Shirl Penney, CEO & President, Dynasty Financial Partners

August 2026 —Invest: spoke with Shirl Penney, president and CEO of Dynasty Financial Partners, about the firm’s rapid growth, its technology and talent strategy, and why supported independence is central to Dynasty’s mission. “We’re on a mission to help change for the better, a 200-plus-year-old industry,” Penney said.

What changes over the past year have most impacted Dynasty Financial Partners, and in what ways?

We’ve grown tremendously. We were net asset positive over the last year by almost $25 billion, and we’re approaching $140 billion in assets on the platform.

We’ve also grown by adding more people. We hired 65 new people here over the last year, which takes us to more than 200 people in St. Pete.

We’ve more than doubled our investment in technology, in particular AI. We’ve been developing new integrated capabilities for our advisors around the desktop, leveraging our data infrastructure and data lake, which makes it easier for advisors to run their business more efficiently and connect with more clients.

Our investment bank, which launched a couple of years ago, was really accelerated last year. Last year, we were No. 1 in the league tables in terms of number of transactions by our investment bank. We’ve also grown our portfolio of investments in RIAs.

And we launched a new business called Dynasty Connect, which helps an end consumer who is looking for advice separate from where products are manufactured and sold, get connected with a fiduciary-based independent advisor that’s powered by Dynasty. It’s off to a fast start in terms of making those introductions and helping our advisors grow through those introductions.

The other thing worth mentioning is we signed new real estate. We’re moving from 200 Central to 400 Central. We built it out for room for about 350 people, and we’re the only commercial tenant in 400 Central. It’s been a busy year.

What impact do you see Dynasty Connect and other business developments having on your advisor community?

We also just completed our largest-ever capital raise in the business. We officially became a unicorn company, which, as a founder, is something I’m very proud of. I founded the business literally and figuratively in my garage, and there are only a handful of unicorns around the world.

We’re investing in everything. We’re investing in the brand, and we’re making sure advisors understand the benefits of working with us so they get to own and operate their own business with full support. We call it supported independence, independent but not alone.

We’re working to tech-enable all aspects of our business. Everything we do in support of our advisors, whether it’s marketing, investments, compliance, PR, we’re tech-enabling to allow us to help more people at scale.

It’s an important industry. When I started the business 16 years ago, there were about 600,000 advisors. Today, there’s less than 300,000. We’ve had one of the greatest wealth creations in the history of mankind, so there’s a supply-and-demand imbalance. More people need advice than there are advisors to give it. The way you fill that void is by tech-enabling advisors so they can help more people.

We’re laser-focused on helping advisors grow their business by servicing more clients. The other part of our why is that we think financial wellness in this country is critically important. In some pockets it’s going backwards, whether it’s pensions or endowments being underfunded, whether it’s state or federal governments with deficits, or the reality that 72% of Americans can’t put their hand on $1,000 in an emergency. If you’re a single mom and you have a leaky roof or a broken-down car, you’re one of those events away from a disaster.

The way you help improve financial wellness is not by selling people a bunch of products. It’s around financial literacy, education, and advice, separate from where products are manufactured and sold. So, we’re on a mission to help change for the better, a 200-plus-year-old industry. We’re making a little dent in the universe, but we’re just getting started. We’re in year 16, and the business is accelerating.

How are you approaching talent attraction and workforce development at Dynasty, particularly in roles that support advisor success and technological innovation?

We’re laser-focused on making sure that as we grow, we enhance and protect our culture.

We’re investing in real estate to give team members a differentiated experience, so they want to be here with their colleagues. The camaraderie matters. We go out and socialize, the team spends time together, and being together is part of what makes the culture sticky.

The other shared component is ownership. Every single person at Dynasty owns equity in the business. When you have a business that’s been growing as fast as ours, you’re changing lives through equity ownership. People spend money like it’s their own because it is. That aligned ownership component matters. We work hard and play hard, and we’re focused on servicing our clients and delivering on the value promise.

We also have a very strong summer analyst program where we bring young talent in. Our CFO, Justin Weinkle, came through that program. We’ve had people work all the way up through the organization, and quite a number of team members have come through that pipeline.

We also like to hire a lot of veterans making a career change into the private sector. They tend to be hardworking, loyal, and process-oriented. We’ve had a lot of success there.

And we make sure we’re hiring in front of our growth, so we’re not overwhelming the team. We want to give people hands-on professional development and training so they can hit the ground running once they’re here.

How are you engaging with the St. Pete community, and what role does the region play in your organizational identity?

We moved here over six years ago, and ever since we came here, I feel like I continue to be given a community bear hug.

The community is special because it’s collaborative. I find there’s not a lot of jealousy, but partnership and collaboration. There’s a shared vision around partnership-oriented growth.

In terms of being able to build a business, the infrastructure is great. The Tampa airport might be the greatest one in the country, and I know something about airports. I flew over 250,000 miles five years in a row. St. Pete also has an incredible airport, and they’ve been investing in it, so the optionality between those two is a real advantage.

The quality of life is exceptional. I live on the beach, and in 15 minutes I’m in my office. A lot of us used to have very long commutes. Now we can work longer or get home sooner, and it increases quality of life.

Florida and St. Pete are business-friendly and tax-advantageous. The availability of young talent is strong, particularly engineers and young people who want to work in financial services but don’t necessarily want to leave the region. There’s a great college system here, and when we post roles, we can have 40 or 50 open jobs and get thousands of applications.

It’s been a force multiplier for us moving the business to St. Pete.

What are your key goals and priorities for Dynasty for the next two to three years?

Significantly more growth. That growth will come from helping our advisors grow their individual businesses by adding new clients and adding other advisors to those businesses.

It will also come from adding new RIAs and new advisors to our platform. We’ll continue making further investments in AI and technology to help scale the business.

We’re also leaning in and investing in the private markets. We want to make available high-quality names and unique private investments where there’s appetite to invest, and make that access available to our network.

Over the next 12 months, we very well could end the year north of $200 billion in assets. That growth gives us access to products and services and lets us provide a differentiated opportunity set and experience for the clients being served by the advisors we support.