Ex-Ladenburg Exec Replaces Jim Dickson as Sanctuary Wealth CEO

Sanctuary Wealth Group has appointed existing board member Adam Malamed to be its new CEO, replacing Jim Dickson, who founded the firm in 2018 as part of a group that acquired Indianapolis broker-dealer David A. Noyes & Co. and changed its name to Sanctuary.

Not immediately clear was why Dickson, who was not mentioned in the Thursday news release that announced Malamed’s appointment, left Sanctuary. Dickson and Sanctuary did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

A Sanctuary spokesperson on Friday declined to say why Dickson left the firm. However, a source close to the company told ThinkAdvisor the Sanctuary board terminated Dickson. The source did not give a reason for the termination or say when it happened.

An industry veteran, Dickson’s prior positions included serving as a Merrill Lynch divisional executive from 1997 until 2017, according to his LinkedIn page.

Malamed “will leverage his proven expertise in growing and leading privately held and publicly traded wealth management and financial services enterprises across multiple business models to spearhead the next stage of the firm’s growth,” Sanctuary said in its announcement.

The new Sanctuary CEO was chief operating officer, executive vice president and board director of Ladenburg Thalmann. “He served a pivotal role in building the enterprise to encompass 4,500 financial advisors, approximately $200 billion in client assets and an enterprise value of $1.3 billion,” according to Sanctuary.

Malamed was a main architect of Ladenburg’s sale to Advisor Group in 2020, after driving strategy and growth for almost 15 years at the firm, “generating robust expansion and industry-leading financial advisor service and support,” according to Sanctuary.

Before joining Ladenburg, he was co-founder and president of BroadWall Capital, a financial services firm specializing in institutional sales and research that he built and sold to Ladenburg Thalmann in 2006.

Aggregator Sanctuary Wealth’s network now includes partner firms in 28 states across the U.S., with about $25 billion in assets under advisement, it said.

The firm includes subsidiaries Sanctuary Advisors, a Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment advisor; Sanctuary Securities, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority member broker-dealer; Sanctuary Alternative Holdings; Sanctuary Asset Management; Sanctuary Insurance Solution; Sanctuary Global; and Sanctuary Global Family Office.

“Never before has there been a greater need for independent financial advice, and independent firms with sophisticated growth strategies are well-positioned to drive rising success for their organizations and advisors,” according to Malamed.

“Toward this end, I am a big believer in taking the best elements of a firm’s culture and aligning it with an institutionalized strategy and scalable solutions that consistently elevate the financial advisor and client service experience,” he said in a statement.

“This is precisely what we will achieve together at Sanctuary going forward,” he added. “In a fast-evolving wealth management landscape, Sanctuary has an opportunity to become the destination of choice throughout the independent financial advice industry.”

(Pictured: Adam Malamed, Sanctuary Wealth CEO)