Kristen Luke 

Founder · Author · Marketing Strategist

Kristen Luke is the president of Kaleido Inc., the parent company of OnNiche®, and one of the financial industry's most recognized authorities on marketing strategy and niche marketing for financial advisors.

Kristen entered the financial services industry in 2005 as a marketing manager for a hybrid RIA, gaining firsthand experience with the challenges advisors face in attracting clients. In 2008, she founded a marketing agency that spent the next 18 years serving financial advisory firms across the country, from solo practices to multi-billion-dollar RIAs, enterprise RIAs, and the custodians and asset managers that serve them.

That experience led her to a conviction that runs through all her work: Competing as a generalist is a losing game, because there is always another advisor who looks a little better or charges a little less. The advisors who win stop trying to out-compete everyone with the same message and tactics and instead own their niches so completely that no one else compares.

Kristen created the framework behind OnNiche® to make that approach repeatable and scalable. Instead of treating niche marketing as a one-time exercise, OnNiche® gives advisors a clear strategy, the structure to execute it, and the accountability to keep it moving and evolving as their firms grow, so their marketing compounds over time rather than resetting with every new idea. It works for a solo advisor owning a single niche or an enterprise RIA aligning dozens of advisors and teams, each around the audience they are uniquely equipped to serve. In 2026, she shifted her focus from the marketing agency entirely to OnNiche®.

A recognized thought leader in the financial services industry, Kristen is the author of the Amazon best-selling book Uncomparable: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Standing Out Through Niche Marketing. She frequently shares her expertise at industry events and through podcasts and publications, including the Financial Planning Association, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Vanguard, Kitces.com, and Advisor Perspectives.

EDUCATION, CERTIFICATIONS, AND MEMBERSHIPS

  • B.A. in Business Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • MBA with an Emphasis in Marketing, San Diego State University

  • Private Pilot License, Instrument Rating, Federal Aviation Administration

FUN FACTS

  • Founded the business in October 2008 as Wealth Management Marketing, later renamed Kaleido Creative Studio.

  • Entered the industry in 2005 as a marketing manager for a hybrid RIA in San Diego.

  • Splits her time between her home in San Diego and her cabin in Idyllwild, CA.

  • Opened her first business at age 22—a beachfront bar in Lombok, Indonesia.