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August 28, 2018 at 03:12 PM
Edward Jones looks to be on track to hit its goal to expand to 20,000 advisors by 2022.
However, according to Katherine Mauzy, head of financial advisor talent acquisition for Edward Jones, that’s “just a starting point.”
Currently the firm has a little more than 17,000 advisors. The firm expects to grow by over 1,000 financial advisors by the end of 2018.
“We intend to get to 20,000 financial advisors, but we realize that’s just a starting point. It’s a milestone,” Mauzy told ThinkAdvisor. “We believe as long as there are more clients out there that benefit from being served by Edward Jones, we’ll keep growing.”
Today, Edward Jones serves around 7 million clients. But, according to Mauzy, the firm believes there is opportunity for that number to grow to over 40 million clients.
“Until there are no more clients, we’re going to keep growing,” Mauzy said.
Edward Jones is not quiet about its lofty recruiting and growth goals — or its strategies to achieve that growth. For example, the firm recently revamped its recruiting strategy and focused its recruiting efforts on established advisors from competing firms — including wirehouses Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
Mauzy recently spoke to ThinkAdvisor about how this new strategy is going and how Edward Jones has prioritized growing the firm throughout its history.
“In the 1960s we had 84 financial advisors,” she explained. “We’ve had 11% compounded growth rate year over year to now be the largest firm by advisors with 17,000 [advisors]. We did that without merger or acquisition. If you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable the disciplined approach we have had to grow and that it’s never wavering.”
Even in a downturn in the market, like 2008-2009, Edward Jones was still training and hiring new advisors, according to Mauzy.
When Mauzy joined Edward Jones eight years ago, her main focus was to redesign and restructure how the firm recruits career changers, which today is the largest pool of advisors coming into Edward Jones.
