Ryan Shanks is an accomplished financial services executive, entrepreneur, growth strategist, investor, and board advisor whose career spans more than 25 years across wealth management, financial technology, recruiting, consulting, and organizational growth. Throughout his professional journey, Ryan has built a reputation for seeing opportunity where business strategy, human capital, innovation, and relationships intersect. His experience encompasses organizations at different stages of maturity, from entrepreneurial ventures and emerging technology companies to established financial services firms, giving him a multidimensional perspective on how businesses grow, adapt, and create sustainable value. He is particularly energized by opportunities to help organizations expand or enhance business verticals, strengthen leadership capabilities, and navigate the cultural and operational complexities that accompany meaningful growth.
Ryan’s career foundation was built in financial services recruiting and business development, where he developed an early understanding of the connection between exceptional talent and organizational performance. As Owner of The Swivel Group, a boutique consulting firm focused on recruiting services for broker-dealers across wirehouse, bank, regional, and independent channels, he gained direct exposure to the talent strategies shaping the financial services industry. He subsequently served as Director of Recruiting for First Financial Planners and Vice President of Business Development for Associated Securities Corp., where he was a member of the executive team and managed national recruiting. These experiences sharpened his ability to evaluate talent, understand organizational needs, cultivate relationships, and connect human-capital decisions with broader business objectives.
In 2006, Ryan translated that experience into entrepreneurship by founding Finetooth Consulting. Over nearly 14 years, he built the firm around the growth needs of financial advisors and organizations operating throughout the independent financial services ecosystem. Finetooth worked with advisors, RIAs, independent broker-dealers, clearing firms, and other industry participants across areas that included recruiting, financial planning, valuation, acquisitions, and business transitions. Leading a consulting organization gave Ryan the opportunity to work closely with executives and entrepreneurs confronting consequential strategic decisions, further developing his capabilities in mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, business valuation, organizational strategy, and growth.
Ryan’s entrepreneurial trajectory continued when he co-founded FA Match, where he served as Chief Executive Officer from 2018 through 2024. FA Match was created to use technology to improve how experienced financial advisors and financial services firms connect, bringing a technology-enabled approach to a traditionally relationship-driven recruiting process. As co-founder and CEO, Ryan operated at the intersection of financial services, recruiting, technology, entrepreneurship, and organizational leadership. The experience strengthened his perspective on building companies from the ground up, developing compelling value propositions, leading teams, cultivating industry relationships, and introducing innovation into established markets. FA Match’s work also received industry recognition through the WealthManagement.com Industry Awards, reflecting Ryan’s longstanding interest in applying technology and new ideas to persistent challenges within financial services.
Ryan has complemented his operating leadership with meaningful board, investment, and advisory experience. He served for more than seven years as a member of the Board of Directors of Riskalyze, the financial technology company known for developing its Risk Number and risk-alignment technology for advisors and financial institutions. He has also served as an investor and member of the Board of Advisors for Growgenics and as a strategic advisor to Savology, while maintaining additional relationships with privately held companies. These experiences have enabled Ryan to approach business questions from multiple perspectives—as an operator, entrepreneur, investor, advisor, director, and industry practitioner—and have strengthened his ability to contribute to conversations involving growth, innovation, governance, strategic partnerships, organizational development, and long-term value creation.
Today, Ryan serves as Chief Growth Officer of Apollon Wealth Management. In this role, he brings together many of the disciplines that have defined his career: business growth, growth management, executive leadership, financial services expertise, recruiting, relationship development, and strategic thinking. His professional background positions him to understand growth not simply as a revenue objective, but as an organizational undertaking requiring the alignment of people, culture, strategy, resources, and execution. That perspective is especially relevant to companies seeking to enter new markets, strengthen existing verticals, integrate acquisitions, attract high-performing professionals, or establish the infrastructure required for their next stage of development.
Across his career, Ryan has developed particular depth in mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, strategic planning, recruiting and retention, succession planning, financial services, wealth management, investments, entrepreneurship, leadership, and new business development. His professional skill profile reinforces the breadth of this experience, including substantial recognition for M&A, entrepreneurship, business strategy, strategic planning, financial services, wealth management, portfolio management, and management consulting. This combination allows him to contribute beyond a single functional specialty. He understands how acquisitions affect culture, how hiring influences growth, how innovation must connect with commercial realities, and how strategic ambitions ultimately depend upon people who can execute them.
