Independent Financial Group taps industry veteran Keefe as new president, COO

Independent Financial Group, one of the last large, privately held broker-dealers to work with independent contractor advisors, has tapped independent broker-dealer veteran Kevin Keefe as president and chief operating officer. 

Independent Financial Group, known as IFG, has 550 producing reps and advisors and generates about $325 million in annual revenue, said Dave Fischer, the firm’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, in an interview Friday morning. The firm has been searching for a president for the past few years, ever since Joe Miller, who previously held the role, stepped down in 2022.

The goal, he added, is to grow IFG over time into a firm with $1 billion in annual revenue. The broker-dealer is based in San Diego.

“We keep on deepening the bench, so to speak,” Fischer said. “Scott Heising, our CEO and founder, can focus on strategy and the financials, and I can focus on recruiting and corporate marketing. The goal is to continue creating that good, solid culture that takes care of the advisors.”

Twenty years ago, independent broker-dealers such as IFG flourished, with dozens of independently owned firms working with several hundred reps scattered around the country. But aging leadership and ownership, which needs to sell to cash out, and the infusion of private equity managers, desperate to buy and grow, have turned that landscape on its head.

The sale of privately held and tightly-controlled Commonwealth Financial Network to publicly-traded LPL Financial Holdings Inc. at the end of March for $2.7 billion in cash was a wake up call to the limited options some advisors face when it comes to choosing a broker-dealer to work with, executives said. LPL, for example, has been an acquisition machine for 20 years.

“The IFG story is pretty on point for what’s going on in the IBD space today,” Keefe said Friday in an interview. “The consolidation and so-called Mega firms have redefined the market.”

“IFG’s focus is on service, flexibility and creating a community for the advisors and home office staff,” Keefe said. “The goal is to deliver a definition of independence defined by the advisor and not the firm. The giant broker-dealers have moved away from that.”

Keefe previously served as CEO of Realta Securities since April 2023. A 21-year securities industry executive, Keefe also has worked at LPL Financial and a variety of other broker-dealers in the past.