Cetera CEO Mike Durbin knows what it takes to scale in an industry that demands it.
Just look at his numbers.
When Durbin was introduced as the CEO of Cetera Holdings in the spring of 2023, the San Diego-based wealth manager had approximately 8,000 advisors and $116 billion in AUM. Fast forward two years and a touch and the firm has sprouted to more than 12,000 financial professionals and over $263 billion in AUM.
Yes, it may sound cheeky, but it’s true: In today’s financial advisory industry, size matters. (If it didn’t, all those private equity giants wouldn’t be shoveling billions of dollars into it.) And that’s why Cetera lured Durbin to the company over two years ago and named him CEO of Cetera Financial Group this past January. Cetera spent decades watching Durbin grow the wealth businesses of financial giants Fidelity and Morgan Stanley and realized that if they were ever going to reach those heights, Durbin was the guy to get them there.
Which, as the numbers bear out, he did.
That said, bigger is not necessarily better. It can be fleeting if a sturdy foundation for growth is not established. RIAs come and RIAs go in this increasingly mobile environment, and they take their highly portable assets with them.
The key – and the challenge – to long-term success, according to Durbin, is to “make the big feel small” for independent, growth-minded advisors and institutions seeking a home to build their businesses.
“Cetera continues to be a magnet, thanks to our wide-ranging affiliation options and flexibility, commitment to community and culture, and proven growth resources. Advisors choose their affiliation model – their business should reflect them, not Cetera – and can move between models as their business evolves,” Durbin says.
“We strive to constantly make the big feel small, including by organizing advisors into like-minded communities within five distinct channels,” emphasizes Durbin.
This summer Cetera poached Susan Wilkinson and her 12-person staff at Wilkinson Wealth Management, a group that oversees approximately $380 million in assets under administration, from LPL’s Private Advisor Group. The Charlottesville, Virginia-based Wilkinson joined Summit Financial Networks, one of Cetera’s advisor communities, after more than 17 years with LPL. She cited Cetera’s “white-glove service” and the support from its regional growth teams as key factors in the move.
Cetera advisor channel leader, Tom Halloran, at the time described Wilkinson as a “hard-working financial advisor and business owner who has created a phenomenal practice filled with great people,” and said her philosophy of “growing by getting better, not just bigger” fits with Cetera’s approach.
Or maybe even fits its mantra.
That’s because Halloran offered a similar sentiment in February after Cetera added Corporate Plans Retirement Strategies, a White Plains, New York-based advisory group overseeing more than $250 million in assets under administration from Equity Services.
"Our value proposition of a small community feel for networking and support along with all of the resources of a major broker-dealer was an attractive differentiator,” Halloran said while welcoming the team.
“Organically, we deliver some of the industry’s best programs, tools, and resources to help our advisors grow their business in meaningful ways. Our recruiting efforts fuel our organic growth as well, and we are seeing great recruiting results and momentum this year,” Durbin says.
“Inorganically, we pursue acquisitions primarily to achieve two key outcomes. The first is adding scale in the form of more assets and advisors on the Cetera platform. The second is adding capabilities for our existing advisors and institutions,” Durbin adds.
As for examples, Durbin points to the company’s Avantax and Securian acquisitions, where Cetera achieved both scale and new capabilities, adding important tax-focused financial and wealth-planning expertise from Avantax and trust services from Securian.
In July, Cetera appointed Richard Vogel as the new community leader of Cetera Advisors, part of the firm’s broader strategy to support advisor growth and deepen engagement across its wealth management businesses. Vogel, a veteran of the financial services industry, previously led an advisor team at Ameriprise Financial Services.
Vogel’s arrival came only a few weeks after Cetera named Jen Hanau to lead its new RIA and branches channel. Hanau joined via Mariner, where she served as national managing director of independent channels.
And Hanau showed up hot on the heels of John Lefferts, who the hybrid RIA named in May as head of Cetera Investors, a role that positions him to lead the company’s national network of more than 40 branch offices operating under its supported independence model.
“These additions represent a critical step in sourcing the subject matter expertise that our advisors and institutions need as they compete in their respective markets. Attracting demonstrated senior talent across a growing range of capabilities is a core component of our growth planning,” Durbin says.
Like many other wealth managers, Cetera is not alone in its battle for scale. In December 2023, Genstar Capital closed a fundamental reinvestment into Cetera, bringing fresh capital to help the firm execute its strategy. For his part, Durbin views Cetera’s private ownership as a distinct competitive advantage and maintains the partners are aligned philosophically.
“Genstar invests with a strategic, growth-first mindset. The reinvestment signals a high degree of confidence in our industry leadership and the potential of Cetera,” Durbin says.
And speaking of private-market investing, Durbin sees alternative investments in client accounts expanding in popularity thanks to “quality asset managers delivering new and innovative offerings.”
Cetera has been in the space for many years, with its most recent offering being a new alternative investments model portfolio, the Cetera Blended Alternatives Model – Moderate. This includes six alternative investment vehicles that provide access to institutional-quality strategies across private credit, private equity, and private real estate. The model portfolio was researched and vetted by Cetera’s due diligence and investment management’s research teams in partnership with iCapital.
“High-net-worth clients have complex financial planning and wealth management needs, and we believe advisors should have access to alternative investments for this segment of the market. Our expectation is that, using our new model and other products, Cetera clients will continue to benefit from allocating a portion of their portfolios to alternative investments,” Durbin says.
Elsewhere, Durbin aims “to make the big feel small” through Cetera’s regional growth teams. These teams function as a bridge between its advisors and institutions and what he describes as “the full power of Cetera.”
“We don’t know of another firm our size that provides this level of personalization. We embrace the concept that scale and personalized support are not mutually exclusive and think it’s a real differentiator,” Durbin says.
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