Cetera taps veteran Primerica, Raymond James execs as new RIA & Branches leaders

Cetera Financial Group has named two new community leaders within its RIA and Branches channel, pulling in veteran executives from Primerica and Raymond James.

Torrance Chaplin will serve as community leader of Cetera Investors, the firm's supported-independence branch model, while Sean Marrin takes on the equivalent role at RIA Network, the Blueprint-powered platform built for independent RIAs. Both will report to Jennifer Hanau, president of Cetera's RIA and Branches channel.

Chaplin joins after more than two decades in wealth management leadership, most recently as regional vice president at Primerica, where he oversaw a multistate operation supporting more than 250 advisors and independent business owners. He brings experience across revenue and asset growth, advisor development, and practice management spanning affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth markets. His background also includes a stint as a Marine Corps officer handling financial management and logistics, along with a degree from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Marrin arrives with more than three decades in the industry, having most recently served as division director for RIA and custody services at Raymond James, where he worked on recruiting independent advisory firms to the platform. He previously held business-development roles at Schwab Institutional and LPL, with a career focus on helping RIA firms scale their practices.

In a statement, Hanau highlighted Chaplin and Marrin's "unique combination of strategic leadership, operational expertise and deep advisor relationships that align perfectly with our vision for the RIA & Branches channel."

Read more: At Cetera, CEO Durbin says that recruiting advisors is strong but remains expensive: analyst

The appointments land amid a broader run of leadership activity since the formation of Cetera's RIA and Branches unit in June 2025.

Last July, the firm announced Richard Vogel as the community leader at Cetera Advisors, which was followed by Paul Polese's arrival at RIA Blueprint in October.

More recently this week, the firm introduced Choreo alum Craig Bartlett as the leader of its Cetera Financial Specialists unit, a community that sits within Cetera's Tax & Accounting channel alongside Avantax.

Going higher up the org chart, Cetera revealed in March that Ed O'Brien would be stepping in as its new chief operating officer. The former eMoney CEO officially took the reins in May to succeed longtime COO Tom Gooley, who helped build out the firm's operational infrastructure.

In April, Cetera consolidated two of its planning-focused RIA businesses – Avantax Planning Partners and The Retirement Planning Group – into a single division called Cetera Planning Partners. 

Learn more: Cetera CEO sees no slowdown in RIA dealmaking in second half

The move to create that combined unit, which now serves more than 100 employee advisors with roughly $19 billion in assets under advisement, takes a page from a defensive playbook that's being widely deployed in the increasingly competitive climate of RIA M&A, industry executives told InvestmentNews.

“IBDs [independent broker-dealers] are sitting on massive affiliated RIA assets. It makes perfect sense to consolidate them and capture the same growth national RIAs are enjoying," RIA consultant and M&A advisor David DeVoe told InvestmentNews in May. "Cetera isn't alone here; this is becoming a playbook across the industry."