Scott Dowling
Vice President
Huntersville,NC
Summary
Dynamic technology executive with over 25 years of leadership experience in building and scaling mission-critical, regulated platforms within the financial services sector. Proven track record in founding organizations, modernizing legacy ecosystems, and leveraging AI/ML to reduce costs, mitigate risks, and streamline operations. Recognized as a trusted partner across Product, Compliance, Security, and Engineering teams. Deep expertise in regulated messaging, supervision, cloud platforms, and enterprise architecture, driving innovation and operational excellence.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
Work History
Vice President – Regulated Messaging Systems
LPL FINANCIAL
01.2018 - Current
- Founded and lead the enterprise organization responsible for end-to-end regulatory messaging compliance, including capture, archival, retrieval, and supervision across advisor and corporate communications.
- Established and scaled a new department supporting 75,000+ users and 5,000+ financial institutions, delivering 6+ million regulated messages per day into FINRA 17a-4 compliant WORM archives.
- Own $12–20M annual operating budget, balancing innovation, regulatory rigor, and cost efficiency.
- Lead 10–30+ engineers, architects, analysts, QA, and product managers, fostering a culture of accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
- Serve as executive bridge across Product, Compliance, Information Security, Procurement, Vendors, and Engineering, translating regulatory mandates into executable technical strategy.
- Maintain a portfolio of 12+ enterprise platforms supporting internal staff and 1,800+ field supervisors.
- Modernized delivery practices, transitioning teams from waterfall to Agile with predictable, high-velocity release cycles.
- Early adopter of AWS at LPL, leading migration of dozens of applications and databases from private cloud to AWS.
- Recognized consistently for strategic foresight, technical depth, and cross-functional leadership.
- AI-Driven Expansion & Automation (2026–Present)
- Leading initiative to internalize regulatory supervision workflows, reducing reliance on external service providers.
- Delivered AI/ML proof-of-concept leveraging machine learning, AI-assisted review, and high-volume document routing.
- Projected reduction in daily labor spend by 80%+, generating $5–12M in annual savings.
- Enables continued firm growth without proportional labor expansion, positioning the platform for long-term scalability.
Vice President – Corporate & Advisor Messaging Infrastructure
LPL FINANCIAL
01.2014 - 01.2018
- Enterprise architect and delivery lead for migration of 35,000 advisors and staff from fragmented email environments to a centralized, multi-tenant Microsoft Exchange platform.
- Led 50+ engineers, consultants, and support personnel across architecture, implementation, and operations.
- Implemented Proofpoint enterprise email security, including spam, phishing, targeted attack protection, and message accounting gateways.
- Designed and built custom migration utilities and reporting tools, enabling a successful multi-year migration.
- Scaled messaging infrastructure from 1.2M emails/day to 2.5M+ emails/day.
- Integrated multiple SaaS vendors for SEC 17a-4 compliant archiving and supervision.
- Assistant Vice President – Enterprise Architecture | 2008–2014
- Led architecture for $6M+ Advisor Experience Transformation, defining roadmap for next-generation advisor platforms.
- Delivered enterprise architecture across Identity & Access Management, multi-tenancy, SOA/ESB, workflow orchestration, and hierarchical advisor models.
- Architected and delivered e-Signature capabilities for online account opening and supplemental forms.
- Led vendor analysis and integration design for Remote Deposit Capture and retirement plan reconciliation platforms.
- Served as SME for GRC, trade surveillance, Salesforce enhancements, imaging platforms, BPM modernization, and data reconciliation.
- Supported regulatory inquiries across FINRA, SEC, and state regulators.
Chief Software Architect – Institutional Services
LPL Financial / UVEST
01.2007 - 01.2008
- Architected Raw File Staging (RFS, $2M) — LPL’s first centralized outside-data acquisition platform with full data lineage for regulatory reporting.
- Led UVEST data center consolidation ($4M), migrating 35+ servers, 75 databases, and dozens of applications.
- Designed systems to manage advisor rep number changes across third-party reconciliation platforms (NSCC), ensuring enterprise data integrity.
- Served as SME for regulatory inquiries, reconciliation, CRM, commissions, and GRC systems.
- Technology Manager → Chief Software Architect | 2000–2007
- CEO Management Team / UVEST Financial Services
- Built UVEST’s internal application development capability from scratch, transitioning from outsourced development to in-house SDLC.
- Early adopter of .NET and SQL Server (2001–2002), modernizing the firm’s technology stack.
- Architected and delivered a ground-up CRM platform supporting account opening, imaging, suitability, performance, commissions, and direct-business integrations.
- Supported 50+ FINRA, SEC, and state regulatory audits with comprehensive data analysis and reporting.
- Managed infrastructure growth from 4 servers to a 50-server multi-tier environment.
- Led teams of 10+ engineers and infrastructure staff, managing vendors, budgets, and strategic planning.
- Recipient of Charlotte Chamber of Commerce Blue Diamond Award for Innovation.
Skills
- Enterprise Platform Strategy & Architecture
Websites
EARLY CAREER SUMMARY (Pre-2000)
- Founded and operated Terra Designs (1992–2000), delivering a multi-tenant software platform serving 35+ clients and 3M+ end customers across the U.S. and Canada; platform was successfully sold in 2000.
- Prior consulting work included higher education systems (student enrollment and registration) and industrial process control systems for manufacturing clients.
LEADERSHIP & OPERATING PHILOSOPHY
- People-first leader focused on ensuring the success of those around him.
- Combines strategic vision with hands-on technical depth, remaining actively engaged in architecture, design, and coding.
- Believes in building systems that leverage economies of scale, avoid one-off solutions, and minimize long-term technical debt.
- Applies AI pragmatically to real operational bottlenecks, not experimental use cases.
- Known for bringing clarity, optimism, and momentum to complex, regulated environments.
CURRENT TECHNOLOGY FOCUSED
- Cloud & Platforms: AWS (Lambda, S3, SNS/SQS, SES, EC2, Bedrock, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL, ElastiCache, KMS)
- Languages & Frameworks: C#, Python, JavaScript, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, NodeJS, Angular
- Developer Tooling: GitHub (Copilot), Claude Code, Cursor AI
Blue Diamond Award for Innovation - Charlotte Chamber of Commerce
For work on work delivering web-based CRM tool, using Flash, ported from desktop application
Timeline
Vice President – Regulated Messaging Systems
LPL FINANCIAL
01.2018 - Current
Vice President – Corporate & Advisor Messaging Infrastructure
LPL FINANCIAL
01.2014 - 01.2018
Chief Software Architect – Institutional Services
LPL Financial / UVEST
01.2007 - 01.2008