2023 C-Suite Awards
Small Private Company: Christopher D. LaVine | Marstone Inc. co-founder, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer
AFTER COLLEGE, Christopher D. LaVine took a job in a small community bank outside New York City. The bank offered an old-school management training program, in which employees work in all aspects of the business to learn how it operates.
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“As part of rotation, they had recently acquired [an] investment management firm. I knew I liked math and finance and the idea of investing,” said LaVine, co-founder, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer of Marstone Inc., a Providence-based digital wealth management company. “I went there on day one and just fell in love with the investing universe.”
LaVine managed money for individuals and institutions for several years and then decided to go to business school at the University of Virginia. He was halfway through graduate school when Margaret J. Hartigan, a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch, called. She had a thought on how to demystify finance for investors, and LaVine said he immediately loved that idea.
When LaVine completed his MBA, he joined Hartigan and Robert Stone to launch Marstone Inc. in 2014. The company’s mission is to enhance financial literacy, deepen financial inclusion and humanize finance.
Marstone provides digital wealth management technology to community banks, credit unions and other partners, dramatically reducing the cost of providing these services to their customers and as a result opening investing to a wider variety of clients, LaVine says.
Marstone’s minimum account size is $500. Prior to that minimum, balances needed at some institutions could range from $50,000 to $100,000, LaVine says. By changing the minimum balance, banks now serve the vast majority of customers, not just the top 1% or 5%, LaVine says.
“It’s a tremendous financial inclusion, financial wellness concept,” LaVine said. “We’re able to dramatically lower the account size necessary to work with an institution.”
Last year, LaVine also spearheaded a new business line called Marstone@Work. This business line is a digital product that companies can offer to their employees as a financial wellness tool. Companies who implement Marstone@Work use Marstone’s technology to offer workers fee-free digital advice.
“The ability to say we are helping our team and not just the top 1, 5 or 10% of the team is really demonstrably important to organizations,” LaVine said. “I’m really proud of it.”
In the community, LaVine has served as a mentor for the Fresh Air Fund, which works with at-risk high school students to remain engaged in education and prepare for college. He is also a member of the CFA Institute, a national nonprofit organization that promotes new ideas and industry issues related to the investment community.
Nisha Cordero, chief people officer and general counsel at Marstone, says LaVine has always played a role in thinking about the company strategically, where it should be in the market relative to other competitors, and how Marstone can continue to build upon its mission of financial literacy and inclusivity.
“He’s a great communicator, collaborator and always been approachable and open to ideas,” Cordero said. “Chris has been committed and focused since inception of the company. He has a lot of empathy.”
Empathy, LaVine says, is incredibly important to any role, especially in a financial type role that deals with uncertainty. LaVine says he has realized that uncertainty creates confusion and concern for some individuals.
For example, a canceled meeting may alarm an employee who doesn’t know the reason for the change in plans. LaVine says it’s important to be sympathetic to that and remember people may not have all the information you do.
One major piece LaVine is working on at Marstone now is explaining the “why” behind any request to make sure people in the business realm really understand the ‘why,’ ” he said. “This allows them to be much more strategic themselves.
“We will continue to get more focused on making sure once people are in the boat, we are all rowing in the same direction and we all know why we are going in that direction as well,” LaVine said.
