Bruce K. Snell, a homegrown South Carolinian, is an executive with a proven reputation for growing a business and supervising dozens of productive advisors.
That is all part of why JHS Capital Advisors, a Tampa, Fla.-based asset management firm, picked him to expand its wealth management division in South Carolina.
Snell was hired by JHS Capital two weeks ago as a managing director. He will play a pivotal role in the firm’s push to hire more advisors in the region, according to Eileen Canady, the firm's director of strategic development.
For the time being, JHS Capital is focusing on the Columbia, S.C., area, and plans to hire between 10 to 12 advisors in the next 12 months, she said. They have identified satellite offices in Greenville and Charleston, and are negotiating space for its regional office in Columbia.
“Bruce has a solid reputation in the industry,” Canady said. “He is extremely knowledgeable, and he has a vast amount of experience.”
A former director of brokerage at Carolina First Bank, Snell supervised 26 financial advisors, while expanding its brokerage line of business. By the time he left, his team had more than $900 million of assets under management in North and South Carolina, as well as in Florida.
Mary Kennemur, president of JHS Capital Advisors’ wealth management division, figures that there are 3,000 advisors in South Carolina, many of whom are looking to make a career move, so an executive like Snell would put them in contention to attract more advisors to the firm.
“South Carolina is an emerging market for attracting top advisor talent,” she said. “We are offering them a tremendous opportunity to join a new kind of asset management firm.”
Currently, JHS Capital has about 110 advisors, Canady said. It hopes to lure advisors with its hybrid business model, open platform, and lack of core proprietary products.
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Also on the move this week:
BNY Mellon Wealth Management [BK] hired James Fagan, Jr. as its regional sales manager for the New York tri-state region. He was a financial advisor with Alliance Bernstein, based in New York. Before that, he was a principal at Cross Pond Solutions, a private equity consulting firm; and was president and chief executive officer of Browne Global Solutions.
Citi Private Bank [C] hired Kurt Muller as a director and investment counselor, based in its Short Hills, N.J. office. He was a director in the managed solutions group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. [BAC]
Convergent Wealth Advisors appointed Douglas Wolford president. He was a principal at Wolford & Co., a Washington, D.C., strategic and operational consulting firm.
Guardian Life Insurance Co., based in New York, hired Eric Jones as regional vice president for Florida. He was a regional pension consultant for Benetech Inc.
The wealth management group at J.P. Morgan Securities [JPM] hired Antoine N. Souma and Aleksandra Kulmaticki as financial advisors in its Century City, Calif., office. As a team, they had $2.3 million in production when they worked for Deutsche Bank Securities.
UBS Wealth Management Americas [UBS] hired two advisors, David Winchell from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Marving Griffin, from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Winchell will be based in Las Vegas and Griffin in Sugarland, Texas.
