John Rajes

Chief Technology Officer at Merit Financial Advisors

Charlotte Metro, United States

About John Rajes

John Rajes is Chief Technology Officer at Merit Financial Advisors. Location: Charlotte Metro, United States.

I am an enterprise wealth management executive with 25+ years of experience building, scaling, and governing integrated advisor platforms across global financial institutions, independent broker-dealers, and PE-backed RIA aggregators, including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, UBS, and LPL Financial. My career has been built at the intersection of commercial accountability, technology strategy, and platform leadership, operating across all wealth distribution models, including wirehouses, independent BDs, and RIA aggregators.   At LPL Financial I owned and governed the full advisor-facing partner ecosystem spanning product manufacturers and fintech partners across investments, insurance, alternatives, and technology, building the evaluation and governance framework that drove every build-buy-partner-retire decision the firm made and growing the fintech partnership portfolio significantly through disciplined lifecycle management. At UBS I led a large global technology and product organization across three continents, built and scaled a hybrid digital advice platform from launch to significant client and AUM scale within two years, secured major capital funding for a multi-year advisor desktop transformation, and maintained zero voluntary attrition across the team throughout my tenure.   I lead by building clarity in complex systems, whether that means rationalizing a fragmented fintech ecosystem, designing a repeatable operating model for an RIA aggregator, or making the hard build-buy-partner-retire calls that simplify a platform and unlock operating leverage. What energizes me is operating where strategy and execution meet: where the platform needs to be architected from scratch, the commercial model needs to be built to last, and the outcome genuinely moves the needle for advisors and the firms they work for.   I am currently advising RIAs, fintechs, and early-stage platforms as a fractional CTO and technology advisor, and actively exploring senior executive roles where I can own the full platform and P&L agenda at scale.

Skills

  • Fractional CTO
  • Operating Models
  • Technology Advisory

Additional experience

  • Fractional CTO & Advisor

    JR Consulting

    September 2024 – July 2026

Education

  • Master of Informatics, The University of Manchester