Experience: Financial Services since 2012

Education: Bachelor of Arts degree in politics and government from Ripon College

As the manager of partner development and onboarding, Casey works with firms joining the Modern Wealth Management family. Her role is to help guide these individuals throughout the discovery and onboarding process, ensuring the transition from candidate to new team members is as smooth as possible.

Prior to joining Modern Wealth, Casey worked in similar roles at Goldman Sachs and United Capital. Throughout her tenure, she has assisted over 50 wealth management teams and numerous advisors through the messy-but-completely-worth-it process of joining a new firm.

Casey is originally from Minnesota and is proud of it! She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics and government from Ripon College, and now resides in Downers Grove, Illinois, with her husband, their three rambunctious children, and cat Jasper. Casey loves the cold and snow seasons … even when her co-workers are describing their 72-degree, sunny weather.

Melissa ensures the client experience is first class while coaching and mentoring a team that delivers the same type of service throughout the lifetime of the clients journey. She spent 21 years in banking prior to working at Modern Wealth. Twelve years of that was on the business development and sales side and nine years of it building and developing a client services department for a now $2 billion bank.

Her favorite thing about Modern Wealth is team aspect of the culture and how it feels like being a part of a family. Helping clients live out their financial dreams is a big motivating factor for Melissa.

The most important thing to Melissa is her faith. She enjoys watching sports (especially KU basketball) with a cold beer with her family, traveling, cooking, baking, and reading.

Nicole Bittner is the head of growth operations at Modern Wealth Management, where she is responsible for managing organic growth channels and delivering qualified prospects to the firm’s advisory teams.

Before joining the Modern Wealth team, Bittner served as the vice president of strategic partnerships and commercial engagement at Goldman Sachs, where she facilitated successful lead generation, client conversion, and pipeline management by overseeing ongoing partnerships for financial advisors.

Bittner earned her MBA from the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business. She earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing and management from Northeastern University.

Experience: Has worked in the RIA space since 1998 

Education: MBA from The Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University; B.A. Economics from the Eller School of Business at the University of Arizona 

Shad began his career in the RIA space as an advisor at Oppenheimer and Paine Webber (now UBS). He’s held leadership and business development roles at the top-three custodians (Schwab, Fidelity, and BNYM Pershing), where he converted billions in assets from wirehouses, IBDs, and in some cases competing custodians. Shad has served as president and COO at a family offices-funded RIA tuck-in/supported RIA model that later sold to Dynasty in 2023.

Prior to joining forces with the former United Capital executive team, which now makes up Modern Wealth Management’s leadership team, he was head of M&A for a $4.3 billion RIA, where he made acquisitions and ran a team of 20-plus advisors, driving double-digit organic growth.

His primary responsibility as a Modern Wealth Management managing director is to strengthen the firm’s partnership development and drive the firm’s national expansion strategy by acquiring RIA firms across the country.