Amid a war for talent, financial advisors are jumping from “one firm to another to another” for money, technology, resources, services or a combination, according to Thrivent’s chief distribution officer, who told ThinkAdvisor recently that his firm doesn’t focus on a big financial package when recruiting.
“At Thrivent, we have a philosophy: If they come to you for money, they leave you for money. So we're not interested in paying out a lot of money to come over,” Nick Cecere said last month.
Advisors demand a strong technology platform, and “they want table stakes compensation, and they want a partner to do business with in terms of resources and all the things that we bring to the table in terms of practice management, revenue development opportunities, helping them build their team,” he said.
“So there's lots of ways in which we're bringing a Thrivent value proposition to the table for advisors who are looking for that. We're not looking for advisors who are looking for straight compensation or a straight product piece of it,” Cecere added, noting also that the firm is investing in “new-to-the-industry talent.”
Thrivent wrapped up 2025 on pace to achieve its goal of adding 600 advisors, a nearly 4% year-over-year increase, while investing in succession planning and team-building to prepare for industry retirements in coming years, he said. That’s across the firm’s entire advisory ecosystem, including employee, independent and traditional channels.
The firm’s four-year retention rate is around 40%, about three times the industry average, according to Cecere, who also said Thrivent doubled the size of its employee advisory team over the past year. The firm plans to set another aggressive goal for this year.
Thrivent also has built its own tech platform, the Thrivent Planning Platform, a portal to help its advisors support clients with financial planning and promotes holistic financial advice, and is developing new features for advisors, Cecere said.
“Advisors are demanding that from us … and also clients are expecting that. So it was both a digital advisor experience, but we're seeing a much better client experience as a result of that,” Cecere said.
Thrivent wants to select people who fit into its culture, and is investing in a pipeline of “new-to-the-industry talent. And we're bringing people in through our employee channel to help them get up and running and then graduating those folks onto a team, whether it's in the career channel or in the independent channel,” Cecere added.
Thrivent’s chief growth and generosity officer, Carolyn Sakstrup, won ThinkAdvisor’s 2025 Luminaries CMO of the Year award. The firm won a Luminaries Innovation award in 2024.
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