Headquarters:
New York, NY
Year founded:
2020
Number of employees:
26
Phone:
(781) 224 3640
Email:
hello@useseeds.com
Website:
useseeds.com
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/seeds-investor
“We prioritise embracing cutting-edge technologies, creative problem solving and continuous improvement to enhance our premium funding solutions and provide exceptional value to our clients”
Brett Bastow, IQumulate Premium FundinG
Zach Conway
Chief Executive Officer
Kelsey McKenna
Chief Operating Officer
Dave Twardowski
Chief Investment Officer
Leadership
Zach Conway is the founder and CEO of Seeds, the comprehensive investment system built for financial advisors to invest, trade, and engage clients in one unified platform. A second-generation advisor, he spent more than a decade in wealth management at Conway Wealth Group, where he saw the gap between what clients care about and how their portfolios were built and explained. Conway founded Seeds in 2020 to close that gap through personalized portfolios and deeper client engagement, delivered at scale.
He is a Forbes contributor with bylines in Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal, and co-hosts The Advice Business Podcast.
Chief Executive Officer
Zach Conway
Kelsey McKenna is COO of Seeds, the comprehensive investment system built for financial advisors to invest, trade, and engage clients in one unified platform. McKenna joined Seeds in 2023 and rose from head of success to head of strategy and experience before being named COO in 2025. At Seeds, McKenna leads strategy, operations, and client success. Before Seeds, she advised companies as a customer experience and operations consultant.
McKenna co-hosts The Advice Business Podcast with Seeds founder and CEO Zach Conway, exploring what it takes to build a thriving, independent advisory firm.
Chief Operating Officer
Kelsey McKenna
Dave Twardowski, PhD, is CIO of Seeds, the comprehensive investment system built for financial advisors to invest, trade, and engage clients in one unified platform. Twardowski leads investment strategy, research, and portfolio construction at Seeds, including its direct indexing, fund-based, and unified managed account solutions.
Before Seeds, Twardowski served as chief investment officer at Altafid, head of investment strategy at Vise, and vice president of investment strategies at Avantis Investors. He spent more than eight years at Dimensional Fund Advisors, rising to vice president of strategy research. Twardowski holds a PhD in engineering sciences from Dartmouth College.
Chief Investment Officer
Dave Twardowski
Michael Jones
Chief Technology Officer
Michael Jones is CTO of Seeds, the comprehensive investment system built for financial advisors to invest, trade, and engage clients in one unified platform. Jones leads engineering, platform architecture, and technology strategy at Seeds. He joined the firm in 2026 after serving as vice president of engineering at Trust & Will, where he led an organization of roughly 30 engineers across application engineering, cloud, data, and security.
Jones previously served as senior vice president of engineering at Fundrise and director of engineering at Acorns, where he led engineering for the company’s investing products.
Chief Technology Officer
Michael Jones
Michael Blundin
President and Chief Operating Officer
Michael Blundin is president and chief operating officer at Vestmark, where he oversees core operations, client programs, and product strategy. A member of the leadership team since 2004, Blundin has held nearly every major executive role at the company, playing a central part in scaling operations, evolving the VestmarkONE® platform, and deepening client partnerships.
With a multidisciplinary background, he brings a balanced approach to leadership, grounded in precision, adaptability, and practical innovation. Prior to Vestmark, Blundin held executive roles at Savantis Systems and Vignette Corporation and co-founded Cirrus Recognition Systems. He holds a BA in physical sciences from Colgate University.
President and Chief Operating Officer
Michael Blundin
Stevens & Associates Lawyers is a leading and trusted employment law firm based in Sydney known for delivering high-quality legal expertise in the area of employment law and industrial relations across Australia, alongside a proven track record of effectively and swiftly resolving a variety of workplace law issues.
