S. in Finance from the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University.

Ashley Thornton

Director of Strategic Partnerships & Operations
Ashley works closely with John and Jay across a wide variety of strategic and executional areas, including supporting operational activities for M&A transactions, serving as lead relationship manager for major outside partners, and serving as the glue for the senior leaders of the companies to ensure operational excellence. Prior to WAGN, Ashley spent four years as a product owner in American Century Investments’ client business management and business transformation groups, where she earned a reputation for speed, accuracy, and on-time completion. Prior to American Century, she worked as a marketing strategist and analyst for DEG Digital.

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