Vanilla Adds New Executives from Brex, Goldman Sachs Amidst Nearly 300% YoY Growth

Joe Abbott joins as Chief Marketing Officer and Hanna Grokenberger Byers named Chief of Staff and VP of Operations as the Vanilla platform surpasses 15,000 client estates

Vanilla Adds New Executives from Brex, Goldman Sachs Amidst Nearly 300% YoY Growth

Media
Derrius Rodgers
Caliber Corporate Advisers for Vanilla
vanilla@calibercorporate.com

Vanilla, the leading platform in modern estate planning, today announced the appointment of Joe Abbott as Chief Marketing Officer and Hanna Grokenberger Byers as Chief of Staff and Vice President of Operations. This comes just weeks after the company ended its fiscal year with 293% year-over-year platform growth and the release of V/AI Copilot, the first AI agent for estate advisory.

In the last year, Vanilla has cemented its position as category leader in estate planning, adding hundreds of new advisory firms to the platform and raising $35M in additional capital led by Insight Partners and new strategic investors, Edward Jones Ventures, Nationwide, and Allianz. These new appointments come at an inflection point in Vanilla’s growth as the company takes on the emerging estate software category that has seen 259% growth over the last two years with financial advisors.

“Bringing in experienced startup operators like Joe and Hanna is a critical part of further accelerating business momentum,” said Gene Farrell, President and CEO of Vanilla. “Joe’s proven ability to scale demand for new product categories combined with Hanna’s domain expertise and focus on operational excellence will help Vanilla continue to innovate and grow at a rapid pace.”

Abbott brings over a decade of marketing and startup experience, focusing exclusively on fintech for the last five years. Most recently, he served as VP of Product Marketing at Brex and helped drive over 100% year-over-year revenue growth for new financial services and software products. Prior to Brex, Abbott was an early marketing leadership hire at Ramp, where he helped grow revenue from $10M to $120M and scale the business to over 7,500 customers. He also previously held advisory roles with WealthTech unicorn Altruist and enterprise product marketing roles at Zendesk and ThoughtSpot.

Byers joins Vanilla with an extensive background in fintech and wealth management. As a founding team member and VP of Product at Wealth.com, Byers played a pivotal role in growing adoption to over 4,000 advisors in under three years. Prior to Wealth.com, Byers was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in Private Wealth Management, where she advised ultra-high-net-worth clients and led strategic and operational initiatives across multiple regions, including the West Coast, Southwest, and Global PWM Management Teams. Byers was also a co-founder of Goldman’s Global PWM Client Engagement Team, where she helped shape the firm’s strategy for strengthening client relationships across the entire lifecycle, driving growth and revenue expansion.

Vanilla is the trusted leader in modern estate planning, offering advisors a complete, AI-powered platform to help every client, regardless of wealth. With the addition of Abbott and Byers to the leadership team, the company is set to accelerate its mission of modernizing estate planning for advisors and wealth management firms.

To learn more about Vanilla and its vision for estate advisory, visit www.justvanilla.com.

About Vanilla
Vanilla is the leading estate advisory platform that makes it easy to deliver holistic wealth planning for every client. With Vanilla, you get powerful software for client engagement, estate planning, analysis, and document creation–all supercharged with AI and 180+ years of T&E expertise. Leading advisors from firms like Vanguard, Mariner, and Hightower trust Vanilla to accelerate revenue growth and expand relationships for generations to come. Learn more about how Vanilla is leading the next frontier of holistic wealth management at justvanilla.com.