Newport Beach, Calif.-based United Capital is making big moves to keep up with its booming FinLife Partners wealth management platform.

The firm announced Monday evening that it is hiring three new executives and raising funds from a new Australian strategic partner as the FinLife Partners platform has swelled to $6.9 billion in assets under contract less than 18 months after its launch. The startling growth of the digital platform, which is used solely by advisors, is convincing some United Capital executives that it may become the dominant part of their business.

"We're investing in the early success and huge amount of interest we're seeing in FinLife Partners," says Mike Capelle, head of platform at United Capital. "We're off to such a quick start here, I think what we're seeing with the FinLife Partners channel is that within the next few years, it's going to surpass our core United Capital financial advisors business."

Phillip Rogerson will join United Capital as chief business officer of FinLife Partners. Rogerson most previously served as managing director of consulting and product at Russell Investments, where he had served in a number of roles since 1988.

Min Zhang joins as vice president of digital product management for United Capital. Zhang’s most recent endeavor was founding and leading Totum Wealth. She has also served as director of investment risk at Pacific Life Fund Advisors and vice president of product management at PIMCO.

Edward Kummer joins as United Capital’s chief marketing officer after most recently serving as chief marketing and digital officer for the Oakley brand at Luxottica. He has also served in executive roles at Disney and Victoria’s Secret.

"We like to think differently and make decisions oriented towards the client experience and the client journey," says Capelle. "We've always been impressed with folks who come in from outside the industry and provide different perspectives, because we're not trying to build another run-of-the-mill wealth management firm."

In addition, AMP Limited, a financial service company based in Australia and New Zealand, has invested in United Capital and will hold a small equity stake in the firm. According to the announcement, the firms will share intellectual property, and United Capital will use the investment to continue to ramp up its technology and marketing efforts.

Launched in April 2016, FinLife Partners is at heart an integrated wealth management platform offering advisors white-label versions of United Capital’s digital holistic financial planning tools and processes combined with open-architecture investment management, middle-office and coaching services.

United Capital calls FinLife Partners an “integrated financial life management operating system.” The platform includes the MoneyMind analyzer onboarding questionnaire, the Honest Conversations goals-setting tool and other elements of the firm’s Financial Life Management system.

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