NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Long Arc Capital today announced the appointment of Vikram Chugh as Chief Executive Officer of CircleBlack, a leading wealth management technology platform serving financial advisors, registered investment advisors, and wealth management firms. Chugh will transition from his role as Chief Operating Officer of Robertson Stephens, where he has been instrumental in strengthening the firm's growth strategy, technology platform, advisor integration capabilities, and operational infrastructure.
The appointment reflects Long Arc Capital's long-standing philosophy of cultivating leadership talent across its portfolio and creating opportunities to leverage expertise where it can have the greatest strategic impact. Both CircleBlack and Robertson Stephens are Long Arc portfolio companies, allowing the firm to deploy talent where it can have the greatest impact.
"Vikram is precisely the kind of leader Long Arc seeks to develop and support across our portfolio," said Gaurav Bhandari, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Long Arc Capital. "Over the past several years, he has helped transform Robertson Stephens into one of the fastest-growing firms in wealth management while building a modern, scalable operating platform to support that growth. He combines deep operational expertise, wealth management experience, and a clear understanding of how technology can solve meaningful challenges for advisors. We believe he is exceptionally well positioned to lead CircleBlack into its next phase of growth."
As part of the transition, Lincoln Ross, who has served as CEO of CircleBlack since 2022, will stay on as a strategic advisor to the company. Ross has played a significant role in advancing CircleBlack's platform capabilities, strengthening its position within the wealth management technology landscape, and helping establish a foundation for future growth.
CircleBlack has established itself as a leading advisor technology platform, helping wealth management firms connect portfolio management, financial planning, reporting, client engagement, and operational workflows through a unified experience. Under Chugh's leadership, the company plans to accelerate innovation, deepen advisor adoption, and further strengthen its position as a strategic technology partner to advisory firms of all sizes.
"Wealth management technology has become too fragmented, creating unnecessary complexity for advisors and, ultimately, for clients," Chugh said. "My vision for CircleBlack is to become the operating system that helps advisors run their businesses more efficiently while delivering a more integrated and personalized client experience. I am excited to work with our clients, employees, and partners to build on CircleBlack's strong foundation and accelerate our growth in the years ahead. I am very proud of what we have built at Robertson Stephens, thank all my colleagues there, and look forward to its continued success."
During his tenure at Robertson Stephens, Chugh helped oversee a period of significant expansion for the firm, supporting advisor recruiting and integration efforts, advancing digital capabilities, enhancing marketing and lead-generation systems, modernizing operational workflows, and helping build the infrastructure necessary to support the firm's continued growth.
"I want to thank Vikram for his tremendous contribution to Robertson Stephens over the past eight and a half years and congratulate him on this exciting new role. While we will miss him, this appointment is a testament to both our evolution as an organization and the opportunity in front of him at CircleBlack," said Raj Bhattacharyya, Chief Executive Officer of Robertson Stephens. "Technology is one of the four founding pillars of our firm, and Vikram has been central to its development, helping design a scalable and intuitive digital framework for our advisors and our clients. The strong foundation he built will be carried forward by the rest of our leadership team, and our client and advisor value proposition and long-term strategy are firmly in place, allowing our business momentum to continue.”
About Long Arc Capital
Long Arc Capital is a New York-based growth equity firm dedicated to building and scaling breakthrough businesses. The firm invests in tech and tech-enabled services companies that have achieved an early stage of product-market fit but need help to grow further. Long Arc has a set of operational capabilities designed to derisk the scale-up journey by providing the execution abilities its portfolio companies often lack, but are required to scale. It operates with an investor/owner mindset, partnering with entrepreneurs and management teams to build businesses that grow rapidly, sustainably, and capital efficiently. For more information about Long Arc, please visit: https://www.longarc.com/
About CircleBlack
CircleBlack, Inc. provides financial advisors with technology that aggregates data, integrates other financial applications seamlessly, manages data from multiple custodians and delivers actionable intelligence about client portfolios, helping advisors better manage clients' wealth while growing and deepening advisor-client relationships. CircleBlack provides a leading platform built for the digital age, with a web-based and mobile application that can be taken anywhere and accessed anytime. CircleBlack's solution leverages proprietary technology that helps sustain the Company's unique competitive advantages. CircleBlack's mission is to make wealth management better, for both the investor and the advisor. For more information about CircleBlack, visit https://www.circleblack.com.
About Robertson Stephens
Robertson Stephens Wealth Management, LLC is an independent SEC-registered investment advisor. Registration does not imply any specific level of skill or training and does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission. Its mission is to transform the wealth management experience by delivering institutional-quality investment solutions, comprehensive wealth planning, and intelligent digital solutions, all within a fiduciary relationship where the client is our highest priority. For more information about Robertson Stephens, please visit: https://www.rscapital.com.
