Apex Clearing Names New President and Head of Advisory

Apex Clearing, which offers clearing and custody services for robo advisors, has onboarded two financial services and wealthtech veterans to take on influential roles, having installed Tricia Rothschild as President and Tom Valverde as General Manager and Head of Advisory.

Tricia lands at Apex Clearing coming from Morningstar where she most recently served as Chief Product Officer and Co-Head of Global Markets. During her 26-year tenure with Morningstar, which provides an array of investment research and asset management services, she managed a multi-million-dollar global portfolio of different businesses.

Commenting on her appointment, Tricia Rothschild said “The firm has a robust pipeline of leading-edge technology initiatives already in flight as it continues to shape the industry by reducing friction and enhancing the investor experience. I see nothing but accelerating growth ahead for this world-class organization, and I look forward to helping it scale as elegantly as it innovates.”

Apex expands to crypto

Tom Valverde, who previously held executive roles at Fidelity and BNY Mellon, will step into the newly created role of General Manager and Head of Advisory, effective immediately.

Tom’s career spans nearly three decades in financial services, where he spent 20 years working with advisory businesses at some of the industry’s top custodians. This included senior roles at Fidelity Institutional and BNY Mellon’s Pershing, where he worked with investment advisors, broker dealers, family offices and asset manager platforms.

The new hires come as Apex Clearing has expanded its offering with a cryptocurrency platform that allows broker-dealers and investment platforms to offer crypto investing to their clients. The platform was developed in partnership with the company’s crypto custody offering, dubbed Apex Crypto.

The fintech company allows clients to open cryptocurrency accounts to buy and trade tokens. In their initial launch, Apex says Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin would be the first cryptocurrencies it would offer support for, with plans to add more coins based on demand.

Apex Clearing will open the door for more digital wealth companies to include the virtual asset class into their clients’ portfolios alongside traditional brokerage assets, which has been disjointed in the past. From a legal and regulatory standpoint, the platform will offer compliant custody and trading services for clients in most states. However, other states still need additional licensing.