As close to 1,000 advisors gathered in National Harbor, Md., for the Raymond James Financial Services national conference in late August, morale was high. The company topped the J.D. Powers rankings of full-service brokers, besting the competition, in consumers' minds, at managing assets, and delivering service, cost and convenience. The firm had triumphed in the investment-selection arena as well, winning the top spot in Barron's semiannual ranking of brokers' stock recommendations. The mood at the conference was celebratory.

Practically everyone I met at the conference brought up the Powers report. Everyone, that is, except chief executive officer Richard Averitt, who chatted with me about the company's women's network—I had just attended a meeting—and then asked, "Do you want to talk about auction-rate securities?"

Raymond James, like several broker-dealers, had sold a significant amount of these doomed securities, once touted as cash equivalents. Also, like several broker-dealers, it had found itself in the doghouse when the auction-rate market fell apart. Now the company was moving forward. Most of the issuers of auction rates, Averitt says, had taken steps to redeem or restructure products and create liquidity, and half of the company's $2 billion exposure had been liquidated. "The refunding and refinancing continues, and we're making margin loans to clients when necessary," Averitt says. "We've done all we are legally entitled to do."

One auction-rate issuer, however, had not agreed to any make-goods yet. Allianz Global Investors was punished for its unwillingness to resolve auction-rate securities stemming from Pimco and Nicholas Applegate funds, whose wholesalers were "uninvited" from the conference. A statement explaining the disappearance was circulated to advisors, along with the conference schedule. "We can't call you a partner if you won't step up," Averitt notes.

A Giant Study Group

The conference has an unusual structure, with many of the sessions led by RJFS advisors. They turn the conference into a giant practice management study group, displaying PowerPoints on how they structure their businesses, train staff, acquire clients and even set up a sale to a successor. And in the hallways, advisors compare notes on which presenters proffer the best ideas, even as they share tips of their own. Plenty of advisors freely admitted that their clients were nervous. In one session, Judith McGee, founder and chair of McGee Financial Strategies in Portland, Ore., asked attendees to raise their hands if they spent a third of their day on the phone with upset clients—about one-third of the audience complied. Advisors were clearly concerned about what the future held, and a session on the presidential candidates' economic platforms was standing-room only.

New Face in the C-Suite

One of the stars of the conference was new chief administrative officer Angela Biever, who joined the board of directors of Raymond James Financial (parent company to both RJFS and Raymond James & Associates) in 1997 and joined the company full-time in May. Her bailiwick: process. Biever is responsible for technology, human resources, operations, administration and legal and risk management. "My responsibility is the infrastructure and support that allows producers to focus on producing," she says.

Biever's previous employer was Intel—which, like many tech firms, was fundamentally paperless. She has been amazed by the amount of paper at RJFS. "Some people walk documents in to me," she says.

Biever is sorting through the technological and compliance elements of reducing RJFS's paper. "As a financial advisor, you spend 20% of your time tracking the status of transactions," she says. "We're trying to get rid of paper and get timely, more accurate info."

In her HR role, Biever is focusing on enhancing diversity. The population is changing, and young Americans—future employees and customers—are increasingly heterogeneous. "People have different experiences and look at the world differently," she says. "Gender and race become a proxy for those differences, and exposure to the various points of view adds value. If, for example, all the women in a group have the same experiences as the men in a group it's no better than before." Recruiters have to reach out of their comfort zones, Biever observes; but young staffers also need to see people like themselves on staff. "If you don't see role models, it's hard to believe you will succeed," she says.