WDR - Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. Appoints Two Industry Veterans Focused on Data Analytics and Inorganic Growth Strategies

Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. (NYSE: WDR) today announced that it has appointed financial industry veterans to focus on two key components of the Company’s strategic growth plans.

• Rajesh Chalamalasetti has been named Senior Vice President, Chief Analytics Officer. With 17 years of experience, most recently serving as Chief Analytics Officer of Principal Financial Group, Chalamalasetti has a track record of using data to advance profitable business initiatives. He will lead Waddell & Reed Financial’s ongoing efforts to expand the organization’s enterprise-wide data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities. This newly created role reflects the organization’s increased focus on applying data-driven decisions and analytics across the enterprise to identify business growth opportunities and enhance client and advisor experiences in both our asset and wealth management businesses and employee experiences across the Company.

• Charles Holznecht has been named Vice President, Acquisitions Strategy and Integration. Holznecht brings 18 years of experience, most recently serving as a private equity and investment banking Principal of George K. Baum, where he focused on originating, evaluating and executing investment opportunities and leading M&A transactions for the firm’s private equity and investment banking divisions. His experience includes over $1.0 billion in closed transactions across a broad array of technology-enabled and service-based end markets. He will help coordinate the origination, evaluation and integration of acquisitions across both the asset management and wealth management businesses to further the Company’s inorganic growth strategy.

“Rajesh and Charles are experienced business leaders who will spearhead efforts in support of two of our essential strategic enablers identified as part of our long-term strategic plan: our technology and data analytics capabilities, and delivering on the inorganic growth component of our plan,” said Philip J. Sanders, CEO of Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. “We are excited to welcome Rajesh and Charles to the Waddell & Reed Financial team.”

Sanders added that, when Waddell & Reed Financial updated its growth strategy last year, the Company focused on key strategic enablers spanning wealth management, asset management and the overall enterprise. Those include: product and pricing; core processes and performance; technology and data analytics; capital allocation; growth culture and agile organization; and brand awareness and perception.

Chalamalasetti and Holznecht will report to Ben Clouse, Chief Financial Officer of Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc.

“They each will provide vision and a focus on innovation and results while helping deliver on our growth strategy,” said Clouse. “Rajesh brings enhanced expertise to our organization at a time when data-driven decision making is critical to our growth strategies, and Charles will help execute on the key inorganic growth component of our strategic plan.”

About Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc.

Through its subsidiaries, Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. has provided investment management and financial planning services to clients throughout the United States since 1937. Its subsidiaries include Ivy Investments, an asset manager and distributor of investment products to retail and institutional clients; and Waddell & Reed, Inc., a broker-dealer with nationally based independent financial advisors. For more information, visit ir.waddell.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200629005757/en/