Haven Tower Group Announces Exclusive Strategic Alliance with Cardinal Communications Strategies to Serve Private Equity Firms Investing in Wealth Management

Aligns Best-in-Class Private Equity Communications Expertise with Award-Winning Wealth Management PR, Marketing and Brand Strategy to Drive Value Creation

Cardinal Communications Strategies Joins Haven Tower Alliance, Curated Network of Independent Agencies Offering Complementary Capabilities, Expertise and Strategic Relationships

LOS ANGELES and CHICAGO, May 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Haven Tower Group, the multiple award-winning, full-service communications agency focused on the wealth management industry, today announced a new exclusive strategic alliance with Cardinal Communications Strategies, a strategic financial communications firm serving private equity sponsors across media relations, executive positioning, content strategy and digital marketing.

Unparalleled Private Equity and Wealth Management Communications Expertise

The new strategic alliance – called the Cardinal Haven Initiative – is designed to support private equity firms investing in wealth management and the wealth management enterprises they acquire and build. It pairs Haven Tower's industry-specific expertise across RIAs, hybrids, dual registrants, family offices and wealth platforms with Cardinal's deep experience helping private equity firms communicate clearly, consistently and credibly in markets that are intensely competitive in capturing high quality deal flow.

While closely collaborating via the Cardinal Haven Initiative, both Haven Tower and Cardinal Communications will continue as stand-alone, independent firms under their longstanding leadership teams, operations, strategic visions and brand identities in all other areas of their respective businesses.

A Superior Model to "Supermarket" Agencies Claiming to Do It All

"We've seen a recurring dynamic in the market," said Joe Kuo, Founder & CEO of Haven Tower Group and Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Ascentix Partners. "Private equity firms active in wealth management often retain agencies that do a great job for PE generally — but wealth management isn't their daily world. Then portfolio companies feel stuck, because they need a partner that's fully immersed in the advisor ecosystem. This alliance fixes that problem."

The Cardinal Haven Initiative builds on a longstanding relationship between Joe Kuo and Marc Raybin, Founder & President of Cardinal Communications. The two have known one another and worked together many times over the past two decades, starting during Kuo's time as a Partner at the global agency now known as Kekst CNC and while Raybin was a journalist covering the private equity industry.

"This is really a natural outgrowth of a relationship built on mutual trust and respect," Kuo added. "Marc and I come at this from different sides of the market — his deep private equity communications background and our singular focus on wealth management — and that combination is exactly what private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies need right now."

"Our Cardinal Haven Initiative is an exciting alliance that addresses multiple practical needs on both sides of any private equity transaction in the wealth management space.  It's also a strategic partnership that has happened very organically, as part of a relationship between each other built over many years," said Marc Raybin, Founder & President of Cardinal Communications Strategies. "Sponsors want sponsor-level communications rigor, and portfolio companies want an agency that truly understands their industry. Haven Tower brings that wealth management fluency, and we bring private equity communications discipline. Together we can support both, without either firm changing who it is."

Dedicated Expertise Upstream and Downstream of Every Deal

The Haven Tower–Cardinal alliance is built to support communications needs across the full lifecycle of private equity ownership in wealth management — from pre-deal narrative positioning and sponsor visibility, to integration, growth communications, and ultimately exit readiness.

It also solves a common market misalignment: Portfolio companies need wealth management industry-specific communications and brand elevation. However, these portfolio companies are often referred by their private equity owners to generalist financial services agencies that neither treat wealth management clients as top priority relationships, nor do they thoroughly understand this unique segment of the financial services sector.

Part of the Haven Tower Alliance

Cardinal Communications joins the Haven Tower Alliance, a curated network of independent agencies with complementary capabilities, expertise and strategic relationships that work closely with Haven Tower to expand client support across the wealth management industry.

The Cardinal alliance follows Haven Tower's strategic alliance with Conway Communications, a leading investor relations and financial communications firm and the first partnership launched under the Haven Tower Alliance framework.

"We're building the Haven Tower Alliance around a simple design principle: specialization wins," said Larry Roth, Board Chairman of Haven Tower Group and Founder & Managing Partner of Ascentix Partners. "Cardinal's private equity communications strength, combined with Haven Tower's wealth management focus, creates a clearer and more effective model for sponsors and portfolio companies than what most generalist agencies can deliver.

"Since Ascentix Partners has longstanding strategic consulting and M&A advisory relationships with private equity firms investing in wealth management, we're uniquely positioned to help this alliance accelerate in a way that's tightly connected to how sponsors actually drive value."

Strategic Alignment with Ascentix Partners

Haven Tower Group is also a Strategic Partner Firm of Ascentix Partners, the leading consortium of elite consultancies delivering growth consulting, M&A advisory, technology and operations, outsourced compliance supervision and brand elevation to the wealth management industry. Ascentix Partners is headquartered in New York City with a significant presence in Los Angeles.

Private equity firms and other sources of private capital interested in engaging with the Cardinal Haven Initiative are encouraged to visit Haven Tower Alliance for further information.

About Cardinal Communications

Cardinal Communications Strategies is a strategic financial communications agency with expertise in delivering media relations, executive positioning, content strategy and digital marketing to private equity sponsors.

Founded in 2014, Cardinal empowers clients with customized, goal-oriented, and hands-on communications expertise. Cardinal's core beliefs include listening to our clients' goals, partnering with clients and embracing our roles as facilitators for our clients' key messaging. The Cardinal difference is found in our passion to provide our clients with communications strategies and services that positively impact their business plans. The client is at the center of all that we do.

About Haven Tower Group

Launched 15 years ago, Haven Tower Group is a multiple award-winning, full-service communications agency with an exclusive focus on the wealth management industry. With a team of nearly 20 professionals across Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and New York City, Haven Tower delivers comprehensive brand elevation programs that help drive client growth and reputational value.  Haven Tower's capabilities encompass public relations, digital marketing, transactional and crisis communications as well as brand strategy.

The firm's clients include leading wealth management enterprises across the RIA, dual registrant, wirehouse and insurance-owned enterprise segments. Additonally, Haven Tower serves retail wealth and family office-focused third-party asset managers, private market solutions providers, wealthtech platforms, industry associations and strategic advisory firms.

About Ascentix Partners

Ascentix Partners is the leading consortium of elite consultancies delivering unparalleled expertise and access to strategic relationships for wealth management enterprise clients. The firm provides—on an integrated or à la carte basis—the full suite of capabilities a modern wealth enterprise requires to drive sustainable growth.  Its capabilities and expertise encompass strategic planning, M&A advisory, compliance supervision, financial advisor recruiting and brand elevation. Ascentix Partners is headquartered in New York City, with a significant presence in Los Angeles.

Media Contacts
Donald Cutler or Elizabeth Shim
Haven Tower Group
424-317-4864 | 424-317-4861
[email protected] | [email protected]

SOURCE Haven Tower Group