Robert "RJ" Moore
Cetera Financial Group said late Tuesday that Robert "RJ" Moore is giving up his CEO role next month for health reasons but plans to stay on as an advisor.
Chairman Ben Brigeman will step into Moore's shoes on an interim basis, while Heidrick & Struggles helps the independent broker-dealer group permanently fill the CEO slot.
According to Moore, his doctor urged him to "cut back on … current commitments" to recover from an undisclosed illness. "This led to one of the most difficult decisions of my professional career…," he explained, adding that he has "full faith in Cetera's management team."
After five months as board chair, Moore was tapped to lead the IBD firm in September 2016, taking over from Larry Roth, who had held the role for over two years.
"This transition was driven by the board and its assessment of the company's future … and what it wanted to do that would be best" for the firm, its then roughly 9,000 affiliated advisors and their clients, Moore said in an interview at the time.
Previously, the executive had been president of LPL Financial (May 2012 to March 2015), as well as serving as CEO of Legal & General Investment Management America, an asset manager, for about a year and as a board member for eight years.
The news of the CEO search comes less than four months after the private-equity firm Genstar Capital acquired a majority stake in Cetera for about $1.7 billion, according to Bloomberg.
