When Lee Davidson designed the Medalist Rating at Morningstar it changed how financial data could inform smarter decisions at scale. Now, Davidson is stepping into a new role as Chief Data Officer at AssetMark.
“Super excited to join the all-star team at AssetMark and be part of such an incredible culture of client service and advocacy,” Davidson posted on LinkedIn this week.
Davidson brings industry chops, having previously led a 1,500-person data and analytics division at Morningstar that delivered over $750 million in direct revenue with margins north of 45%. He also currently serves as Managing Partner at Investiture, LLC and advises early-stage data and AI startups through the InvestInData collective. It’s this combination of enterprise-scale leadership and startup agility that AssetMark is betting on as it accelerates its transformation from platform provider to intelligence engine.
His appointment comes on the heels of two major moves by the firm. In December last year, AssetMark acquired Morningstar Wealth’s Turnkey Asset Management Platform (TAMP) assets, adding $12 billion to its platform. The deal brought deeper integration with Morningstar’s investment tools, allowing AssetMark to offer expanded model portfolios and separately managed accounts to its 9,000-plus advisor base.
And in November, AssetMark deepened its partnership with TIFIN Sage, embedding the AI-powered platform into its consulting services, to equip investment consultants with real-time insights to deliver tailored model portfolios at scale. “TIFIN Sage’s AI technology helps us empower more advisor practices and drive client outcomes in a rapidly evolving wealth management landscape,” said David McNatt, EVP of Investment Solutions at AssetMark, at the time.
Davidson’s role sits squarely at the intersection of these developments. As CDO, he’s charged with turning AssetMark’s growing troves of data, spanning advisor behavior, market trends, and portfolio performance, into actionable intelligence.
The hire also is part of a broader reconfiguration of AssetMark’s executive bench. Earlier this year, the company brought on former BlackRock executive Alex Pape as its new Chief Product and Technology Officer, while CIO Muk Mehta shifted focus to infrastructure, security, and data strategy. That suggests a deliberate effort to pair infrastructure scale with product velocity, and to centralize data as a core enabler of both.
The company now serves more than 263,000 investor households and manages over $127 billion in assets as of late 2024.
