Goodbye, Wirehouses: Why 3 Young Financial Advisors Broke Away

Growing Without Sales Pressure

Cyndeo Wealth Partners is another RIA operating under the banner of Dynasty Financial Partners with roots going back to Merrill Lynch, and the team also spent time domiciled within UBS before breaking away with Dynasty’s support in June 2020.

As recalled by Robby Thigpen, one of Cyndeo’s millennial financial advisors, there were a number of compelling reasons to launch Cyndeo Wealth Partners. For starters, many clients were expressing keen interest in more flexibility surrounding investments and service than could be feasibly provided in the wirehouse setting.

In addition, the independent space itself had changed a lot. Unlike in the past, by collaborating with the likes of Dynasty and its leading competitors, advisory professionals no longer have to leave behind powerful technology support and client service tools when they go independent.

Thigpen himself joined the Cyndeo team in September 2021, moving from the independent broker-dealer Hoornstra Financial Group, which offers securities though J.W. Cole Financial. Like Swift, Thigpen said he values his prior industry experience before he joined an independent RIA, but he wouldn’t go back.

“For starters, this is a fun place to work,” Thigpen said. “Our CEO understands that we need to have younger people coming in the door, and he is trying to build bench strength and to ensure we are prepared for the future. It’s fun and rewarding to be a part of that process.”

Like Swift, Thigpen said he loves the work of collaborating with clients, but he never felt totally comfortable in a sales-oriented position.

“I think a big problem with the aging of the financial services industry in general is that you have many younger advisors who try to make a start, but they fizzle out because of the demand to immediately produce and grow a book,” Thigpen explained. “Our CEO and our team are trying to build a better approach here.”

Thigpen said the independent RIA model makes a different approach possible because compensation is not just being drawn from sales commissions or product-based revenue. Instead, the full firm and staff can share in the growth and success, and everyone can feel that they have a direct stake in the firm’s success without having to be salespeople.

“This approach just resonates more with young people, I believe,” Thigpen said. “It also is attractive to our clients. They know we are here as true partners, whether we are talking about retirement, business successions, estate planning or any other milestone.”

From the Major League to ML to RIA

Brook Hart, president and chief compliance officer Presilium Private Wealth, is yet another young advisory professional with experience working first for Merrill Lynch before breaking away with the support of Dynasty Financial Partners.

Hart’s first career, however, was in Major League Baseball, where he pitched for more than three years within the Colorado Rockies’ minor league system. While he loved the experience, the money earned didn’t always match the effort given. Come June 2014, it was clear that a career change was in order, so Hart went to Merrill Lynch and entered the new advisor training program.

“I started in Philadelphia, and I had the good fortune of sitting outside of my current business partner Jerry Davidse’s office,” Hart recalled. “I was just trying to learn from him and learn about how he interacted with his clients and just about his overall approach, because he was having a lot of success.”

Eventually, Hart explained, Davidse started to express many of the same doubts cited by the leadership at Cyndeo and Amplius. Hart was also feeling a desire to take a different approach to the advisory business, and he began speaking more seriously with Davidse about the idea of breaking away.

“It was a push and pull situation,” Hart said. “We weren’t necessarily unhappy with Merrill Lynch, but we felt like there were things we could do better in the independent space. We weren’t sure exactly what direction to go, at first, but we did know that we didn’t just want to go from one wirehouse to another.”

Hart and Davidse eventually began working with Diamond Consultants to identify the right path forward, and after considerable deliberation, they felt going independent was the right choice, and that Dynasty Financial Partners was the right fit.

“We are right now coming up on the one-year anniversary of independence,” Hart said. “It has been fun. It’s also been challenging at times, of course, but a lot of the preparation that we did beforehand really made the transition more seamless than we were anticipating. It actually feels like we’ve been an established firm for a lot longer than a year. It’s feeling like business as usual.”

Hart said his favorite thing about the new approach is the ability to act as a true fiduciary and not having product-based demands or expectations coming down from a corporate leadership structure. Like Swift and Thigpen, Hart said this approach seems to be the preferred modus operandi for younger industry professionals and many career changers.

“Don’t get me wrong, certain people will always feel like it is right to join up and stay with the big wirehouse firms, because they do provide a lot of resources and an opportunity to earn a great living if you are successful,” Hart said. “But I believe that many young people are drawn to this industry with the desire to build a business how they want to. Another factor is that younger advisors, like young people entering other fields, want to know that the work they are doing is meaningful and purposeful.”

According to Hart, working alongside clients in a fiduciary capacity allows the advisor to take a more holistic approach that benefits not just the clients, but also their families and communities, as well.

(Pictured: Patrick Swift)