Three real problems facing wealth management marketing and recruiting leaders right now, worked through
together in the room, not lectured at from a stage. Seven breakout sessions spin out of them, grounded in
where the research says the industry is actually headed.
Three of our wealth firm attendees are selected to develop the case studies below into the full stories told
in the room. Seven more lead the breakout sessions that follow. This room runs on its own members, not a
stage.
The case studies and breakout sessions below are current as of today and will continue to develop between
now and the Roundtable, sharpened as the room takes shape.
Case studies & breakouts are still under construction — more detail being added as the room takes
shape.
Case Studies
Case Study One 🚧 Building
The Organic Growth Ceiling
Once mergers, acquisitions, and existing-client referrals are stripped out, true organic growth across the
wealth management industry sits closer to zero to 1.5 percent, even as total assets keep climbing, roughly
7.5 percent of the last five years' growth from market appreciation alone.
For broker-dealers and larger platforms, the number actually moving is advisor movement, not organic
growth. More than 11,000 experienced advisors switched firms in 2025, up 16 percent year over year, the
highest total in four years, and more than 15,500 producing advisors moved industry-wide in the first half
of 2026 alone. Winning that movement now costs real money: recruiting packages have reached 550 percent of
trailing 12-month revenue with 16-year payback periods, and recruiting-loan balances across the major
wirehouses alone top 12 billion dollars. One veteran recruiter put the trend plainly: recruiting costs
have roughly tripled over the last decade.
The Room's Question: if growth increasingly means winning an advisor already at another
firm rather than building organically, is your marketing built to compete for that advisor, or is it still
telling a client-acquisition story that isn't where the real movement is happening?
SourceCapital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting Advisors and RIAs
in 2026," for the organic growth and market-appreciation figures. Financial Planning, "Why Advisor
Recruiting Hit a 4-Year High in 2025," for the 2025 advisor-movement figure. Winthrop & Co., "The
State of Financial Advisor Movement, H1 2026," for the H1 2026 movement volume, deal-package size, and
wirehouse recruiting-loan balances. InvestmentNews, "At Cetera, CEO Durbin Says Recruiting Advisors Is
Strong but Remains Expensive: Analyst," for the recruiting-cost trend.
Case Study Two 🚧 Building
The Pipeline Firms Cannot Fill
The advisor workforce lost roughly 4,000 net advisors in 2025, more than a third of advisors are 55 or
older, and one industry estimate puts the coming shortfall at 100,000 advisors by 2034.
The firms landing next-gen talent are not winning on salary. More than 90 percent of prospective advisors
rank mentorship and professional growth as essential, and firms building real career paths and shadowing
programs are converting interest into hires faster than firms leading with pay.
The Room's Question: is your firm's pitch to a candidate in their twenties a career path,
or a compensation plan wrapped in a job description, and would someone under thirty believe it?
SourceInvestmentNews, "Next-Gen Advisors Are Ready to Work, Are
RIA Firms Ready for Them?," for the workforce loss, mentorship, and dropout figures. The Well, "Financial
Advisor Recruiting Trends 2026," for the advisor age figure. Capital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting
Advisors and RIAs in 2026," citing McKinsey, for the 100,000-advisor shortfall estimate.
Case Study Three 🚧 Building
The Wealth Transfer Nobody Is Marketing Or Recruiting For
With an estimated 83.5 trillion dollars expected to pass to Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z by 2048, most
advisors have never met the client who is about to inherit it. Among advisors serving households with five
million dollars or more, only 16 percent count the client's children as clients of their own, and 6
percent have even met the grandchildren.
A smaller set of firms are building next-gen engagement and next-gen recruiting into the same strategy, on
the theory that the advisor who can retain an inheritance is often the same profile the firm should be
recruiting to serve it.
The Room's Question: is your firm's succession plan a marketing plan for the next
generation of clients, a recruiting plan for the next generation of advisors, or neither?
SourceCapital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting Advisors and RIAs
in 2026," for the wealth transfer and engagement figures. The second statement above connects two separate
findings in that same piece, succession uncertainty and the wealth-transfer figures, this is Beacon's
synthesis of that data, not a direct quote or a separately polled finding.
Breakout Sessions
1AThe Two-Hour Advisor🚧 BuildingMarketing
The average advisor has roughly two hours a week to spend on marketing, a real limit on adoption no
matter how strong the content is. What marketing has to look like to survive that constraint.
SourceProperExpression, "Marketing for RIAs: The Ultimate 2026
Roadmap"
1BGrowth on Paper, Not in the Room🚧 BuildingMarketing
With true organic growth near zero to 1.5 percent once mergers, referrals, and market appreciation are
removed, what counts as a marketing win changes, and so does who should be measuring it.
SourceCapital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting Advisors and
RIAs in 2026"
2AHired for the Wrong Decade🚧 BuildingRecruiting
More than a third of financial advisors are 55 or older, and the realistic runway to bring a hybrid
candidate to full capacity runs three to five years, longer than most firms' patience. What recruiting
for a decade out requires.
SourceThe Well, "Financial Advisor Recruiting Trends 2026"
2BThe Transition Nobody Talks About🚧 BuildingRecruiting
Moving a book of business is rarely as clean as the offer letter makes it sound. Broker-dealer to
broker-dealer moves lose an average of 22 percent of client assets, independent-to-independent moves
closer to 11 percent, and even advisors who plan carefully see only about 80 percent of the clients they
intended to bring over actually follow. What a firm does in the first ninety days determines whether a
recruiting win stays a win.
SourceCerulli Associates, "New Wealth Management Research Finds
Transition Support Services Critical to Retaining Assets During Advisor Moves," for the asset-retention
figures by move type. Fidelity Institutional, "The Ins and Outs of Advisor Movement," citing Fidelity's
2023 Advisor Movement Research Study, for the 80 percent client-retention figure.
3AThe Advisor Who Has Never Met the Heir🚧 BuildingMarketing
Only 16 percent of advisors serving households with five million dollars or more count the client's
children as their own clients, and 6 percent have met the grandchildren. What marketing to a household
means when the money is about to move to someone the firm has never spoken with.
SourceCapital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting Advisors and
RIAs in 2026"
3BRecruiting for the Client Who Has Not Inherited Yet🚧 BuildingRecruiting
81 percent of next-gen high-net-worth heirs say they plan to switch wealth firms within a year or two of
inheriting. The advisor worth recruiting may not be the one with the biggest book today, but the one
positioned to keep tomorrow's client.
SourceCapital Group, "4 Growth Trends Affecting Advisors and
RIAs in 2026"
4AThe Sales Report Nobody Trusts🚧 BuildingSales Reporting
Pipeline dashboards, recruiting funnels, and marketing attribution rarely reconcile to the same number,
and leadership ends up arguing about the data instead of the decision. This session works through what
belongs on a monthly sales report, which metrics actually predict closed business, and how marketing and
recruiting leaders can agree on one version of the truth.
SourceSession under development with member input; agenda
detail to follow.
Community questions, submitted live by attendees and answered on the spot, woven between sessions.
The Mary Blackburn Partner Challenge
Partners are woven into the dialogue throughout the case studies, breakouts, and community questions
above. Then, for eight to ten minutes, the room's attention turns fully to you, the most interesting
person in the room for that stretch.
