Midsize Advisor Group IBD SagePoint taps head of business development as CEO

A midsize Advisor Group firm tapped its head of business development to be CEO, as the private-equity-backed firm seeks a leg up in the highly competitive advisor talent race.

SagePoint Financial picked Desireé Sii to replace retiring CEO Jeff Auld after his 13-year tenure, the independent broker-dealer said Feb. 8. Only five other firms out of 50 in Financial Planning’s annual IBD Elite rankings list women as their chief executive. Phoenix-based SagePoint is the fourth-largest firm in Advisor Group’s network and No. 20 in the sector.

Sii spent a decade in the first part of her career as an advisor and head of operations, compliance and recruiting at a large enterprise that was affiliated with Advisor Group forerunner firms. She has led the business development team at SagePoint for the past five years. Recruiting conversations with advisors have “changed dramatically” over her career, Sii says.

“20 years ago it was about supervising and being an OSJ,” she said in an interview. “Now it’s about utilizing resources to help advisors grow their businesses.”

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Advisor Group’s recruiting receives close scrutiny from credit rating agencies tracking the Reverence Capital Partners-backed firm’s elevated debt leverage. The wealth manager’s prospects revolve around supporting and retaining more than 11,000 advisors across the six firms, including about 1,300 with SagePoint, while adding additional representatives to its ranks.

Sii’s “impressive track record of building and expanding relationships with financial professionals made her the clear choice to serve as SagePoint's new President and CEO,” Greg Cornick, Advisor Group’s president of advice and wealth management, said in a statement. He also cited her relationship management skills and strong reputation among advisors and employees.

SagePoint has achieved the best retention over the past year among Advisor Group’s six firms, according to IBD recruiter Jon Henschen of Henschen & Associates. In addition to rivals’ recruiting sweeps in the wake of Advisor Group’s acquisition of Ladenburg Thalmann, fellow network firm FSC Securities lost “quite a few” representatives, Henschen says.

“They seem to just be continuing that tradition at SagePoint of having a recruiting-focused president,” he says. “SagePoint has been one of the more stable of the Advisor Group broker-dealers.”

Still, he says the network’s advisors sometimes express frustration with the level of service from the firm’s corporate offices — which share back-office duties in a setup that can result in “your typical large broker-dealer phone-tree experience” when calling in about one issue or another.

At the end of 2019, SagePoint disclosed that it had 300 full-time staff members and 1,329 producing representatives, which is a ratio of about 4.4 advisors to every employee. While she says service is “a really big focus,” Sii said she wasn’t able to provide updated figures.

“The shared service model provides a lot of scalability that I think helps advisors,” Sii says, noting resources in compliance, business development, recruiting, and other areas. “They also have that individual relationship amongst the teams that are specifically serving SagePoint.”

Prior to joining the firm in March 2015, Sii spent a year as a senior vice president for field supervision at Charles Schwab and six years in executive field supervision roles with Advisor Group’s largest firm, Royal Alliance Associates. Genevieve Hodges-Sisco, the senior vice president of recruiting, remains the lead executive for external recruitment.

SagePoint exceeded its recruiting targets in 2020, according to Sii, and Moody's Investors Service said last month that its parent beat its retention goals after buying Ladenburg for $1.3 billion. Asked to describe the typical size or channel of prospective SagePoint advisors, Sii says she and her team are “building out a plan” for 2021.

“Currently we see our recruits coming in from all areas, and we are discussing a more defined approach,” Sii says.

Editor's note: This article has been updated for accuracy to reflect Sii's prior role as head of business development with SagePoint rather than its head recruiter.