Giant registered investment advisory firms Cresset and Carson Group hired executives to newly created positions, while RIA investor Emigrant Partners promoted a new chief executive.
Chicago-based Cresset Appoints M&A Dealmaker Liz Nesvold as Company President, Omaha, Nebraska-based Carson Group Hired former Vanguard and Amazon marketing executive Jen Abboud-Smith as the company’s senior vice president of customer acquisition, and New York Immigration Partners Named Jenny Souza, its head of strategic consulting, as its new CEO. The three companies announced job openings separately last week.
Talent has become a key area of need in the largest and fastest growing RIAs, as Recruiting and Retaining Financial Advisors And invest in key areas of your business, according to experts. Technology, staff hours and day-to-day complexity add to the challenges large RIAs face, said Marina Shtyrkov, associate director of wealth management at research and advisory firm Cerulli Associates.
“Larger companies tend to have more specialized roles, whether it’s financial planning or investment, operations, marketing, compliance,” she said in Last month’s webinars About the future of RIAs. “Talent is expensive. All of that comes at a price. The bigger the company, the more infrastructure you have to maintain.”
Acquisitions like three companies and Pathstone that made new appointments, Another Rapidly Expanding RIAaccording to Kevin Casey, director of corporate development and strategy at Pathstone, also looks at talent through the lens of technology potential.
“We use M&A obviously to attract talent, to bring new skills and capabilities to the company,” he said at an RIA buyer panel held by investment banks last week Republic Capital Group“Technology is the lifeblood of our organization, and given the complexity of our jobs and families, we’re looking for companies that can ultimately add new experiences or new skills or new systems to what we’re doing.”
Cresset Hires Liz Nesvold as President
Multi-family office and private investment firm Cresset surpasses $30 billion in client assets Key Recruitment Initiatives and M&A transactions in recent years. Neithwold leaves Raymond James earlier this year. Partner with RIA investment bank Silver Lane Advisors in 2019 sold their company to raymond james.
“When you’ve been in the industry for 30 years and you take a break, you have the luxury of thinking about who you want to be when you grow up,” Neswold said in an interview. “This RIA industry is with me. Grow. For me, getting into this industry is the most exciting next step I can think of.”
While she notes that she will bring her M&A dealmaking skills into the equation as Cresset explores further acquisitions, Nesvold said she wants to focus more on the role to ensure the firm “offers a very personal personalized experience”. As president, she will help drive Cresset’s strategy alongside co-founders Eric Becker and Avy Stein.
Nesvold’s experience will benefit the company and allow Cresset to “enhance our fully integrated approach,” Stein said in a statement. “Liz is one of the wealth management industry’s most respected and recognized advisors and has led strategies around transformational partnerships and business combinations.”
Carson Group Appoints Senior Vice President of Customer Acquisition
The Carson Group and its more than 460 advisors in 190 offices manage $21 billion in client assets on behalf of 46,000 families – a scale it has achieved through its own acquisitions and hiring, and Bain capital injection and previous investor Long Ridge Equity Partners. Abboud-Smith will manage Carson Group’s consumer marketing and lead generation, a major initiative launched after Bain invested in the company two years ago.
According to Jamie Hopkins, managing partner of Wealth Solutions at Carson Group, the program generated 15,000 leads in its first full year. “We will continue to focus on expanding our program with high-quality and pre-qualified leads so our advisors can focus their time and energy on what matters most,” Hopkins said in a statement. Above: Serving their existing customers and adding new ones.”
In an email interview, Abboud-Smith said her tenure, helping Vanguard with its digital and remote advisor channels, personal advisor services, and the development of a learning framework and systems to address Amazon’s challenges, is a particularly good fit for her role. Working at Carson Group is “the perfect blend of expertise that suits me, scale that suits my career goals, and autonomy that suits me personally,” Abboud-Smith said.
“Although my function is ‘client acquisition,’ my role is to help our consultants grow their business,” she said. “My team exists to help advisors connect with quality leads. It’s not just words on the wall – our goals and metrics are based on a combination of scale and output – so only We’re only successful when we’re successful in helping our partners convert new customers.”
Emigrant Partners Appoints New CEO
Souza took over the role on May 1, after five years as CEO Karl Heckenberg announced in a statement last month that he “decided to take some time to think about what I want to do in the next phase of my career.” Millionaire real estate mogul Howard Milstein is chairman of Emigrant Bank, the parent company of Emigrant Partners, which bills itself as the largest family-owned and operated bank in the United States. Emigrant Partners purchased non-voting minority stakes in 20 RIAs with over $100 billion in client assets under management.
The companies sought Emigrant for their “capital flexibility” in hiring and acquisitions, as well as a “strategic consulting partner,” Souza said in an interview.
“Our firm was looking for a partner who would really allow the leadership team to continue executing on their vision for the business,” she said. “This autonomy is often a key factor in the decision-making process.”
She joined Emigrant Partners in May 2019 as a Managing Director, having previously held senior leadership roles at asset manager BrightSphere Investment Group and held positions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, Canaccord Adams and Berkshire Capital Corporation.
“Jenny has built a strong track record for our business over the past four years and we are delighted to have her in this expanded role,” Milstein said in a statement. “Emigrant Partners is an important part of our business , I continue to see a huge opportunity to invest in the continued growth of the platform.”
