Ruediger "Rudy" Adolf is an Austrian-born American business executive. He is the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of

Focus Financial Partners Focus Financial Partners, LLC () is an investor in independent, fiduciary wealth management firms, incorporated in 2004 by Ruediger (Rudy) Adolf, Rajini Kodialam and Leonard (Lenny) Chang. As of 2018, Focus has offices in both New York and San F ...

. In July 2018, Adolf took Focus Financial public, offering over 16 million shares of the firm's Class A common stock. The IPO gathered a total of $615.4 million in gross proceeds. The stock increased 14% on its first day of trading on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Early life

Adolf was born in

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

, Austria. Adolf's interest in financial services began at an early age, thanks to exposure to his father's work as the owner of a local accounting firm. Adolf graduated from the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

, Austria with a Doctor and Magister of Jurisprudence degree.

Business background

Adolf began his career at his family's CPA firm. In 1987, he relocated to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, Germany to work for the global consulting firm

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

. In 1990, he moved to the United States, where he was named partner at McKinsey. In 1998, Adolf joined

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

as the SVP Strategy and Business Development, reporting to CEO Harvey Golub. Adolf was then appointed SVP and general manager of the American Express Global Brokerage and Banking division.

Focus Financial Partners

In 2004, Adolf incorporated

with his former colleagues from American Express, Rajini Kodialam and Lenny Chang. Focus Financial's stated goal was to support independent RIA firms. Following an investment in July 2017 by private equity firms Stone Point Capital and KKR, Focus was valued at over $2 billion. Focus’ IPO in July 2018 valued the firm at an enterprise value of $3.5 billion. As of August 2018, Focus has partnered with approximately 60 wealth management firms in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K. Adolf has been featured on several lists of influential people in the industry. In 2017, Adolf was named to the list of Icons & Innovators by InvestmentNews, honoring visionaries who have shaped and transformed the financial advice profession. In 2006 during Focus’ inception, ''Wealth Management'' magazine named him one of its annual "Ten to Watch." He was also named to ''Investment Advisor'' magazine's fifth annual IA 25 in 2007 He has been featured in ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

, ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'', and a 2014

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

Case Study.

Fintech Investment

Under Adolf's guidance, in June 2018, Focus invested in New York-based FinTech company SmartAsset's series C funding totaling $28 million, along with Javelin Venture Partners, TTV Capital, IA Capital and Citi Ventures among others. Adolf stated that he sees “a scalable approach to digital client acquisition” as “an important lever for the wealth management industry.”

Personal life

Adolf resides in West Palm Beach with his wife and their three children, Isabel, Marcus, and Conrad.

References

External links

Focus Financial Partners
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adolf, Rudy Living people Austrian emigrants to the United States American financial company founders University of Innsbruck alumni Businesspeople from Innsbruck Year of birth missing (living people)