A little more than a week after announcing its new branding, Realta Wealth, formerly CoastalOne, a hybrid broker/dealer and RIA platform in Wilmington, Del., has hired Mark Helliker as chief operating officer. Most recently, Helliker was a consultant to other wealth management firms in the industry, and prior to that, he was the interim COO at Avantax, which was recently acquired by Cetera.
Helliker will report to CEO Kevin Keefe, and will oversee the firm’s operational activities. That includes building out a top-notch service offering and efficient operational processes, he said in an interview with WealthManagement.com. He’ll also focus on opportunities to speed up the firm’s turnaround times and creating a flexible platform for advisors.
“For me what was attractive was this idea that we would build out a company, an offer that really appealed to those advisors looking for a high-touch, personalized service relationship with a firm,” Helliker said.
“Having worked in larger organizations, I’ve seen evidence of this gap that we’re trying to address here at Realta, which is some advisors do get left in the shuffle in those bigger firms," he said. "The opportunity to work with them individually on a personalized basis was something I think the industry is lacking at this point. We plan to fill that gap.”
Helliker spent about seven years at LPL Financial, as managing director and management committee member, where he designed and launched a new service model. He structured service and operations into teams to work with groups of advisors. This helped create a personalized experience within a large organization, and get advisors familiar with certain personnel.
Prior to LPL, Helliker was a senior vice president at Schwab Advisor Services, where he managed the 650-employee operations team within the firm’s RIA custody unit.
The news comes on the heels of the firm’s rebranding from CoastalOne, a name that goes back to 1989, when the firm was established on Cape Cod, Del. The firm had been an owner-operated business until late 2022, when Ryan Hanks, founder and CEO of Madison Capital Group, a real estate investment firm, took a majority stake in Orange Street Holdings, the entity that owns Realta.
Hanks brought on Keefe, a former executive with Osaic, LPL and Cetera, last June as its new CEO. Since then, the firm has built out its executive leadership team, adding Yanni V. Bousnakis, a former senior vice president and head of advisory platforms and investment solutions at Kestra Financial, as its Chief Product Officer. Keefe also tapped Larry Roth, founder and managing partner at RLR Strategic Partners, Joseph Kuo, founder and CEO of Haven Tower Group, and Mike Zebrowski, COO at Docupace, to join the firm’s corporate advisory board.