Wealth Management.
RIA principals, chief compliance officers, chief investment officers, and heads of wealth. Leadership search for the people who run the firm, not the advisors who carry books.
We recruit the people who run wealth management firms.
One thing up front, because it saves everyone a phone call: we do not currently recruit individual financial advisors. No book transitions, no lift-outs, no pulling producers off a competitor's platform. If what you need is someone who arrives carrying a portable book, we are not the right firm for that search and we will tell you so on the first call.
What we do run is firm leadership. The RIA principal who actually operates the business. The chief compliance officer who keeps the registration clean through an SEC exam. The chief investment officer who owns the portfolio process. The head of operations who makes a firm work at 200 households and again at 2,000. Those are executive searches, and they are the same work we run in every other specialty we cover.
The two are different businesses, which is the honest reason we picked one. Advisor recruiting runs on production numbers, portability math, and non-solicit litigation risk, and doing it properly takes a desk built specifically for it. Ours is built for leadership search. We would rather run the work we are good at than a mediocre version of somebody else's specialty.
Why Platforms Choose Engaged Search
Where the search lives.
Senior leadership and niche-headhunter roles. The recruiter assigned to your search has spent a decade in this segment.
FIRM LEADERSHIP
INVESTMENT LEADERSHIP
COMPLIANCE & OPERATIONS
SPECIALTY LEADERSHIP
Wealth Management, specifically.
The questions hiring operators send in the first call.
Do you recruit individual financial advisors?
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No. We do not currently recruit financial advisors, and we do not run book transitions or advisor lift-outs. Wealth management work here is firm leadership: RIA principals, chief compliance officers, chief investment officers, heads of operations, and heads of wealth. If you need a producer with a portable book, a firm whose whole desk is built around advisor transitions is the better call, and we will say that on the first call rather than take the engagement.
Why don't you recruit advisors?
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Because it is a different business than the one we run. Advisor recruiting turns on production numbers, book portability, broker protocol, and non-solicit litigation exposure. That takes a specialist desk. Ours is built around leadership search, where the question is whether a person can run a function and fit an operating model. We stay in the work we are good at.
What wealth management roles do you fill?
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Firm leadership across RIAs, broker-dealers, trust companies, and family offices: RIA principals and managing partners, presidents and COOs, heads of wealth, chief investment officers, chief compliance officers, heads of operations and practice management, heads of tax and estate planning, and PE-backed platform leadership.
How do wealth management recruiting firms charge?
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The same two models as the rest of executive search. Contingent runs 18 to 25 percent of first-year compensation, owed only on placement. Engaged runs 25 to 35 percent with a deposit up front, credited against the final fee, which funds the confidential outreach senior leadership searches require. We quote the model, the exact percentage, and the replacement guarantee in writing on the first scoping call.
Do you work with independent RIAs, broker-dealers, and trust companies?
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All three, plus family offices and PE-backed wealth management consolidators. The recruiter assigned scopes for the operating model and the regulatory posture each operator type carries, because a leadership hire at a trust company is a different search than the same title at a multi-billion-dollar RIA.
Are wealth management searches engaged or contingent?
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Most run engaged. The candidate pool for firm leadership is small, largely passive, and known to one another, so the search depends on credible direct outreach rather than applications. Contingent runs are reserved for less specialized roles.
Do you cover the entire United States?
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Yes. We run nationwide wealth management leadership searches, including the major wealth hubs (New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Dallas) and the growing secondary markets where RIA consolidation is most active.
Three paths from here.
You're hiring an RIA president, CCO, CIO, or head of wealth.
That is the search we run. Engaged fits, the pool is small and mostly passive. We map it and come back with a market read before you commit to anything.
Start the scoping call →You're looking for an advisor with a portable book.
Not a search we take, so here is the useful version of that answer: find a firm whose entire desk is advisor transitions. In the meantime, our guide on validating a book before you extend an offer works no matter who runs the search.
Read the book validation guide →You're benchmarking comp for a wealth leadership seat.
Send us the role, the market, and the band you're considering. We come back with a peer-firm comp read inside one business day, no engagement letter required.
Email the read request →Tell us the seat, the firm, the operating model.
We source RIA presidents, Chief Compliance Officers, and operations leaders who scale AUM and navigate SEC/FINRA regulatory oversight. We deliver verified shortlists in 30 days.