Chris Ainsworth

Christopher Ainsworth joined Pave Finance in August 2022 as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He leads the overall development and growth of Pave's business and serves as CEO, CCO, and COO across Pave Securities, Pave Labs, and Pave Investment Advisors, bringing the full platform under unified leadership with a clear strategic vision.

Chris brings decades of experience at the highest levels of wealth management. Before Pave, he served as Head of Americas, West Coast for Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, where he oversaw all aspects of the firm's business across the region and sat on both the International Private Bank executive committee and the Americas Crisis Management Committee. Prior to Deutsche Bank, he was a senior executive at U.S. Trust, a division of Bank of America, managing six offices and a team of more than 40 professionals. Across his career, he has overseen the management of more than $16 billion in assets.

Chris earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics with financial applications from Southern Methodist University. His connection to SMU runs deeper than academics: he served on the university's board and has remained committed to giving back throughout his career, including as founding president and then Chairman of the California Hedge Fund Association (now CalALTS), and through board roles with Hedge Funds Care, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation, and the Children's Hospital of Orange County Foundation, where he currently serves as a director.

What drew Chris to founding Pave was the opportunity to build something new in an industry he knows deeply. Wealth management has long been opaque and difficult to access for most people, and Pave is working to change that.