How Merrill Lynch plans to 'grow' thousands of advisers

The need - and the case - for developing and introducing new talent into the financial advice business has been well-documented: The total number of practicing FAs has been steadily decreasing for years, at a time when more individual investors are in need of advice. Practicing FAs, of course, are also getting older each year, creating a greater need for internal successors in many cases. Yet, the Next Generation of Financial Advisers, as important as they are to the financial advice business, is not something that can be created overnight. No one perhaps knows this scenario better than Dwight Mathis. As the head of business development & head of new advisor strategy at Merrill Lynch, Mr. Mathis is now focused on organically growing the brokerage behemoth's base of new FAs. Mr. Mathis stopped by the InvestmentNews offices in New York for a talk with INTV and discussed the philosophy behind Merrill's new strategy, and also outlined his aggressive goals - Merrill plans to add 2,500 new trainees to its program this year. Mr. Mathis also sheds light on the types of individuals Merrill is selectively bringing into the mix: The firm is receiving an average of 36,000 applications to the training program each month. Watch the interview with Mr. Mathis, the first in an INTV series looking at developing new advisers that we will be rolling out leading up to our NextGen Virtual Career Fair in November.