Portrait of a Branch Manager

Diversity is top-of-mind. Arico bemoans the fact that there are simply too few female FAs.

“Statistically, women are strong advisors, but there just aren’t a lot of them in the industry yet,” he says. “We need to get more.” (Females total 12%, according to Tom Daley, recruiting specialist, who is profiled in this issue.)

Most of Arico’s new hires come via recruiters; referrals play a big, though secondary, role. He also does a little warm calling. The manager hires few trainees because of scant space in his 16th-floor 15,500 square-foot office—hiring newbies simply isn’t profitable.

“My rent is in excess of $100 a square foot. So I need [people] that are actually generating revenue,” he says. “When I hire a trainee, it’s generally because an advisor wants one on their team. Today, if a trainee isn’t on a team when they first come into the business, it’s very, very difficult to succeed.”

With the premium on space, taking on a new FA sometimes means transferring an existing one to a different Manhattan office.

“We have a good relationship across all the branches in the city,”Arico says. “Everyone wants everyone else to do well—so we always try to help one another.”

A native of Farmingdale, Long Island, Arico grew up in Oklahoma City. His father was principal of his grade school; his mother, his high school guidance counselor.

“I love them to death, but I went to college about 2,000 miles away in New York,” he says, with a laugh.

At Fordham University in the Bronx, he studied finance and became class president, then president of the college’s full student body. As a member of the school’s Breakfast Club—which he and the then-dean founded—Arico visited with a variety of corporate executives.

“It really fascinated me. I got very interested in the whole [business] culture,” he recalls.

By the summer following the 1987 market crash, Arico was a cold-calling intern at Prudential Bache. He distinctly recalls that he enjoyed it. Upon graduating from Fordham with a bachelor’s degree in finance, he joined Prudential’s two-year management training program. In 1997, he was appointed business officer for the firm’s northern and eastern division.

Two years after 9/11, he launched his branch management career, relocating to Boston as a sales manager. Only six months later, he was running a complex of his own. Next, he accepted an offer to become productivity/sales manager for all offices in New York City. But he was quickly given a branch to manage, and then another.

In the spring of 2006, he was promoted to run what had become Wachovia Securities’ Madison Avenue branch.

The unassuming Arico immediately turned over his big corner office to advisors.

“They’re the guys who bring in the revenue; so they deserve it. That also gave me the opportunity to show that I can sit in a small office and do my job just fine,” says Arico, who still occupies a compact interior space. “The message is: the four walls aren’t what’s important—it’s what you do inside those walls. I’ve had very high-end producers that will sit anywhere for me.”

Two years after he took over Madison Avenue, the financial crisis hit.

“I never really believed that Wachovia was at the level of risk that it was. But then it became apparent. We went around making sure clients had their accounts positioned within FDIC guidelines. We went account by account to be certain they were sufficiently covered,” says Arico, adding that neither money nor clients were lost.

Then, in a federally mandated sale, Wells Fargo ­acquired Wachovia.

“The Wells Fargo deal was a great, great solution to our problem,” he says. “It’s so reassuring to have that balance sheet. We’re well financed. And the Wells Fargo brand name is incredible.”

A typical workday starts at 4:30 a.m., when Arico heads to the basement of his Fairfield, Connecticut, home to exercise. Arriving at the office at 8:30 a.m., he meets with his on-site management team of assistant manager and licensed administrative manager, then embarks on the first of several walks around the branch. These put him face-to-face with all the FAs, from whom he often learns about pressing issues requiring attention.

Lunch is usually a fast sandwich that he or his assistant picks up from a nearby deli. (The manager’s fave: whole-wheat wrap with grilled cheese, avocado, onion and zesty hot sauce.) Some lunches, however, are recruiting meetings at restaurants; such chats are also held at breakfast, dinner or over an after-work cocktail.

Arico and wife Courtney are the parents of three daughters, ages 14, 11 and 8. In what leisure time he’s able to carve out, the busy manager snowboards, skis and golfs. He’s been game even to try skydiving and is now training for a half-marathon.

Sleep, apparently, is at the bottom of Arico’s agenda, a fact that he underscores by sporting a T-shirt emblazoned: “You can catch up on sleep the first year you’re dead.”

“Life,” he says, “goes by so fast. You need to find fulfillment. The problem is, most people don’t find out what they want to do at work or what they want to do with their lives.”

Happily, branch manager Arico did.