In the past year, the firm’s growth has been notable. It has:
• experienced a 213% growth in the number of client matters, increasing from 149 client matters in the 2022 financial year to 390 client matters in the 2023 financial year
• improved its online visibility, leading to over 50 online enquiries each month and a conversion rate of client leads of up to 40%
• significantly expanded the breadth and type of matters that it advises on day to day, which has increased the firm’s skillsets, diversity and resilience
• expanded its community outreach by collaborating with local Sydney venues for client seminars and continuing active participation in a Sydney small/family business group
Stevens & Associates Lawyers has adapted to digital trends by implementing an effective strategy with SEO and web design, resulting in a structural shift that has seen increased representation of employees where the firm previously mainly advised employers.
The firm’s recognition as a “Fast Firm” attests to its momentum in the employment law space.
“IQumulate is on a technology journey, and we’re just getting started”
Wayne Tower,
IQumulate Premium Funding
Brandon Flinchum
Chief Financial Officer
Oliver Travieso
Senior Vice President, Commercial Lines
David Wilson
Senior Vice President, Specialty Markets
Pam Chhabra
Manager – Residential Strata
Brandon Flinchum joined Smart Choice as CFO in August 2024. He previously worked with a national CPA firm, serving various industries ranging from insurance to manufacturing and distributing. Flinchum received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in accounting from Appalachian State University. He is a licensed CPA in North Carolina.
Chief Financial Officer
Brandon Flinchum
Oliver Travieso was named senior vice president, commercial lines in January 2024. He joined the Smart Choice team as vice president of commercial lines in October 2015. His background is mainly in commercial insurance, both in sales and underwriting.
Prior to Smart Choice, Travieso was sales director at CNA Insurance, where he led a group of sales representatives for the Southeast. He is primarily responsible for overseeing commercial line carrier partner relationships and setting the commercial strategy for the field.
Senior Vice President, Commercial Lines
Oliver Travieso
David Wilson was named senior vice president, specialty markets in January 2024. He joined Smart Choice as vice president of sales in August 2017 and is primarily responsible for overseeing the express markets carrier relationships.
Formerly, he was personal lines practice leader at Regions Insurance Group from 2013 to 2017, and prior to that, senior national account executive at MetLife from 2004 to 2013. Wilson also worked as a local market manager in Florida from 1999 to 2004, and began his career as an agent in 1996, writing PC and life.
Senior Vice President, Specialty Markets
David Wilson
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Commercial Manager
Stephen McMillan
One culmination of these efforts has been the real-world, needs-based IQEdge solution. A one-stop online quoting tool designed for both the Australian and New Zealand markets, IQEdge delivers quotes in under 60 seconds. Plus, the solution offers quote comparison and quote versioning capabilities, enabling users to review vital historical and financial data in a single page view.
IQEdge can streamline and automate application processing, underwriting document verification and payment collection, cutting the need for manual labour and minimising processing errors. A digital “self-service” platform, IQEdge, reduces the need for customer and administrative support. Meanwhile, borrowers can access their accounts, make payments and manage their policies independently and through sales and support teams, which are always available for further assistance.
“We’ve created a quality platform that simplifies the quoting process yet amplifies the customer experience,” says Gordon. “It’s a real game changer.” IQumulate offers an online digital quoting tool to clients. The best-in-market solution enables IQumulate to tailor funding offerings to brokers that align with their prefered distribution channel.
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What does IQumulate have in mind for the future?
“IQumulate is on a technology journey, and we’re just getting started,” says Wayne Tower, CEO. “Through continuous engagement with our clients, partners, marketplace and industry, we will listen to the needs as they arise and position our business to be agile and respond to changes as they occur.
“Faster decision-making innovations such as AI-powered decision support systems can expedite the underwriting and approval process, leading to quicker responses to clients. This can improve client satisfaction and potentially attract more business, with the potential to allow IQumulate to capture a larger market share, whilst continuing to deliver service excellence to clients.”
“As forward-thinkers with a digital and ‘do it better’ mindset, we collectively and proactively look to learn and improve on our customer experience for our clients, paving the way for successful business outcomes for our clients and our business in the coming years ahead.
“We’re excited for the future and look forward to what’s on the horizon.”