An important dimension of Ryan’s leadership philosophy is his commitment to mentorship and giving back. He serves as a mentor and member of the Mentorship Committee for the FinServ Foundation, supporting efforts to develop the financial services industry’s next generation of professionals and leaders. His commitment to mentorship extends beyond a single organization: he has served as a mentor through Everwise and previously with the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship – Caribbean. These activities reflect a broader belief that experience becomes more valuable when it is shared and that accomplished leaders have an opportunity to help emerging professionals anticipate challenges, develop confidence, and benefit from lessons that otherwise might take decades to acquire firsthand.
Ryan’s community involvement further reflects the values he brings to leadership. He has volunteered as both a head and assistant youth lacrosse coach and previously served as a member of the Longmeadow Historic District Commission. He has also served as an Advisory Board Member with WonderDads, an organization focused on helping fathers create meaningful experiences with their children. Whether mentoring professionals, coaching young athletes, advising entrepreneurs, or contributing to community preservation, Ryan consistently gravitates toward roles in which experience, relationships, and active participation can make a tangible difference.
As Ryan considers additional board opportunities, he is particularly interested in financial services, wealth management, and technology, while remaining open to organizations in other industries where his experience can create value. He is not constrained by company size; rather, he is drawn to organizations with meaningful opportunities to grow, expand a vertical, improve execution, strengthen culture, or navigate strategic change. He brings particular value to leadership teams confronting situations he has encountered from multiple vantage points—including acquisitions, recruiting, entrepreneurship, succession, innovation, organizational growth, and the challenge of translating ambitious ideas into executable strategies.
For Ryan, board service represents both a professional opportunity and a personal commitment. After decades of operating, building, advising, investing, recruiting, and leading, he sees an opportunity to help executives and organizations recognize possibilities and challenges they may not yet have encountered. He brings considerable energy and creativity to that mission, complemented by a career that has required him to navigate different business environments and challenging strategic scenarios. His objective is not simply to contribute accumulated knowledge, but to ask thoughtful questions, challenge assumptions constructively, help leadership teams evaluate alternatives, and support decisions that strengthen an organization for the long term.
Away from his professional responsibilities, Ryan maintains an active lifestyle and enjoys pickleball, tennis, hiking, hunting, and sports. His willingness to travel and his continuing enthusiasm for new challenges reflect the energy he brings to this stage of his career. Ultimately, Ryan’s professional story is one of growth in its broadest sense: growing businesses, developing people, building relationships, advancing ideas, and helping organizations prepare for what comes next. His combination of financial services expertise, entrepreneurial experience, board exposure, strategic perspective, and commitment to mentorship positions him to contribute meaningfully to organizations seeking experienced leadership with the curiosity and energy to keep moving forward.
Character:
Ryan leads with a strong commitment to relationships, mentorship, service, and the belief that professional experience carries an obligation to help others develop. His continued involvement with emerging professionals, community organizations, youth athletics, and advisory initiatives demonstrates a leadership philosophy grounded in contribution as well as achievement.
Knowledge:
Bringing more than 25 years of experience spanning financial services, wealth management, recruiting, M&A, entrepreneurship, consulting, technology, investments, and organizational growth. His experience as an executive, founder, CEO, director, investor, consultant, and strategic advisor gives him an unusually broad perspective from which to evaluate business opportunities and challenges.
Strategic:
Ryan approaches growth as an interconnected discipline requiring alignment among business objectives, talent, culture, innovation, capital, and execution. His experience building businesses, advising organizations, participating in acquisitions and transitions, and helping companies develop new opportunities enables him to contribute a practical, multidimensional perspective to strategic discussions.
Communication:
His career has depended upon his ability to build relationships and communicate effectively with executives, advisors, entrepreneurs, investors, employees, recruits, and emerging professionals. His industry engagement, mentoring activities, consulting background, conference participation, and executive leadership experience equip him to translate complex business issues into productive conversations that support informed decision-making.
