Raymond James' Recruiting Push Is 'Firing on All Cylinders': Exec

Like Reilly, Tash Elwyn — head of the employee advisor channel Raymond James & Associates — says the firm is "firing on all cylinders across affiliations."

There's plenty of interest from advisors with wirehouses, he adds. This includes reps with firm both in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting (Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo) and outside of the protocol (UBS and Morgan Stanley). Plus, interest at regional and independent firms also is strong.

As of the end of June, the employee channel had 3,126 advisors, up 130 from last year and 73 from the prior quarter; the independent channel had 4,593, a jump of 304 from the year-ago period and 42 from the earlier period.

Factors that might encourage or "push" advisors out of a wirehouse firm, according to Elwyn, include regular changes in compensation, leadership, vision and strategy at rival firms, as well as an emphasis on sales of products and services like loans — which he refers to as "macro factors."

"Micro push factors," the executive explains, are related to "a lack of tenure and consistency in branch leadership, turnover and a lack of support at the local level. If  you look back over the past several years, you see many wirehouses consistently creating an infinite variety of both types of push factors."

Pull factors are concerned with the "consistency of the Raymond James culture in which clients come first and advisors are a close second," Elwyn said, during an interview on Friday, the last day of this year's national development conference for employee advisors. "Raymond James, secondly, consistently seeks to be a place with unique combination of Wall Street resources and Main Street values."

Finally, the firm's stance that "advisors own their book of business," he points out, benefits recruiting and retention and empowers advisors. "It's not a complicated premise, but is a daunting business model for our competitors to adopt."

Leadership Moves

On Sept. 30, Elwyn and fellow executives Scott Curtis and Jodi Perry will be assuming new responsibilities as Chief Operating Officer Dennis Zank retires.

Curtis, head of the independent-advisor channel, will lead the broader Private Client Group. Elwyn is adding regulatory oversight and reporting tasks to his role. And Perry, national director of Raymond James Financial Services' independent contractor division, is becoming the entity's president.

Zank has been COO for 6.5 years, according to Elwyn: "Raymond James is as focused on succession planning at the corporate level as it is at the advisor level. We are very excited about and confident in the strength of our leadership team going forward."