Adam Basaldella
Manager – Claims
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Product Manager
Claire Watson
Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager.
As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.
Commercial Manager
Stephen McMillan
“With Vestmark, clients can expect a partner, not just a vendor: a team that anticipates operational gaps before they arise and builds solutions accordingly, backed by a platform they won’t outgrow as their business scales”
Karl Roessner, Vestmark
“Vestmark is built by intellectually curious people from different professional backgrounds, which fuels creative problem solving rather than one-size-fits-all thinking. The culture centers on partnership: teams work alongside wealth and asset managers to solve operational challenges before those challenges become visible to clients”
Karl Roessner, Vestmark
Ivan Verescuk
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director
Shaun O’Brien
Head of Underwriting
Emily Walker
Head of Strata and Development
Rex Oakman
Head of Operations and Risk
Sandy Newton
Head of Underwriting
Andrew Mitchell
Manager – NSW
Michael Prokopis
Manager – Southern Region
Pam Chhabra
Manager – Residential Strata
Jeffrey Valdivia
Manager – Commercial Strata
Adam Basaldella
Manager – Claims
Seeds is an investment platform built for independent advisory firms, giving advisors one system to manage portfolios, strategies, and households.
At the center is a unified managed account platform that can hold direct indexing, SMAs, fund-based models, advisor-built models, and third-party strategies together, configured around how each firm invests. Seeds’ trading team executes to the firm’s own guidelines, handling rebalancing, ongoing tax-loss harvesting, cash management, and tax-aware account transitions so advisors keep full investment authority without carrying the operational load.
On the client side, engagement tools connect discovery conversations to proposals and implementation, so client priorities can be reflected in how their portfolios are built.
At a time when human advice is in greater demand than ever, Seeds enables advisors to show up in ways that matter by lifting the back-office burden of running investments and trading across a patchwork of disconnected tools. Seeds works as a long-term partner to the firms it serves, with investment, trading, and support teams operating as an extension of each one.
For existing VestmarkONE clients, that integration also reduces the burden of adoption. Pulse draws on portfolio and workflow data already running through the platform, eliminating the need to establish a separate data integration, vendor relationship, or parallel technology environment simply to introduce AI capabilities.
Vestmark’s leadership has played a central role in that strategy. Under CEO Karl Roessner, the company has expanded beyond its roots in managed account technology into areas including tax management, model distribution, and AI-driven portfolio intelligence. Freedom Dumlao, chief technology officer and chief AI officer, leads the Vestmark Center for AI Research and Development in Boston, where the company is developing AI capabilities designed specifically around wealth management workflows. Chief product officer Corey Fiedler connects that technology strategy with direct client engagement, focusing product development on measurable outcomes such as greater efficiency, lower operating costs, and better opportunities for revenue growth.
Pulse is also part of a broader technology ecosystem. While Pulse provides monitoring and portfolio intelligence capabilities within VestmarkONE, VAST (Vestmark’s tax-managed overlay service) provides open-architecture tax optimization across unified managed accounts. The Vestmark Model Marketplace connects wealth management firms with more than 290 asset managers offering more than 1,900 investment strategies. Advisor Suite brings capabilities including proposal generation, tax-aware portfolio management, and direct indexing into advisor workflows.
Vestmark plans to continue expanding Pulse’s library of use cases and the depth of contextual information available to its AI models. The longer-term objective is to make the RIA technology platform increasingly capable of recognizing situations relevant to an individual client, portfolio or advisor workflow while preserving the wealth manager’s role in determining what action, if any, should ultimately be taken.
Disclosure
Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. (“VAS”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Vestmark Inc., is an investment advisor registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). VAS acts as a paid sub advisor and/or overlay portfolio manager offering VAST and tax optimization services. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. VAS has its principal place of business in Wakefield, MA.
Investing involves risk. The value of an investment will fluctuate over time, and an investor may gain or lose money. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns and individual investor results will vary. Please consult our full disclosure document for a discussion of risks related to the services provided by VAS.
