Natalie Wolfsen finds herself at the nexus of change.

After Charles Goldman stepped down as CEO of Concord, Calif.-based AssetMark Financial Holdings on Feb. 23, its board of directors named Wolfsen to take his place.

Less than a week later, AssetMark, whose core business is as a turnkey asset management platform (TAMP), announced it was acquiring financial planning software provider Voyant, a transaction that promises to expand its technological and geographical scope.

After a 25-year career in investments, digital product development and marketing, Wolfsen also now finds herself in rare company: a woman leading one of the largest and most influential investment and technology providers in the U.S.

“I’m excited about our future,” she said. “I think it’s exciting that now young women who are thinking about financial services can see a growing, successful group of women on executive teams and now as CEOs, too.”

AssetMark, which is one of the world’s largest TAMPs with $74 billion in platform assets, also recently launched AssetMark Institutional, an RIA-oriented channel encompassing products, technology, operational support and community resources. The service launched with 350 RIAs and $7 billion in assets already on board.

AssetMark Institutional includes portfolio management, reporting, proposal systems, billing, access to multiple custodians, financial planning resources, client experience and engagement resources, including an investor portal, and business consulting and practice management resources. The launch solidifies AssetMark as a source of end-to-end technology and support for advisors, and bolsters its role as a TAMP specializing on goals-based planning and financial wellness.

“We believe that planning is evolving to be more of a wellness conversation,” said Wolfsen. “You don’t just do a plan once and check in periodically. Instead, you have to offer the client a cash-flow view of their life and a goal-based, or success-based, view of their investments. Those two things are interrelated, and have to be offered side by side.”

That’s where the Voyant acquisition makes AssetMark’s new offering all the more powerful. According to Wolfsen, Voyant’s platform was already constructed with a financial wellness focus. Voyant helps bring AssetMark’s existing offerings and technology onto the computers, phones, tablets and other devices of advisors and their clients in a high-touch, holistic manner.

Wolfsen said that, while Voyant catalyzes the goals-based approach, the focus on wellness is not a pivot. AssetMark embraced its identity as a wellness-focused platform prior to her accession to the CEO role. It is an added and renewed emphasis as much of the industry moves away from an investment- and product-oriented approach towards one concentrating on engagement and life management, she said.

“We’re all seeing the same investor and advisor needs,” she said. “Investors want to have comfort that they’re doing OK as it relates to their financial lives, and advisors need solutions that are easy to use and integrate, but also beautifully visualized and consumer friendly. Things have converged today so that investors and advisors are much more ready for this than they were in the recent past.”

This means that the role of technology and product provider also has to evolve, said Wolfsen. Other major TAMPs, like Envestnet, Orion and SEI, have undergone similar shifts in their business.

“In the past we all needed to be speciality providers and focus on one thing that we did really well, like financial planning, but now you can focus on planning, investments and fantastic service with compelling technology. There isn’t as much need for us to be specialized,” she said, adding that there are still limits as to how big and all-encompassing financial technology providers can be. “The environment is still ripe for innovation when large incumbents stop innovating, or become too complex. That’s when new entrants have room to come in, and that’s why you see so many smaller firms thriving in fintech and wealthtech.”

Voyant, based in Austin, Texas, works with 20,000 advisors but has just one U.S. client. So with the acquisition, AssetMark also gains additional exposure to advisors and major financial institutions in Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Australia

Wolfsen, whose most recent role was as AssetMark’s executive vice president and chief solutions officer and who led the firm’s strategy and solutions group, says the purpose of technology leadership is to match innovation with advisor’s demands.

“Our technology is constantly evolving so that it keeps up with the trends on behalf of advisors. Thus, the vision for the future, in terms of new components and capabilities, is going to be determined by the changing needs of advisors,” she said. “We’re going to integrate or build out in a way that allows advisors to focus on their relationships and investors’ goals, because that’s what they’re counting on us for.”

Wolfsen says she envisions AssetMark building out a “beautiful and streamlined experience for advisors” on its platform. The firm will blend building out its own capabilities, making acquisitions, like Voyant, and pursuing integrations with other technology providers, she added.

As she leads a company that is growing and evolving to meet more of the needs of the advisors it serves, Wolfsen is also pursuing change in the greater financial services realm.

“I am committed to helping this industry move forward,” she said. “We need to focus as an industry on making these professions more welcoming to all. Talented people choose this industry, but we’re missing out on diverse talent, and a big part of that is along gender lines.”