Those who can, do, the saying goes. Three Moss Adams consultants embraced this sentiment over the past year, leaving their prestigious perches at the Seattle-based firm to practice what they preached. Mark Tibergien, Philip Palaveev and Rebecca Pomering accepted high-profile positions in the financial services industry-at Pershing Advisor Solutions, Fusion Advisor Network and Moss Adams Wealth Advisors, respectively-where each can now act on the advice they dispensed to advisors from the consulting division of Moss Adams. Here's a glimpse of what's to come from these industry leaders... and a look at what they left behind.

Close Ties

At Moss Adams, all three consultants nurtured close personal relationships that continue even as they change hats. "Our business separation has nothing to do with our friendship," Tibergien says. Tibergien, 56, took Pomering and Palaveev under his wing when they were in their mid-twenties. Together, they built a thriving business helping advisors improve their practices and conducting industry-defining research in an entrepreneurial environment within the larger, more staid culture of Moss Adams, a regional accounting firm. "I don't know what makes chemistry among people so good," Pomering says. "We all felt really invested in what we built as a business. And in the end we were personally committed to what [each of us] needed."

Strategic differences became a source of friction between Moss Adams' consulting group and the larger organization. Moss Adams declined to open regional offices in places like New York and Chicago-locations that would have spared the company's consultants a grueling travel schedule, Tibergien says, quickly adding that he harbors no hard feelings toward his former employer. Palaveev, 35, has two young children and Pomering, 34, has one, and both wanted to reduce their time on the road. Tibergien, who logged about 300,000 miles per year at Moss Adams, says he'd be happy to cut that in half at his new job at Pershing.

In his decade-plus tenure at Moss Adams, Tibergien came to embody the firm's consulting brand. The announcement last fall that he would leave to become CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions-a New Jersey firm best known for its back-office clearing function-set the industry abuzz.

Pomering wasn't surprised to learn that Tibergien would be leaving Moss Adams, but she says she was taken aback by his destination. She envisioned him winding up somewhere "less corporate" than Pershing. "Mark is entrepreneurial and ran his own business before joining Moss Adams, so I thought he would do something more in that vein," Pomering writes in an email message. "But Pershing is a great organization and he has an exciting opportunity to build something amazing there."

Of the three, Tibergien undoubtedly has the brightest spotlight on his new role in the industry. It's hardly a coincidence that attendance at Pershing's annual INSITE conference, held in June in Hollywood, Fla., was up 85% over last year. Tibergien's initiatives thus far include integrating technology to serve hybrid advisors better and developing the type of practice management coaching that he worked on at Moss Adams. Regarding the latter, Tibergien says Pershing will offer more guidance than his custodial competition-less "marketing splash" than sustained follow-up, he notes.

Tibergien enjoys the culture at Pershing. "Accountants manage risk and certainty," he says. "Financial services firms manage ambiguity and growth. This suits my personality better."

Tibergien's lengthy to-do list also includes creating a business relationship with Palaveev, who left Moss Adams this spring to become president of Fusion Advisor Network. Palaveev heads the Seattle office of the Elmsford, New York-based financial services firm, which has an uncommon business model. Fusion acts as a buffer between its advisor clients and the broker-dealer NFP Securities, with whom the advisors are affiliated. Fusion provides independent advisors with practice management, technology optimization and other resources, and it takes a percentage of advisors' revenue as payment. Pershing Advisor Solutions is working on becoming the preferred custodian for Fusion's dually registered advisors with their own RIA, a role the company can fulfill only with the approval of the advisors' primary broker-dealer, NFP Securities.

For his part, Palaveev is enjoying putting Tibergien's many lessons into practice. Foremost among these is the belief that acting in the best interest of the advisor is the best business model. For example, Palaveev recently counseled a Fusion advisor who was considering signing a buy-sell agreement with another advisor that would take him out of the Fusion network. Palaveev advised him to proceed even though it meant losing his business. Palaveev enjoys his new role helping advisors implement change. "I was tired of watching from the sidelines," Palaveev says. "I wanted to get in the game."