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Advisor Group announced the successful affiliation to its network of Brett Straub and Stephanie Wade, independent financial advisors with more than $120 million in total client assets, from Principal Securities. Mr. Straub and Mrs. Wade, of Straub Group Advantage, based in Haddon Heights, NJ, join Advisor Group through member firm SagePoint Financial Services, headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, and the Las Vegas, NV-based The AmeriFlex Group under founder and CEO, Tom Goodson.

President and CEO Desiree Sii shared her perspective on advisory trends at the Financial Services Institute’s OneVoice 2021 conference in Orlando, Florida.

She succeeds former CEO Jeff Auld, who recently announced his retirement, and rounds out a trio of female leaders atop the Advisor Group IBD.

SagePoint Financial President and CEO Jeffrey Auld said, "We are excited to welcome George Veater and his team to SagePoint. These are exceptional professionals who have worked hard to successfully build a thriving practice, and we look forward to collaborating with them to further accelerate the growth trajectory of their business. We stand ready to leverage our expertise to help Veater Financial Group serve its clients even more efficiently and effectively."

The announcement reinforces SagePoint’s strong position in the wealth management industry as a firm that empowers financial professionals with the expansive scale, resources and services of its parent company Advisor Group, while also offering the access to leadership and collegial culture of a boutique firm.

In the competitive fight, financial advisor Tom Goodson’s Santa Barbara, California-based AmeriFlex Financial Services has leapt ahead. Since the beginning of 2017, the SagePoint Financial enterprise has almost tripled to 45 registered representatives from 16 and climbed to $2.1 billion in client assets from only $550 million, according to Goodson. Amid the industry’s turnover, AmeriFlex stands out for the notable size of its growth and the soft launch of its RIA. In a struggle that often revolves around the amount of a recruiting bonus, the office of supervisory jurisdiction also shows the increasing importance of OSJ services.

SagePoint Financial Recruits Veteran Financial Advisor John Ressler Iowa-Based Independent Advisor Brings $115 Million in Total Client Assets to SagePoint Platform SagePoint has Welcomed 14 Advisors with More than $500 Million in Total Client Assets to its Platform Since July 2019

Reg BI implementation is less than a year away, and it is arriving at a time when investors are increasingly clamoring for more open and transparent financial advice. Certainly, you could view these coming changes as a threat to the status quo. But disruption is often what keeps businesses thriving, relevant and healthy.

The recent passage of Reg BI comes at a time when the advisor-client relationship is already becoming more collaborative, open and transparent. The future of advice will be one in which clients are empowered by technology to work with their advisors to take further ownership of their financial lives.

Financial advisors who stayed with Advisor Group as it changed hands twice in four years will reap the rewards of their loyalty to the tune of $50 million in awards from the firm. “We wanted to do something for them to say thank you,” says Advisor Group CEO Jamie Price.

One element of the cybersecurity discussion that is often overlooked is that the biggest threat to many advisory firms is not actually to client accounts but instead to the advisory brand.

Jamie Price, President and Chief Executive Officer of Advisor Group, said, “Advisor Group’s commitment to providing advisors with industry-leading tools, resources and flexibility extends to the critical area of cybersecurity. Our new CyberGuard Program leverages our scale to offer a suite of state-of-the-art cybersecurity tools that enable advisors to ensure that clients’ sensitive personal data is kept safe and secure. All the efforts of our top-notch group of security experts ladder up to our core mission – to stand in our advisors’ corner, supporting them every step of the way.”