RIA platform for independent wealth advisors with integrated data and operations
Hightower operates a registered investment advisor (RIA) serving independent wealth advisors across the U.S., structured around client onboarding, portfolio management, and integration of acquired practices. The tech stack reveals a firm in transition: heavy reliance on legacy wealth-management tools (CCH Axcess, Bloomberg, FactSet, Envestnet) paired with modern cloud infrastructure (Snowflake, dbt, AWS) and data governance (Collibra). Active adoption of Terraform, AWS CDK, and CloudFormation signals movement toward infrastructure-as-code maturity, while projects around dbt-Snowflake integration and the HT1 platform launch indicate internal efforts to unify data and operations across a growing federated advisor network.
Notable leadership hires: Corporate Communications Director, Technology Application Lead
Hightower is a Chicago-based wealth management firm founded in 2008, operating as a registered investment advisor (RIA) with advisors distributed across the United States. The firm provides investment, financial, and retirement planning services to individuals, foundations, and family offices, along with 401K consulting and cash management for corporate clients. The partnership model empowers independent advisors with capital, operational infrastructure, and technology to serve their own client bases. Current hiring is heavily weighted toward finance (43 roles) and support functions (10 roles), with smaller teams in engineering, data, and product—reflecting the operational scaling required to support organic and acquired advisor growth.
Hightower runs CCH Axcess, Salesforce, Bloomberg, FactSet, Envestnet, Snowflake, dbt, Power BI, and AWS. The firm is adopting Terraform, AWS CDK, and CloudFormation for infrastructure automation.
Active projects include the HT1 platform launch, dbt and Snowflake integration, Collibra data quality operationalization, client onboarding, integration of acquired advisor practices, and corporate communications strategy development.
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