Waycross Partners

Waycross Partners Aims to Double AUM With Ridgeline

Founded in 2005, Waycross Partners is an independent institutional investment manager with offices in Louisville, Kentucky, and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Multiple systems and data in different places made it difficult for the lean team to keep everything aligned and created more opportunities for error. “We are such a small shop, and we’re just pulled in so many different directions that we need a partner,” says Kathleen MacGilvray, director of trading, marketing, and client services.

The firm was ready to change that. Chris Herb, CCO and COO, joined Waycross with a mandate to institutionalize the business and build the back-office ecosystem around it. That meant finding a platform that could bring the operation together, support the firm’s industry-specific needs, and give the team a stronger foundation for the future.

Waycross found that combination in Ridgeline. “They’re helping us customize for our needs, and then they also build for our industry,” says Chris Greco, CEO, principal, and director of institutional sales. “The combination of the people and the technology is what really attracted us to them the most.”

The work to prepare for the transition has been as important as the platform itself. “We’re figuring out what’s actually important to bring over to Ridgeline,” says Annie Gillis, marketing and communications associate. “It’s forcing us to clean up our stuff.”

That process has given the firm a clearer view of its own operations, while Ridgeline’s implementation team keeps the work moving. Waycross reviewed its progress every week against a shared status bar, with everyone working toward the same goal: getting live on the new platform. The project stayed in the green the entire time.

Ridgeline gives Waycross one place to bring together the capabilities it needs today and the ones it expects to need next, rather than stitching together another collection of systems as the business grows. “Now everything’s in one centralized location. The data hygiene is tidy and clean. We can see everything, and we can dive into anything,” says Chris Herb.

Ridgeline Intelligent Outcomes, a managed services offering where Ridgeline completes work for customers within their tenant, will help further improve the firm’s efficiency. Once live, positions from the previous day will be reconciled and ready for the moment the market opens, with Ridgeline working as an extension of Waycross’s team while Waycross keeps full visibility into the processes.

Ridgeline’s AI capabilities are a big part of why Waycross decided to implement the platform. The firm wanted a partner that was not simply delivering a system at go-live, but actively adapting to a rapidly changing technology landscape. “Ridgeline is on the forefront of AI,” says Chris Herb. “They are adapting and adjusting on the fly to this ever-changing AI space. They know what they’re doing.”

For Waycross, that forward-looking foundation is tied to a clear business goal: create the capacity to grow without rebuilding the operating model each time the firm adds assets, accounts, or complexity. “The whole point of Ridgeline is to scale our business up,” says Chris Herb. “In five years, hopefully, we double in assets because of the Ridgeline environment.”

Waycross is choosing to make the move now, while it has the opportunity to build on a modern foundation and grow into the platform over time. “Anything that’s new cutting-edge tech is going to just make us all better five and 10 years from now,” says Chris Greco. “Why not just bite the bullet and do it now when you’ve got best-in-class options for you right away?”

About Ridgeline

Ridgeline is the AI-native investment management platform built on the idea that human talent is too valuable to do the work that technology could handle. With over $750B in assets committed to the platform, Ridgeline unifies the front, middle, and back office on a single, real-time platform so routine work happens quietly in the background. Ridgeline has teams in New York, the Bay Area, Reno, and Dublin, and has been recognized by Forbes as a "Best Startup Employer," by Global Financial Market Review for "Best Use of AI in Finance," and by The Software Report as a "Top 100 Software Company." Learn more at ridgeline.ai.

‍