DoubleLine Relationship Manager Stephen Dopp welcomes his longtime friend Todd Kading, CEO of LeafHouse, to the latest episode of The Glide Path. Mr. Kading shares his path from selling RVs to pay for college to building a massive third-party fiduciary business. He candidly discusses why he left individual financial planning, how managing client behavior took an emotional toll and how that career shift led him to build a scalable retirement platform. Mr. Kading explains how LeafHouse sets itself apart from competitors by using a flexible fiduciary model that allows advisors to customize fund lineups through an internal screening process, eventually growing the business to $23 billion in assets.
That same need for flexibility at scale is what pushed LeafHouse to become a technology company in its own right, a shift that culminated this year in selling the fiduciary business and focusing on the technology platform. Mr. Kading closes by discussing CIT Compass, LeafHouse’s newest tool aimed at solving what he sees as a growing consolidation problem in the collective investment trust market, where onboarding complexity is pushing advisers toward just one or two trust providers.
Speaker Bio:
Todd Kading is a visionary leader with over 25 years of experience driving innovation in the retirement plan industry. He leads strategy, distribution, investments, and product design, establishing LeafHouse as a premier, technology-driven investment manager and fiduciary for retirement plans.
He also founded InvestGrade IQ, a tech enabled platform delivering advanced analytics, data aggregation, investment scoring, benchmarking, and practice management tools to streamline communication, provide data-driven insights, and increase automation for the retirement plan network.
Todd’s entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to creative disruption drives LeafHouse’s mission to elevate American workers’ financial well-being and address U.S. economic challenges through strategic partnerships.
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Mr. Dopp joined DoubleLine in 2026 as a Relationship Manager on the Global Relationship Management team. Prior to DoubleLine, he was with Lord Abbett & Co. as National Director, Retirement. Mr. Dopp holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Columbia Southern University and an MBA from Rutgers Business School. He also holds the FINRA Series 7, 24 and 63 licenses.
