How RIAs can foster next generation talent

Rather than leaving prospective client conversions solely to their boss, two staff members at a registered investment advisory firm took lead roles in winning a major new client.

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The multiyear, non-transactional outreach to a prospect with about $20 million in holdings by Shannon Irwin, the chief of staff of Synergy Financial Group, and Lindsey Ahlo, a paraplanner and the RIA’s lead operations specialist, ultimately brought the customer on board, according to Palash Islam, founder of the San Ramon, California-based firm. In an industry facing financial advisor succession challenges and a future talent shortage, Synergy’s approach offers replicable lessons that could help dispel misconceptions about careers in the field.

“It was really truly building that relationship and connecting on a deeper level,” Irwin said of the outreach, which spanned roughly five years before the client joined the firm in 2025. “A lot of it was just building that connection and showing that Synergy was not just a one-person firm.”

READ MORE: When should a financial advisor launch an RIA?

Easier said than done?

But that often proves difficult for many firms, according to experts like Steven Tenney, a former advisor who founded consulting and RIA coaching firm Grandview & Company and wrote the book “RIA Succession Alpha.” In light of the industry’s talent needs, firms that master training and mentorship “will be absolutely big winners,” Tenney said. However, founders often struggle to let go of the reins enough to let other team members take ownership of responsibilities, and sometimes find better methods when carrying out those vital tasks.

“By empowering these other people to go out and win that business, he becomes less important to the firm in a good way, so that others are building those skills and have established those skills to go win that business,” Tenney said. “And the firm becomes less reliant on him. The more you can do that, the better — the more operational leverage you have to grow the firm more.”

Against that backdrop, recruiting resources for next-generation talent have become a crucial part of acquirers’ pitches to sellers in industry M&A deals, according to Matt Regan, president of Richmond, Virginia-based independent advisor services and RIA firm Wealthcare. And the need to develop team members can’t wait until some point in the future, he said, citing research suggesting that solo advisors supported by ensemble staff represent the most productive and profitable structure for an advisory practice. 

That’s why it’s important for RIAs to build that talent by ensuring that staff members attend client meetings, learn every aspect of the field and have a solid career path that nurtures their development and retention over time.

“The long-term dividends of that are huge. We have a huge problem in our industry,” Regan said. “It’s critically important in order to bring in new talent into the industry.” 

READ MORE: The RIA founder’s dilemma: Choose your successor or sell

Building the pipeline

Synergy didn’t do that overnight, either. Islam’s RIA has grown to about 75 high net worth households with $375 million in client assets over roughly two decades, with niche focuses on athletes and early-stage technology company employees, and a fully remote office since 2008. The company has four other employees besides Islam, Ahlo and Irwin, although the founder noted that the staff size will soon rise to eight with the hiring of another paraplanner. Irwin, who has been at Synergy nearly six years, helped recruit Ahlo to join the team in January 2022.

The following year, Ahlo met the prospective client for lunch during a vacation in Hawaii, where Ahlo is based year-round. They spent most of the meal discussing non-financial topics such as their shared love of art and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ahlo recalled. But she, Irwin and the prospect, who is a sibling of one of the firm’s clients, stayed in touch and met several more times before sealing the deal last year.

Ahlo enjoys “being the expert of knowing how things get done” and “making sure everything is functioning the way it needs to function, versus being the face of everything,” she said, noting that many clients nevertheless reach out to her directly around the holidays with notes of gratitude for her services on their behalf. “Just being in operations, you’re meeting with the clients, you’re having touchpoints with them throughout the year.”    

And those clients know they can “go directly to Lindsey, versus texting Palash” any time they have a question or want to get something done, Irwin noted. The wife of a retired Air Force veteran, Irwin pointed out that she has worked for Synergy while living in three different states. With a role that allows her “to oversee and have a hand in the planning and strategy as well as investments and operations” as chief of staff, Irwin said her earlier idea of becoming a planner herself is “not something that I feel like I need to continue my trajectory” in the field, she said.

READ MORE: 5 tips to avoid a bad succession plan

The future of the industry, and that of the firm

She and Ahlo said their work assisting clients and the Synergy team belies a common notion that financial jobs revolve only around sales and making money. Another mistaken assumption, Irwin noted, is that professionals can’t find rewarding careers unless they’re an advisor.

“I feel like that’s one of the biggest misconceptions,” Irwin said. “You can have a successful career, have relationships and be very ingrained and engaged with clients at an operational level.”

For Synergy’s founder, that bonding between team members and clients is a crucial reason the RIA has laid the groundwork for growth from tens of millions of dollars in assets a decade ago to a future size in the billions.

“If we don’t want to roll with them for 20 years, we just say, ‘no,’ now,” Islam said about prospects. “It’s very natural and organic, and we’re not trying to put the wrong people into the relationship. And so it’s very important that the staff, the team, really align with the clients, that they want to serve the clients.”