Industry veteran who shaped Raymond James over five decades to retire from board

Thomas A. James is to retire from the board of directors at Raymond James Financial early next year, having made an unrivaled impact on the firm his father created in the 1960s.

It was 1970 when James, fresh out of Harvard Business School, was tasked with running the Florida-based brokerage firm that was to become the industry behemoth that today has almost 9,000 financial advisors and $1.2 trillion AUM.

Over 48 years as a director at the firm and 40 years as its CEO, until 2010, James innovated and inspired. He was named an Investment News Icon in 2017, and spoke to InvestmentNews about his early days in charge, noting that “in the arrogance of youth, you tend to overestimate your power to solve all kinds of problems.”

And problems there were, with the early 70s providing plenty of challenges for the young leader. In the difficult market of 1973-74, James made what he said was the most difficult decision, to approach J.C. Bradford to talk about a potential sale. Fortunately, given what was to come, no deal was done, and Raymond James was destined for growth.

As market conditions improved, and over several decades, James focused on “building a great institution.”

RETIRING FROM THE BOARD

Now, Tom James has announced that he will not stand for reelection and will retire as a director at the end of the annual shareholders meeting scheduled to be held on Feb. 22, 2024.

“At age 81, it is time for me to reduce my time with firm responsibilities and spend more time with my wife, Mary, outside of business. We have an excellent board and management team, and I am proud of their accomplishments,” he said.

But that does not mean the end of his involvement with the firm he led from tough times to titan.

“I will maintain an office and continue in several advisory roles both business and charitable, working part-time at the firm,” he added.

James will remain as chairman emeritus of Raymond James Financial, and his presence will continue to shape the decisions made by the board and current CEO Paul Reilly.

“Raymond James will continue to apply the management principles Tom exercised as CEO and taught innumerable levels of past and current leadership from his first day as CEO in 1970 to today,” Reilly said. “We are grateful that he will remain as our Chairman Emeritus and will still be active and visible in our offices. Our leadership team and I will continue to value his mentorship and advice as we continue to nurture the client-first culture he so thoughtfully and deliberately established and build on the firm’s growth and success.” 

INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION

Providing wisdom and advice is close to Tom James’ heart. In an interview with InvestmentNews in 2017, he shared his insights about onboarding new financial advisors.

“You really need to put these people in teams so that they become apprentices to senior financial advisors that help them learn all the methodology, give them the confidence, so they could actually succeed in building a book of clients,” he said.

He urged industry leaders to do this “more intelligently” and make “a longer-term commitment than just putting them through six months of training.”

While he said that it takes three to five years to know if you have an advisor who will succeed, he also noted that there is one thing that every successful advisor has.

“You have to be able to sell your ideas,” James said, noting that convincing clients to take steps that may be difficult for those that are nearing retirement or already retired. Successful advisors also have to constantly be able to sell themselves, to grow their client base and develop relationships.

Asked what he would do differently if he could go back and work through his five decades at Raymond James again, he said that there is not anything. Despite challenges along the way, he said he has learned a lot from those times and that it has all worked out great.