Hitting a headcount of 20,000 financial advisors marks a milestone for Edward Jones, says David Chubak, U.S. business unit and branch development head, and means the firm can “serve more clients more completely” across North America.
Chubak, in an interview with ThinkAdvisor, said the recruiting milestone coincides with Edward Jones' broader push to pivot to a planning-focused footing that prioritizes goal-setting and long-term collaboration with clients over product distribution.
“To that end, we are adding financial planning services to thousands of branch teams that will help to satisfy clients’ increasing preferences for a more personalized experience,” Chubak said. “The other key to our success has been offering increased flexibility for advisors in terms of how they run their practices, and we have nearly 3,000 financial advisors now active in new practice and teaming models."
Taking this path is crucial in a wealth management environment, Chubak said, in which some $84 trillion of investable assets are set to change hands across generations in the next decade.
Building planning-focused, intergenerational relationships with clients will be vital in this context.
“Americans must prepare through wealth planning and open communication with their heirs, and we have a big role to play in that,” Chubak said.
In the interview with Chubak, who estimates that nearly 40% of financial advisors are likely to retire over this same time frame, he noted that Edward Jones projects increasing its headcount by 3% annually for the foreseeable future.
“As more Americans seek financial advice, we know we need to fill the gap as advisors retire,” Chubak said. “It won’t be easy to accomplish, but I’m confident we can make it happen.”
Here are excerpts from our conversation:
THINKADVISOR: What are you focusing on, now that the firm stands at 20,000 advisors?
DAVID CHUBAK: It’s a goal we have been focused on achieving for some time. In my role, I have the privilege of leading our U.S. business and branch development. In total, I’m responsible for about 44,000 people in the field across advisors and support staff.
As we close in on the end of a successful year, I would point to three big trends that I’m focused on. Each of them is a big deal individually, but when you put them together, it’s game changing.
The first thing I’m thinking about is advisor demographics. We have about 300,000 advisory professionals here in the United States, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that more than a third of them could retire within the next decade.
It’s not theoretical. This is the second year in a row where the industry is actually set to end the year with fewer financial advisors than it started.
This is remarkable because we are also navigating a moment of major financial uncertainty for the typical household, which means more and more people across all wealth levels are looking for advice at a time when we are expecting to have fewer advisors available.
Second, I’m thinking about the great wealth transfer. We’re in the first innings of a process that could see $84 trillion of wealth change hands in the next decade. That’s a flow of wealth that we have never seen before — and one in which advisors are set to play a critical role.
The final trend isn’t talked about as much in the media, but it is related to these first two points. That is, there are as many as 33 million small businesses in America today.
Depending on the source you use, as many as half of the small business owners are over the age of 56. They need help with retirement, business transitions and more.
How do you think about these trends when it comes to setting the competitive strategy at Edward Jones?
The big idea is that we are making a push to serve more clients in a more complete way. That might kind of sound obvious as a business objective, but the reality is that it is not the prevailing strategy in our industry. Many of our competitors are really focused on serving fewer-but-wealthier clients more completely.
