Ameriprise head of recruiting resigns

Manish Dave, the head of advisor recruiting at Ameriprise, is stepping down.

Ameriprise said in a statement that Dave, the senior vice president of business development and experienced advisor recruiting, resigned Thursday, effective immediately. The firm's recruiting team will now report to Pat O'Connell, executive vice president and president of the Ameriprise Advisor & Ameriprise Financial Institutions Groups, until a replacement is appointed.

Ameriprise said, "We feel confident in our recruiting pipeline and differentiated advisor value proposition." A spokesperson declined further comment.

Dave was at Ameriprise for 18 years, according to his LinkedIn page. Before that, he was at Bank of America for five years and at Merrill for three. 

Dave said in response to an interview request on LinkedIn that he felt he needed to take a break.

"I have no immediate plans other than spending time with my family and friends, and pursuing the interests that are important to my wife and I," he wrote. "I wish my former colleagues nothing but future success."

READ MORE: 
Ameriprise bolsters earnings as CEO wary of election impacts
Ameriprise seeks preliminary injunction in 'unprecedented' LPL suit
Ameriprise suit accuses LPL of 'harvesting' confidential client data
LPL rips Ameriprise for trying to intimidate departing advisors
Ameriprise closing in on $1T in client assets

With just over 10,000 advisors, Ameriprise boasts one of the more formidable headcount figures in the business. Jeff Nash, the CEO and co-founder of the recruiting firm Bridgemark Strategies, said Ameriprise has always been an aggressive recruiter both for its direct-employee channel and its independent franchise channel. The firm counted 2,236 directly employed advisors at the end of the second quarter and 8,156 independents.

Nash said Dave helped to drive recruiting deals by being a bright guy whom people generally liked.

"Their due-diligence process is a lot more detailed than a lot of other firms to make sure they're going after the right advisors," Nash said.

Ron Edde, an industry recruiter and the president and the CEO of Millennium Career Advisors, agreed that Dave and his recruiting team were good at knowing exactly the sorts of advisory practices they wanted to bring in.

"They were pretty aggressive, particularly for people with $750 million in AUM and up," Edde said. "They would bend over backwards to get them in."

But Ameriprise hasn't shown the rapid growth displayed in recent years by some of its direct rivals. Its headcount figure grew by less than 5% to 10,367 from 9,881 between 2018 and 2023. Its balance for recruiting loans — money offered to attract advisory teams from competitors — has meanwhile swollen by 117% to $1.2 billion from roughly $560 million in the same period.

Some of its rivals have more to show from their recruiting and retention efforts. Raymond James, for instance, saw its advisor count go from 7,537 in the first quarter of 2018 to 8,710 at the end of 2023, an increase of more than 15%. Its recruiting loan balance rose by nearly 26% in the same period, to $1.17 billion from $930 million.

And LPL Financial has used recruiting, as well as a series of big merger and acquisition deals, to more than double its advisor count over the past five years. LPL's recruiting loan balance increased by nearly 395% to $1.48 billion from $300 million in the same period.

LPL, whose headcount is pushing above 23,000, has often gone to Ameriprise to mine recruiting prospects. In July, Ameriprise struck back with a lawsuit accusing LPL of systematically "harvesting" confidential client information from advisors it had brought over.

The suit, filed in federal court in Minneapolis, asks for an injunction on LPL's alleged illegal recruiting practices. The judge overseeing the case is scheduled to rule on that request at the end of October.

— This article has been updated with comments from industry experts and other insights.