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Industry Spotlight > Women in Wealth

Advisor Group Names Ford Head of Advisor Engagement

By Jeff Berman

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Advisor Group has appointed 30-year industry veteran Erinn Ford as head of advisor engagement.

Ford served as CEO of Advisor Group’s subsidiary broker-dealer KMS Financial Services from March 2018 until April 2019, a few months before Advisor Group announced it was buying a group of BDs owned by Ladenburg Thalmann.

“Congrats to @Ford_Erinn! And an interesting new kind of role emerging within advisor platforms — someone dedicated to actually ensuring that what is offered generates meaningful engagement!” said popular blogger Michael Kitces in a tweet Wednesday.

Prior to KMS, Ford was president of Cetera Advisors from May 2014 until February 2018, after joining that broker-dealer in March 2012 as senior vice president of advisor relations, according to her LinkedIn profile. Ford joined the industry in 1990, when she was hired by Pacific West Financial Group, where she served as chief marketing officer.

(Related: How Ford Went From Family RIA to BD Exec)

“Erinn is enormously respected across the wealth management space as a gifted leader who builds strong relationships, knows how to get the most from her teams, and possesses an exceptional ability to connect with financial professionals,” said Advisor Group Jamie Price in a statement.

She “has demonstrated a knack for rapidly understanding what keeps financial professionals up at night and creating actionable, innovative, and high-impact solutions for their businesses,” Price explained. “I look forward to all that Erinn will accomplish for the Advisor Group financial professionals we’re privileged to serve.”

Advisor Group serves about 11,100 financial professionals and oversees over $450 billion in client assets.

“Financial professionals are front and center to everything we do, and our role at Advisor Group is to take a business model-driven approach to providing the support they need to deliver the best possible experience to their clients,” Ford said Wednesday in a statement.

“We have an enormous opportunity to further align our organization’s expertise with awareness and adoption of our industry-leading programs and platforms, while collaborating across our field-facing teams to drive growth opportunities, greater business efficiencies and a richer sense of community for our financial professionals,” she explained.

More Details on the Role

The industry veteran will report to Greg Cornick, Advisor Group president, Advice and Wealth Management, and “will build out a team of dedicated professionals in the coming weeks and months,” the firm said in announcing her appointment.

Ford is serving in a “critical new role in our organization,” according to Cornick. “In this role, Erinn will be the champion for our financial professionals at our executive level, serving as an advocate for their interests on the entire range of issues that impact them and their businesses,” he stated.

Ford will focus on the following areas, according to Advisor Group:

  • “Developing and executing a metrics-driven approach to building a consistently positive experience for financial professionals across the network, while also inspiring a greater sense of connection in being part of the Advisor Group family;
  • Spearheading the creation of an industry-leading feedback mechanism between Advisor Group’s … affiliated financial professionals and its executive leadership;
  • Guiding financial professionals in identifying, adopting and integrating Advisor Group’s resources and tools within their businesses;
  • Shaping the development of new enterprise-level solutions that help financial professionals grow their businesses, drive efficiencies and better serve clients; and
  • Aligning the development of new solutions with each specific business model segment served by Advisor Group, from ensemble practices and hybrid RIAs to Super-OSJ groups, and beyond.”

See: Advisor Group, Cetera Outlooks Upgraded to Stable by Moody’s

Jeff Berman

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