Dynasty Bolsters Business Development Team

Dynasty Financial Partners is making good on its promise to boost business development in 2014.

The New York-based platform outsourcer and service provider for large wealth management firms has hired Ronald Sallet as senior vice president of network development. Sallet is charged with growing Dynasty's network of independent advisory firms, and will target RIAs, large-scale IBD reps, and wirehouse employee advisors who are considering going independent.

Sallet previously was a managing director at Fi Net, Wells Fargo's independent channel, where he co-led the branch development and marketing team.

Dynasty has downplayed business development until recently, but intense competitive pressure for newly-minted independent advisors led the firm to bolster its sales efforts late last year, beginning with the hiring of Ed Friedman, a top HighTower Advisors executive, as director of strategic relationships.

Dynasty president and chief executive Shirl Penney said in an interview with Financial Planning in December that in 2014 that the outsourcer was going to "create the bandwidth and go after firms in our target market" and hire at least two additional senior business development professionals.

Inertia - and large checks from wirehouses - represent the biggest challenges to recruiting advisors, according to Sallet. "It's scary to make a move," he says, "and it's scary to leave what you're comfortable with."
His own experience in doing due diligence to join Dynasty will be instrumental when trying to persuade others to follow his example, Sallet says. "I think I have a really good perspective on what's involved in making that decision," he explains. "I took a very disciplined approach to see what independence has to offer and how advisors can best serve their client. And when I talked to advisors who had made the move nearly all of them said they wished they had done it sooner."

Before joining Wells Fargo Advisors in 2007, Sallet worked at Citigroup/Smith Barney for 14 years, where he was colleagues with Penney and Dynasty chairman Todd Thomson.

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