Sowell names Scott Dooley CIO, restructures investment platform for advisors

Sowell Management has named Scott Dooley chief investment officer and restructured its investment management platform into a unit it calls the Sowell Office of the CIO. The office combines portfolio construction, investment research, advisor consulting and a roster of outside investment partners under one banner.

The firm, a North Little Rock, Arkansas RIA, reports about $6.8 billion in client assets as of October 2026, according to InvestmentNews, which first reported the appointment and the new office. CEO Daryl Seaton said advisors are increasingly competing against wirehouses, large RIAs and private banks with deeper investment benches. "Advisors shouldn't have to choose between independence and institutional investment resources."

The office is designed to be modular, letting an advisor use it for research and portfolio consultation alone or hand over broader investment management duties. Sowell says the process starts with a client's objectives, risk profile, tax position and liquidity needs. Those inputs drive strategy selection rather than a pre-packaged model lineup, with tax-aware construction and concentrated stock positions among the use cases. "Independent advisors don't necessarily need another investment provider," Dooley said, adding that they need "an investment office they can draw on as part of their own business."

Dooley joined Sowell in 2025 as managing director of investment management. Before that he founded Fusion Investment Group, where he was CEO and CIO, and held senior investment roles at Blue Vase Holdings, Rayliant Global Advisors and Columbus Macro. He has about two decades of asset management experience and an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

Sowell's September buildout of in-house tax and estate expertise for $5 million-plus households is the closest recent precedent. That effort, which this publication reported, put specialists behind Cache River Private Wealth, the firm's division for wealthy families. The Office of the CIO reorganizes an investment management desk Sowell already ran, giving it a name and a client-facing wrapper.

Sowell's regulatory AUM was $4.8 billion as of Oct. 17, compared with the $6.8 billion client-asset figure, according to PWD records; the two likely measure different parts of the same book. The company did not specify whether the office will serve advisors outside its network or what fees it charges.