RIA Edge Podcast: Scaling a High-Touch Wealth Firm with Stephen Rigali

Mar 24, 2026

Stephen Rigali, Executive Managing Director at Kayne Anderson Rudnick with 40+ years in investment management, discusses growing a firm from family-office roots to $55B through intentional, organic expansion. He talks advisor lifecycle and capacity planning. He explores balancing high-touch service with scalability, mixing in-house expertise and outside specialists, and testing AI to boost research and workflows.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

From Family Office To $55 Billion Firm

Kayne Anderson Rudnick began as a family office for John Anderson and evolved into an investment and wealth firm.
Stephen Rigali joined in 1991 when AUM was ~$200M and describes growth to ~$55B today, showing multi-decade organic expansion.

INSIGHT

Separate Divisions For Scale And Stability

Kayne runs investment management and wealth advisory as separate P&L divisions with shared services.
The investment side is highly scalable and cyclical while wealth advisory is boutique, steady, and averages client tenure north of 10 years.

ANECDOTE

Clients Finding The Firm Via LLMs

New client sourcing includes referrals, brand, and increasingly traffic from LLMs like GPTs driving website discovery.
Rigali notes marketing discovered users now report finding the firm via large language models on intake forms.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In this episode of the RIA Edge Podcast, host David Armstrong speaks with Stephen Rigali, executive managing director at Kayne Anderson Rudnick, about the firm’s evolution from a family office into a $55 billion platform and how it has approached growth with intention over four decades.

He shares how the firm prioritizes organic expansion, structured advisor development and long-term client relationships, along with how it balances high-touch service with scalability, uses specialized partners to extend capabilities, and evaluates the role of AI in improving efficiency without replacing human decision-making.

Key takeaways:

How the firm grew from founder capital into a $55 billion platform through steady, organic expansion
Why advisor capacity is managed through defined lifecycle stages and proactive resource planning
How long-term client relationships are built on trust, alignment and consistent human interaction
Why combining in-house expertise with outside specialists strengthens the client experience
How AI is being tested to improve research, workflows and operational efficiency across the firm

Resources:

Listen to the RIA Edge Podcast on Wealth Management
Listen and Subscribe to the RIA Edge Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Listen and Subscribe to the RIA Edge Podcast on Spotify

Connect With David Armstrong:

Connect With Stephen Rigali:

About Our Guest:

Stephen Rigali is the Executive Managing Director and a member of the Executive Management Committee at Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management, a Los Angeles–based investment and wealth management firm founded in 1984. He oversees business development across the firm’s institutional, retail, and wealth management platforms and works closely with the firm’s Chief Investment Officer and Chief Operating Officer to help shape the firm’s long-term investment and business strategy. He also serves on the firm’s Risk and Compliance Committee, ESG Steering Committee, and the Investment Committee for the Wealth Advisory division.

Stephen has more than four decades of experience in the investment management industry and has been with Kayne Anderson Rudnick since 1991, playing a key role in the firm’s growth and evolution. Earlier in his career, he was a Vice President at Shearson Lehman Brothers. Stephen holds a B.S. in Business and Economics from Loyola Marymount University and is a CFA charterholder.