From Submarine Officer to Wall Street to AI for RIAs

What we talked about.

Signe Bennett, co-founder and chief investment officer of Wavvest, joins Sunny Ray to trace his path from Navy submarine officer to JP Morgan private banker to startup founder. Bennett explains how a chance connection with a fellow ex-Navy banker in JP Morgan's Chicago office led him into wealth management, and how frustration with slow, siloed processes at a top private bank inspired Wavvest, an AI native operating system for registered investment advisors. He describes two core problems Wavvest solves: fragmented point solutions that do not share data well, and an aging advisor client base losing younger clients to direct-to-consumer fintech apps. Bennett details the custody infrastructure gap behind why fintech apps open accounts in minutes while banks take weeks, the moment he and co-founder Brendan King decided to leave stable jobs, lessons from raising a pre-seed round, and why advisor capacity must grow as the industry faces a coming wave of retirements. He closes with his vision for Wavvest five years out: more accessible, less opaque financial advice for far more households.

A submarine officer turned JP Morgan banker builds an AI native operating system helping RIAs compete with fintech apps.

The questions, and the answers.

What is Wavvest, and what problem are you solving for RIAs?

We solve two problems for registered investment advisors. First, they run a disconnected operating system: CRM, portfolio accounting, trading, rebalancing, and note takers all sit in silos and do not talk to each other, so we built a unified, vertically integrated system. Second, most RIAs have an aging client base and struggle to reach millennial and Gen Z clients, who go to direct-to-consumer fintech apps instead.

You went from Navy submarine officer to JP Morgan private bank. What carried over from the sub into finance?

Not much of the engineering, honestly, but attention to detail and navigating interpersonal relationships did carry over. I was always interested in markets and what moved different asset classes. While transitioning out of the military and attending business school, I met a private banker in JP Morgan's Chicago office who was also ex-Navy and went to the same school. He recruited me and it became a seamless transition.

Inside a best-in-class big bank, what inefficiency in KYC and account opening frustrated you most?

JP Morgan is a great, best-in-class institution, but completing KYC, account opening, funding, trading, and rebalancing took two to three weeks, when a direct-to-consumer fintech app does the same thing in five or ten minutes. Even basic customer service items like updating beneficiaries, things you would not think twice about, took far longer than they should have. Seeing that gap at both a big bank and RIAs showed us the white space to build Wavvest.

DTC fintechs open and fund accounts in minutes. Why does the same process take weeks at a big bank?

It comes down to custody infrastructure. We are built on top of Apex Fintech Solutions, which powered most direct-to-consumer fintechs, including the early Robinhood, with instant KYC, account opening, and fractional trading. Big banks run on legacy infrastructure built decades ago that cannot simply be ripped out and replaced. Newer custodians like Apex basically had to rebuild it from the studs, which is hard when the whole industry runs on old financial rails.

What was the exact moment you decided to leave a stable bank career and build Wavvest?

I realized I did not want to be a cog in a big bank long term, and the longer I waited, the harder it would be to pull up the roots. I met my co-founder Brendan King at the private bank, and we both knew that every day we delayed, more new entrants would try the same idea. I also did not want to wake up someday wondering what if. It has been one of the best decisions I have made.

What did closing your pre-seed round teach you that no amount of banking experience did?

It taught me hustle, just getting the word out there. We talked to hundreds of people before landing on the right firm, which had actually written a white paper about the exact inefficiencies we saw and the kind of startup that could fill the gap. Our thesis matched theirs, and we clicked in person. A lot of founders chase the biggest name VC, but fit with people you want to work with matters more than just getting capital.

Most RIAs juggle separate systems for custodians, CRM, billing, planning, and reporting. Why does that hurt them?

The biggest issue is data sharing across platforms in a heavily regulated industry. If your financial planning software does not have custodial feeds, external bank accounts, meeting notes, or CRM data integrated, the output quality suffers. Advisors end up bouncing between four or five systems just to recall one fact about a client. This swivel chair problem is prevalent across the industry, and an all-in-one platform saves a lot of time and headache.

What is the single biggest bottleneck between Wavvest and your next 100 RIAs?

Part of it is continuing to build the product and add the right accretive features and connections. The other part is capacity constraints. We do a lot of founder-led outreach, but we are pulled in many directions between operations, fundraising, insurance, accounting, and HR, all the non-sexy work that eats time but is not as creative as sales. It is about managing our time efficiently while getting the word out and educating prospects.