NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 1, 2026--
DriveWealth, a global B2B Brokerage-as-a-Service platform designed to make investing easier for partners and their customers, today announced the expansion of its executive leadership team with the appointments of Rohit Mahna as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Brad Roberts as Chief Risk and Compliance Officer (CRCO).
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Reporting directly to DriveWealth CEO Naureen Hassan, Mahna and Roberts join the firm with extensive leadership experience spanning financial services, enterprise technology, and global market infrastructure. Their appointments come as DriveWealth continues to scale its platform globally, powering investing experiences for fintechs, broker-dealers, and financial institutions around the world.
“Together, these strategic hires will help accelerate DriveWealth’s next phase of global growth,” said Hassan. “Rohit is a visionary leader who will drive our global go-to-market strategy, ensuring our Sales, Relationship Management, and Marketing teams are fully aligned as we scale. Brad brings deep expertise in risk and compliance that will be critical to maintaining the highest standards of regulatory rigor and operational excellence as we expand our investment infrastructure across new markets and asset classes.”
Mahna brings more than 20 years of experience in financial services and technology to DriveWealth. He joins the firm from Fidelity Institutional, Fidelity’s B2B custody and clearing business, where he served as Head of Client Growth, leading the sales and relationship management teams supporting RIAs, family offices, and brokerage firms. Prior to Fidelity, Mahna spent more than a decade at Salesforce, where he helped architect Financial Services Cloud, the company’s first industry-specific application.
“DriveWealth is at the forefront of a transformational shift in how financial services are delivered and consumed,” said Mahna. “I have spent my career helping firms navigate digital disruption and unlock new opportunities for growth. I’m honored to join the DriveWealth team and help our partners around the world deliver the next generation of investing experiences to their clients.”
Roberts joins DriveWealth with extensive leadership experience in global risk management and regulatory oversight across financial markets infrastructure. Most recently, he served as Global Head of Risk Management at Tradeweb, where he was a Managing Director and member of the Operating Committee. Prior to Tradeweb, Roberts was Chief Operating Officer of the Risk & Compliance Office at Bloomberg.
“It’s a privilege to join DriveWealth at such a pivotal moment for both the company and financial markets as a whole,” said Roberts. “As investing experiences continue to evolve and expand globally, strong risk management and regulatory discipline are essential to sustaining innovation at scale. I look forward to strengthening DriveWealth’s risk and compliance framework to support the infrastructure powering modern investing.”
About DriveWealth:
DriveWealth is a global B2B financial technology platform. Our core business is providing Brokerage-as-a-Service, powering the investing and trading experiences for digital wallets, broker-dealers, asset managers, and consumer brands. DriveWealth’s APIs provide our partners with a modern, extensible, and flexible toolkit to develop everything from traditional investment workflows to more innovative techniques like rounding up purchases into fractional share ownership. DriveWealth, LLC is a registered broker-dealer, member of FINRA and SIPC.
Brad Roberts, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer (CRCO) at DriveWealth
Rohit Mahna, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at DriveWealth
NEW YORK (AP) — Tomatoes, ubiquitous in everything from fast-food burgers to haute cuisine, are taking on a new role beyond the plate: A nagging reminder of rising costs.
Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.
“The tomato has become a symbol of something much deeper,” says Isaac Bernal Carbajo, a New York City chef who lamented life's “simplest pleasures” falling victim to price increases. “Something as basic as buying fresh vegetables is starting to become a serious financial decision for many families.”
Tomato prices are up about 40% over a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, dwarfing increases for other groceries, including coffee (up 18.5%), beef roasts (up 17.8%) and frozen fish and seafood (up 12%), among other products that have become symbols of America’s affordability squeeze.
A separate inflation gauge released Thursday showed that overall prices increased 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the highest reading in nearly three years.
Alongside crop yields, experts blame price increases for tomatoes, in part, on two pillars of President Donald Trump’s second-term policies: the Iran war and tariffs. The war spiked gas prices and increased shipping costs. Meantime, the U.S. withdrew from a deal allowing duty-free imports of tomatoes from Mexico, which grows most of America's supply.
Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist, says it's “a perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.”
American tomato farmers cheered the withdrawal from the tomato deal last July, saying it would help rebuild their shrinking industry. But for consumers, it's been painful. Though the U.S. withdrew from the Mexico tomato deal in July, it took time to see the impact in the produce aisle, with more imports in late winter and early spring.
When the tomatoes arrived, they were slapped with a 17% tariff.
“Tariffs are undeniably a big driver of the price inflation,” says Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor. “Because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, any changes in trade policy can have a large impact.”
U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes ballooned from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data, a staggering 27,879% increase.
As the cost trickles down, outraged shoppers have pulled out their phones in the produce aisle, shooting videos lamenting costs they said quadrupled, with some vowing to plant a garden to avoid prices of up to $8 a pound. But the impact has been most pronounced for businesses that rely on tomatoes as a key ingredient in their kitchens.
MarginEdge, which tracks prices for restaurants, says grape tomatoes have increased most — 65% in just a month — but prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes.
Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University, says prices should drop later in the year when domestically grown tomatoes are harvested. Higher prices, he says, will also “induce farmers to increase planting to meet the demand, but this takes longer because of the lead time.”
Meantime, it's translating to a big hit for businesses like Snarf’s Sandwiches, which puts a tomato in nearly every sandwich it makes.
Wayne Humphrey, chief operating officer of Snarf’s, which operates dozens of stores in Colorado, Missouri and Texas, said cases of tomatoes went from costing him $27 to $93 in the space of a year, piled on top of rising expenses for other ingredients including bread and beef, as well as increased labor costs.
“That single ingredient now costs us more than $1.7 million in additional spend annually,” says Humphrey. “The math is getting harder to ignore.”
Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin contributed to this report. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky
Tomatoes await customers on the shelves of a supermarket in New York on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Sedensky)
Tomatoes await customers on the shelves of a supermarket in New York on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Sedensky)
