Kristina Magolis – Venerable Investment Advisers

Kristina Magolis has built a legal career not by chasing titles for their own sake, but by putting herself where the work was hardest, the learning curve was steepest, and the opportunity was real. Her rise to general counsel has come through deliberate moves, each rooted in curiosity about how businesses work and taking her confidence in her ability to grow into bigger responsibilities. By moving from a small asset management firm to one of the world’s largest financial institutions and then back into a startup-style platform, she built the range and depth that positioned her for a general counsel role earlier than many lawyers expect.

Kristina Magolis | Venerable Investment Advisers | General Counsel

At Venerable Investment Advisers, LLC, Kristina now works at the center of a business designed for growth. Venerable is a privately held company focused on managing and acquiring legacy variable annuity business while expanding its reinsurance, asset management, and investment advisory capabilities. Within that broader strategy, Venerable Investment Advisers, LLC and the Venerable Variable Insurance Trust create and oversee mutual funds that serve as underlying investment options for insurance and annuity products while pursuing new growth opportunities.

Early focus with a business lens

Kristina did not go to law school because she loved debate or wanted to litigate. She was drawn to law because it offered a way into the inner workings of business. Coming from a family with no lawyers, she saw the profession as a seat at the table where strategy, risk, and decision-making come together.

She entered law school with a clear focus on corporate and business law. Her interests were in contracts, business transactions, and the operation of organizations. Legal training gave her the credibility and flexibility she wanted.

“From the start, I always knew I wanted to be in corporate law and ultimately at the GC level, even when I started at my first in-house role,” Kristina says.

After earning a political science degree from Penn State University and a JD from Roger Williams University School of Law, she joined a small asset management firm in Princeton, New Jersey. She entered the industry with little securities law background and learned the fundamentals on the job – primarily focusing on mutual fund structures and the regulatory framework that governs them.

What began as a steep learning curve quickly became a fit. Asset management gave her the balance she wanted. It was complex and highly regulated, but also deeply connected to business strategy and operations.

Learning scale & seeing the next move

Kristina built her entire career in-house, deepening her expertise across investment advisers and fund complexes. Her work has touched mutual funds, private funds, separately managed accounts, and alternative products, all within an industry that constantly evolves.

A major phase of her growth came at Morgan Stanley, where she spent more than five years in legal roles and gained exposure not just to substantive legal work, but to the business of running a legal department. In addition to her legal responsibilities, she worked alongside the Chief Operating Officer function within the department, broadening her understanding of personnel strategy, team operations, and how business leaders think about their people and team strategy.

“At Morgan Stanley, I got exposed to the business and operations part of the department, personnel, team strategy, like a little mini business,” she says.

That experience sharpened her perspective. A global institution gave her access to talented colleagues, intense complexity, and rapid development. It also helped confirm that she had the practical skill set to lead at a higher level.

She later joined Equitable, where she worked closely with Michal Levy on multi-manager variable insurance mutual fund product offerings. Their relationship became important later. The small-firm start had taught her fundamentals. The large-firm experience had taught her scale. Together, they prepared her for a role that would require both.

The chance to build at Venerable

In 2023, Kristina was ready for a different kind of challenge. She learned that Venerable was standing up an investment adviser, launching a variable insurance mutual fund trust, and looking for a general counsel for the advisory business. The role offered something she had long wanted. It gave her the chance to build.

“When this job came to me, I felt like I was in a position to take on a GC role,” Kristina says. “But this is probably a GC role sooner than I would’ve expected.”

She joined Venerable in December 2023 as general counsel of Venerable Investment Advisers, LLC and chief legal officer and secretary of the Venerable Variable Insurance Trust. The work quickly proved as demanding and rewarding as she expected. The trust launched in 2024, and Kristina became a key adviser on the legal and regulatory framework supporting both the adviser and the fund complex.

Her responsibilities extend across governance, compliance, vendor oversight, strategic planning, and daily advice to senior leadership. She works closely with compliance partners and third-party providers while also helping guide how the business should grow and operate within regulatory constraints.

“One of the main reasons I was drawn to this role was because it provided an opportunity to build something,” she says. “Being part of a ground-up team, we’re not just building new investment products, we’re building a new team and culture.”

That startup energy has shaped her leadership. She was the third hire on the team and has helped interview every person who joined after her. The group has since grown to 12 people. In that environment, she has become focused on hiring for both technical capability and cultural fit.

Growth, culture & what comes next

The growth at Venerable has moved faster than expected. During the interview process, Kristina understood that acquisitions could become part of the plan over time. What seemed like a longer-term possibility happened much sooner. The business supported the acquisition of another investment adviser, adding more than $50 billion in variable insurance mutual fund assets and accelerating the platform’s expansion.

“We’ve more than tripled our size,” she says. “That was a development I wasn’t expecting, but I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

Integration has become a major part of her work, from aligning governance and compliance frameworks to helping merge teams and shape the future structure of the combined advisory and fund complexes. The most recent integration effort came with the expansion of her team with the addition of four new members and responsibility for two additional variable insurance mutual fund companies. Kristina approaches this expansion of responsibilities with humble excitement.

Those relationships matter to Kristina because she believes culture drives performance. She has seen organizations deliver results while still leaving people drained. At Venerable, she has found something different: a people-first environment where community, support, and shared success are part of how the company operates.

That philosophy aligns with her own. She believes people perform better when they feel valued as individuals, not treated as interchangeable headcount. It is one reason she invests so much energy into hiring thoughtfully and building a team that can grow together.

Her own path reflects that same mindset. She moved from a small firm to a large firm, then back to a smaller, high-growth platform, and each step gave her something essential for the next. The path was not formulaic, but that is exactly the point. In her view, there is no single route to leadership.

Kristina has already reached a level many lawyers spend far longer pursuing, yet her story does not feel finished. At Venerable, she has found an environment where her strategic instincts, legal training, and appetite for growth all reinforce one another. For someone who has always been drawn to where business and law meet, it is a role with endless possibilities, and she appears determined to keep meeting them.