Snappy Kraken Names Riskalyze, Mariner Wealth Executives to Board of Directors
Three new board members will bring high-level business experience and fresh perspectives to award-winning marketing solution for financial advisory firms.
ORMOND BEACH, Fla., Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Snappy Kraken, a MarTech company focused on helping financial professionals automate their marketing and business processes, has named three new board members:
- Marty Bicknell, CEO and President of Mariner Wealth Advisors
- Aaron Klein, CEO of Riskalyze
- Thad Langford, General Partner of Flyover Capital
Both Bicknell and Flyover Capital participated in several rounds of funding for Snappy Kraken, including the seed round awarded by Scratchworks.
"We are both thrilled and honored that these outstanding leaders have agreed to join the Snappy Kraken board," said CEO Robert Sofia. "Their complimentary perspectives and breadth of experiences in growing wealth management and fintech companies will give us an enormous advantage."
MARTY BICKNELL BRINGS WEALTH ADVISOR & FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS' PERSPECTIVE
Marty Bicknell, along with seven others, founded Mariner Wealth Advisors in 2006 with a goal of keeping the client at the center of all they do. A recognized leader in the field of financial problem-solving for companies and their executives, Bicknell has been a valuable resource for other successful entrepreneurs. He serves on the board of directors for multiple organizations, including the KU Advancement Board for the University of Kansas Medical Center, the MRI Global Board of Trustees, and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. A member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), he also supports several organizations through sponsorship and committee participation, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), KU Med Cancer Care, Youth Entrepreneurs, Global Orphan, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and Marillac.
"Snappy Kraken has done an outstanding job of addressing the marketing needs of financial advisors and helping them deepen their engagement with both current and prospective clients," said Bicknell. "The entire team has a passion for the business that has enabled the company to achieve award-winning innovation. I'm excited to be part of the next stage of strategic development."
AARON KLEIN BRINGS FINTECH KNOWLEDGE & EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE
Aaron Klein is co-founder and CEO at Riskalyze, the company that invented the Risk Number® and created the world's first Risk Alignment Platform to empower anyone to be a fearless investor. Named twice by Fast Company Magazine as one of the world's ten most innovative companies in finance, Riskalyze serves tens of thousands of financial advisors managing hundreds of billions in client assets. Klein also serves on the board of the Invest in Others Charitable Foundation and is the co-founder and board member of Hope Takes Root which serves orphans and at-risk children in Ethiopia.
"Advisors have historically struggled to be successful marketers, and I've been deeply impressed with Robert's vision for transforming how they can increase the reach of their advice," said Klein. "I've spent nearly the last decade of my career helping equip advisors to grow and succeed, and I look forward to doing my part to help Snappy Kraken build on its early success."
THAD LANGFORD BRINGS SMART-GROWTH INSIGHTS & CAPITAL VIEW
Thad Langford, who began his career in both Fortune 500 and early-stage environments, is one of the founding partners at Flyover Capital. Before Flyover, he was President and CEO of Zave Networks (acquired by Google), a venture-backed digital advertising tech company. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Sprint leading several businesses during the formative years of mobile data and wireless wholesale services. A co-founder of software company BlackOps Development, Langford also serves on the boards of several rapidly developing companies.
"Robert Sofia and his team have changed the game in marketing for financial advisory firms," said Langford. "They are innovative and nimble, and uniquely positioned to be one of the technology success stories located outside of the traditional tech hubs."
ABOUT SNAPPY KRAKEN
Snappy Kraken provides marketing automation, online advertising, and bold, unique marketing for financial advisors. Each automated campaign on the Snappy Kraken platform is focused on achieving specific and trackable goals that grow business. Snappy Kraken's members are granted exclusive rights to their own territory to ensure they never end up using the same marketing as their competition. All Snappy Kraken subscribers are assigned to a personal Success Specialist who helps them set up, manage, and optimize their use of the platform through monthly performance check-ins.
Snappy Kraken has been announcing and will continue to reveal a number of strategic partnerships and formal agreements with nationally known financial institutions that focus on meeting the needs of like-minded groups of financial advisors, insurance agents and registered representatives.
Snappy Kraken recently was awarded the 2019 WealthManagement.com Industry Award in Social Media Leadership, Technology Providers, the only awards program of its kind to honor outstanding achievements by companies and organizations that support financial advisor success. It was also the 2018 winner in this same category. In addition, Snappy Kraken was recently was named "Best Overall Content Marketing Company" in 2019 by the MarTech Breakthrough Awards Program.
In August 2019, Snappy Kraken announced an additional round of funding after its successful pitch to the ScratchWorks FinTech accelerator founders during a live event at the invite-only Barron's Top Independent Advisors Summit in 2018. ScratchWorks was founded by a group of top wealth management and investment firms to help discover and grow ideas in the FinTech space; it is sponsored by Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions, the University of Colorado (CU) Leeds School of Business, and Barron's. In a prior competition in 2016, Snappy Kraken took first place in the FinTech Startup Competition hosted by the XY Planning Network.
In November 2019, Snappy Kraken will reveal its three-year Vivid Vision to stakeholders and employees who will be gathering for a multi-day company retreat and strategic planning session being billed by Snappy Kraken CEO Robert Sofia as "a new model for small- to medium-sized businesses."
Snappy Kraken is led by industry veteran and advisor marketing leader Robert Sofia. Learn more about Snappy Kraken at: www.SnappyKraken.com.
Media Contact:
Leslie Swid
Impact Communications
913-649-5009
[email protected]
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Snappy Kraken Names Riskalyze, Mariner Wealth Executives to Board of Directors
Three new board members will bring high-level business experience and fresh perspectives to award-winning marketing solution for financial advisory firms.
SOURCE Snappy Kraken
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