GENEVA, Ill., Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Leelyn Smith, an integrated advisory firm serving families and business owners across the country, today announced the appointment of John Renaldi as Chief AI Officer.
Renaldi brings a technology leadership background that is rare in the wealth management industry. He held VP and GM roles at Google and Motorola, where he led engineering, design, and product teams, and he oversaw early Gen AI-enabled capabilities. He holds ten patents spanning machine learning, software, and hardware, and co-founded Jiobit, a wearable technology startup that was acquired by Life360 (NASDAQ: LIF) in 2021. He currently serves as a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and McCormick School of Engineering where John developed and teaches the Applied AI curriculum, as well as the University of Illinois’s Grainger School of Engineering, and advises companies in the use of Generative AI including Netgear, Realtor.com, Life360, PayNearMe, and Techstars.
That combination of hands-on technical depth and applied business leadership is exactly what led Leelyn Smith to create this role, to expand its integrated model where wealth management, tax strategy and execution, financial planning, accounting, and CFO services operate as one coordinated practice.
Leelyn Smith’s client relationships generate a tremendous amount of information over time, across conversations, meetings, and life transitions, much of which has historically lived in disconnected systems across different specializations. Renaldi is building the infrastructure to bring that information together into a single, coherent picture of each client relationship, capturing not just data but context: history, past decisions, and the moments that matter to a family over years, not just the most recent interaction.
“Our true north is simple,” said Renaldi. “This work should let our advisors spend more time with clients, and help us uncover planning opportunities we might not even know they are missing. Things nobody has thought to ask about yet, because nobody had the full picture across tax, wealth, planning, and personal and family context all in front of them.”
“John brings a caliber of technical leadership that our industry rarely sees applied to this kind of work,” said Drew Grider, President of Leelyn Smith. “What matters most to me is that everything he is building starts from the same place our firm always has: understanding our clients completely, and making sure our team is working from that same complete picture, every time.”
This appointment reflects a broader thesis at Leelyn Smith: that staying intentionally small and boutique does not mean falling behind larger competitors. Renaldi’s work is proof of exactly that, technology built not to replace the relationships that have always defined the firm, but to make the team’s coordination across tax, wealth, and planning more seamless, and to help advisors get ahead of a client’s needs before the client even raises them.
Most of the wealth management industry is only beginning to explore how artificial intelligence might change client service. Leelyn Smith’s investment in a dedicated Chief AI Officer, backed by Renaldi’s background building and scaling technology at Google, Motorola, and his own venture, positions the firm at the front of that shift, in service of knowing clients more completely, and serving them accordingly.
About Leelyn Smith
Leelyn Smith is an integrated advisory firm where wealth management, tax strategy and execution, financial planning, accounting, and CFO services operate as one coordinated practice. We are built at intentional scale to deliver sophisticated, cross-functional expertise while maintaining the deep client relationships and true customization that define boutique service. Our team invests in understanding the complete story: your professional evolution, your family’s priorities, the transitions you are navigating, and the legacy you are building. This foundation enables us to deliver proactive guidance tailored to every aspect of your financial life.
Disclosures:
Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Leelyn Smith, a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial. Tax related services offered through Leelyn Smith Tax, LLC, a separate legal entity not affiliated with LPL Financial. LPL Financial does not offer tax advice or related services.
Media Contact:
Carley Mostar | carley@tandemnarratives.com | 773.987.2271
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