Vanilla, the estate planning technology provider, has appointed a new chief marketing officer, Joe Abbott, as well as a new chief of staff and vice president of operations, Hanna Grokenberger Byers.

The executive appointments come a few weeks after Vanilla closed its fiscal year with nearly 300% year-over-year platform growth, surpassing 15,000 client estates, and some eight months after it secured $35 million in additional capital led by Insight Partners and new strategic investors Edward Jones Ventures, Nationwide and Allianz.

“Bringing in experienced startup operators like Joe and Hanna is a critical part of further accelerating business momentum,” Gene Farrell, president and CEO of Vanilla, said in a statement. “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 comes to Vanilla from Brex, a provider of artificial intelligence-backed payment solutions. Before Brex, Abbott was an early marketing leadership hire at Ramp, which provides spending management and corporate credit card services. He also held advisory roles with Altruist and enterprise product marketing roles at Zendesk and ThoughtSpot.

Byers joins Vanilla with an extensive background in fintech and wealth management. She was a founding team member and vice president of product at Wealth.com. Before that, she was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in private wealth management.

Other recent developments at Vanilla include the launch of V/AI Copilot, an assistant for financial advisors driven by artificial intelligence. Last year, it launched a new estate plan visualizer that allows advisors to visualize potential federal and state estate tax mitigation strategies in real time.

Pictured: Joe Abbott and Hanna Grokenberger Byers

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