Kelly O'Donnell

With over 20 years in the financial services industry, Kelly has played a critical role in leading our strategy and developing our client relationships by making high-quality advisory services accessible to millions of Americans.

As a chief client officer, Kelly is responsible for driving client centricity and growth for the firm. Our Client Team unifies more than 1,000 client-facing planners, advisors and team members who serve America’s largest employers, their employees and individual wealth management clients. Together, they help more than 1.3 million people move their financial lives forward. In this role, Kelly’s core responsibilities include leadership of our workplace relationships, employee planning solutions, brand marketing and communications and enablement teams that drive our operational excellence.

In her prior role as the EVP and head of Workplace, Kelly led the marketing, product and strategy initiatives that deliver our unique offering and client experience to more than 10 million employees.  In a previous role as chief Administrative Officer and chief risk officer for Edelman Financial Engines, Kelly was responsible for setting our long-term vision and helping the company execute on our strategy through leadership of our Corporate Strategy and Development, Corporate Communications, Legal & Compliance, Human Resources, and Risk Management functions. Kelly joined Financial Engines in 2003 and, during her tenure, has held several additional leadership roles, including Business Operations and Marketing.

Prior to joining Financial Engines, Kelly was director of consulting and an analyst for Cerulli Associates and a manager and associate at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Kelly is the founder and executive sponsor of the Edelman Financial Engines Women in Leadership program which helps develop women into leaders in the organization and the financial services industry.  In addition, Kelly is an influential voice through her testimony on financial issues on Capitol Hill, an expert on the future of innovation at financial technology conferences, and as a media resource on the topic of women & investing. Kelly also serves on the Executive Committee of the Employee Benefits Research Institute, a non-profit, independent, and unbiased resource organization that provides the most authoritative and object information about critical issues relating to employee benefit programs in the United States.

Kelly received a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from the University of Missouri and was selected as a participant for Harvard Business School’s Women in Leadership Executive Program.