LPL Financial continues to shake up its management two months after
Derek Bruton, its popular managing director for independent adviser services, resigned suddenly.
The company Thursday afternoon announced the promotion of two executives, Mimi Bock and Ryan Parker, to managing directors. Both Ms. Bock and Mr. Parker are veterans of the financial services industry. Ms. Bock has more than 25 years of experience and worked at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney before joining LPL in 2012. Mr. Parker has been in the financial services industry for 17 years, and was a managing director at Russell Investments before moving last year to LPL.
It's the first step in LPL's effort to reaffirm that the company is fully committed to its 13,600 affiliated registered reps and financial advisers, said Robert Moore, president of LPL Financial.
“The power of affiliation” is the renewed focus, Mr. Moore said. “We want to declare that and be very explicit about that.”
The company said the latest personnel moves were unrelated to Mr. Bruton's resignation. “This change had nothing to do with Derek’s departure, although it did validate the talent and strong bench strength we have at LPL Financial,” spokeswoman Betsy Weinberger said.
LPL is eliminating the position of chief marketing officer, which had been held by Joan Khoury. She is leaving the company at the end of August. As a result of these changes, most of LPL's existing marketing work and training teams will move to Ms. Bock's team.
Formerly executive vice president of independent adviser services for business consulting, Ms. Bock will become managing director for client experience and training.
Mr. Parker is being promoted to managing director for investment and planning solutions, which will now include advisory, investment, insurance and financial planning offerings. Previously, he was executive vice president.
Both will report to Mr. Moore. The company is not going to use the term “marketing” anymore, Mr. Moore said in an interview Thursday afternoon. “We are taking marketing and transferring that to client experience and training,” he said. That includes a program to train new financial advisers in partnership with the company's existing advisers, he said.
Last August, LPL
pulled the plug on a training program for new advisers, NestWise, which was focused on clients with less than $100,000 in assets, known in the industry as the “mass market.”
Mr. Bruton was allowed to resign “in light of the company's concerns about [his] interactions with other employees,” the company said in April. Days later, it
appointed William Morrissey as managing director of its independent adviser services group, replacing Mr. Bruton.
