Merrill Lynch has made Eric Schimpf the head of its Advisory Division, a newly created unit focused on early-career advisors across the wirehouse. The move comes as Bank of America and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management attempt to create a more nurturing environment for early-career Merrill Lynch advisors to become the next generation of the so-called Thundering Herd of brokers.
Bank of America has reinforced its effort to sell wealth management services and loan products across its client base by combining career development programs for advisors across Merrill Lynch and the consumer bank’s Merrill Edge unit.
The new structure looks to help develop Merrill advisors in selling mortgages and bank products along with investments, and to provide a career path for women and minority group members who begin at the bank and want to be full-service advisors to the wealthy. Merrill Wealth advisors will continue to be paid a percentage of the grid-based revenue credits they produce, while Merrill Edge advisors receive salaries supplemented by bonuses.
Matt Gelene, who manages Merrill Edge’s more than 3,000 FSAs, will cohead Bank of America’s new Advisor Development unit.
“This new horizontal structure is a key to ensuring we have the best talent in the industry and that we cultivate advisors with a passion for growing their long-term career and a drive to make our clients’ financial lives better,” Merrrill Lynch Wealth President Andy Sieg and BofA’s Preferred and Consumer Banking & Investments President Aron Levine wrote in an internal memo. “A key benefit of this structure is that it will establish a natural progression from initial onboarding to advanced training and development of a subset of Consumer FSAs leading to advisor roles in Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.”
The move doesn’t come as much of a surpris as Seig has repeatedly announced the bank’s plan to focus on developing advisors internally. In turn, that should improve referrals of wealthy clients to Merrill Wealth, according to the memo.
