LPL Financial has kicked off its Focus 2025 conference taking place this week in San Diego and says that about 6,000 advisors, as well as roughly 4,000 other financial professionals and industry leaders, are attending this year’s gathering — making this year’s event its largest to date.
According to CEO Rich Steinmeier, LPL is striving to set “a new pace” for the wealth management industry, with a dual focus on organic and inorganic growth fueled by powerful technology and long-term leadership experience.
“We are doing this by leading from the front, driving the transformation of wealth management and setting a new pace for the industry,” Steinmeier said in a statement. “By elevating your experience, expanding our capabilities and building a brand and culture that reflect our shared purpose, we’re helping you make a life-changing impact in communities across America.”
The theme of Focus 2025 — “What If You Could?” — is tied to LPL’s first national ad campaign aimed directly at consumers, which was launched in May. The campaign features actor Anna Kendrick in a series of television commercials that show her dragging a large patch of lawn through a city, asking viewers, “What if you could have the greener grass on your side?”
The conference theme aims to encourage advisors to “reimagine the boundless potential within their practices and the benefits they bring to their clients,” according to the firm.
The agenda includes several keynote speeches by executives and special guests, 220 breakout sessions, an expo hall with about 130 vendors and a concert by Maroon 5.
In addition to hosting LPL advisors from 1,500 cities and all 50 states, the company is welcoming about 70 Commonwealth Financial Network advisors and home office staff to Focus 2025. The event comes about 10 days after LPL announced the close of its $2.7 billion acquisition of Commonwealth.
The firm’s executives say LPL is on track to meet its goal of retaining 90% of Commonwealth’s 3,000 advisors, who work with about $305 billion of assets.
“As with any transaction or competitive recruiting event, some advisors will prioritize differently …,” Steinmeier said on a call with analysts on July 31. “We continue to feel confident about our ability to capture 90%, which does mean we understand that 10% of the advisors will make a different choice and go somewhere else.”
LPL works with about 29,000 financial advisors and the wealth management practices of roughly 1,100 financial institutions, servicing and custodying about $1.9 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets.
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