UBS’ Santucci on Training, Recruiting

Paul Santucci is COO of the UBS Wealth Management Advisor Group for the Americas, which includes about 6,900 FAs. He joined UBS in 2003 from Wachovia and in February 2010 was promoted to his current post by Bob McCann.

He says that UBS Americas’ current advisor-training program was in place before ex-Merrill Lynch leader McCann came on board (to head the UBS wealth-management operations) in early 2009, though it was suspended for a period of time.

McCann and other executives have joined UBS over the past two year or so, like Bob Mulholland (another Merrill veteran, who joined UBS in early 2010), have given the training program more of “a common-sense approach.”

“Firms still hire 1,500-2,000 advisors a year hoping that some will stick,” said Santucci. The UBS approach is more successful than that of its peers, he says, because “we’re making sure the best managers have an opportunity to hire [new advisors] on to teams —and it’s working. We do not want to hire the most but the best, and so far we have been lucky.”

 Can you give us some more details about the UBS training program?

We hire up to 200 to 225 new financial advisors [a year], with 90 percent of them going onto teams and helping us create succession plan for our veteran advisors.

We’ve seen vast improvement within this program, and those within it are doing well. In contrast to other firms, we’ve had many — 75 percent — getting into the first- and second-quintiles in terms of performance vs. 15-20 percent at other firms over the past few years.

We believe we have more success through smaller groups. Branch managers can sit down and coach the new financial advisors and other team members.

Trainees are given guidelines … and certain goals of revenues and assets for say, at seven months, and branch managers decide to hang on to the advisors at the seven-month mark. Most are in the first and second quintile at this point.

 What types of people are hired into the training program?

Most individuals entering the program come in without a license and go through that process with us. They’re from all walks of life. Our numbers, in terms of diversity, have improved significantly with about 30-35 percent [in this category], including women.

We don’t have an age-range target but tend to hire those just out of business school and some who are making career changes, such as 45-50 years old who are apt to go on to be sole proprietors of a practice.