Edward Jones has been on a multi-year journey to deepen the way it serves its 20,000-strong advisor force, starting from the client-service and branch management perspective, and the time has arrived for a significant rethink of the firm’s home office structure.
Speaking Thursday with ThinkAdvisor in New York, Edward Jones Managing Partner Penny Pennington confirmed the veracity of local St. Louis media reports suggesting that the firm is embarking on a multi-year initiative to reimagine home office operations.
“As we continue our journey to serve more clients more completely, Edward Jones will be making changes to its home office structure to strengthen our collaborative, client-first mindset and alignment with our firm goals,” Pennington said. “I shared a video with the entire organization earlier this week outlining the plan. It’s important to me that we be clear and transparent about the vision.”
There is not a specific goal in terms of reduced headcount, Pennington emphasized, but among the primary objectives will be reducing bureaucracy and using technology — including artificial intelligence — to make advisor support services more efficient and scalable.
This is particularly important, Pennington said, as the firm deepens its commitment to holistic financial planning and broadens the utility of Edward Jones resources as advisors segment and serve different client groups — including in the increasingly important high-net-worth marketplace. Given the substantial evolution of its branch and advisor operations, she said, it’s only natural that the home office will follow suit.
“Internally, we are calling this initiative ‘Enterprise Reimagined,’ reflecting our growth and development as an organization over the last five or six years,” Pennington said. “From the beginning, it was important to the leadership team that we started this effort from the point of view of our advisors and their clients. Now, we’re at the stage where the focus can shift more to the home office.”
What to Expect
Pennington stressed that the plan is “by no means to get rid of the home office.”
“I want to be very clear. The home office will continue to support our advisors in the field and their clients,” she said. “We absolutely need a strong home office of the most talented people with the best capabilities, empowered with the right data and technology in order to support the advisor force.”
Instead, the goal is to deepen investment where it makes sense and scale back in areas where there is inefficiency or duplication. This will include some reduction in staff, but as noted, there is not currently a specific reduction target.
“As we have evolved to become a planning-focused enterprise that is empowering our people with great technology and great access to partner organizations that elevate the way they serve clients, we now have a clear vision of what types of services and capabilities in the home office that we can reimagine or even tune down a little bit,” Pennington said.
While its natural that some home office staff will have questions about the future, Pennington said, there is also a clear sense of excitement about where the firm has been and where it is heading.
“Internally, this is a time when folks with a growth mindset can step up and say, ‘I’ve seen where we've built up a little bit too much bureaucracy, where decision making has been a little too slow,’” Pennington observed. “Folks with that mindset are stepping up and sharing their ideas about how we can all improve the organization.”
The Timeline
Pennington said she expects this “rethink” to run over the course of several years, noting that it will coincide nicely with her remaining tenure as managing partner.
“We have an age-out provision for the managing partner that kicks in at 65, and I’m about three and a half years away from that,” Pennington said. “This will be an important part of my last phase as the leader of this great firm, and I couldn’t be more excited about what comes next.”
Pictured: Penny Pennington
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.