We aspire to serve millions more clients in the years to come and are expanding our offerings to them to move our advisors from a transactional brokerage relationship to a world where we lead in fiduciary financial planning .

Again, the truth is that Americans of all stripes face financial uncertainty and anxiety. People often think that the very rich don’t care about money, for example, and that’s simply not true.

Americans are hungry for financial advice, regardless of political spectrum, wealth and age.

At the same time, people are looking for trusted advice – not just in portfolio management – ​​and we see this as a great opportunity for Edward Jones. We strive to be a place where people of all wealth levels can get broader advice.

This was recently reflected in our launch of a separately managed account offer. We are also constantly expanding our financial planning capabilities, with the main goal for next year being to be able to combine fiduciary planning and intelligent asset management. This is a really exciting goal heading into next year.

Regarding advisor headcount goals, what gives you confidence in your ability to steadily increase advisor numbers, even as many advisors retire?

It’s a real key to our strategy, that’s for sure.

Look, this year we’re going to hire almost 2,000 financial advisors. Most of them, probably around 1,700, will be new financial advisors. We will train them, coach them, and help them partner with teams and regional support to help them grow.

This is what it takes to invest in another generation of financial advisors, and we are optimistic that our advisor recruitment and retention strategy can allow us to increase headcount by approximately 3% per year.

It’s not easy to become a successful financial advisor, but we have a proven formula that works even better now that we can offer flexibility in teaming and partnerships. It’s also about creating a combination of an appropriate incentive structure and the time and freedom needed to focus on learning and growth.

For us, it comes down to a five-year framework where we first bring people into a salary-based program. This gives them the ability to learn and then also build their practice over time.

How does decision-making regarding opening new branches fit into this strategy?

It’s an interesting question, and it’s actually an area where we’ve seen some evolution over time.

At the time, we saw the most opportunity in rural markets because the big Wall Street banks simply didn’t operate in those locations.

But while there are still rural markets with unmet consulting needs, the fact is that there are also many urban areas with underserved populations where we can make a big difference. Remember, we don’t have an asset minimum or maximum asset limit at Edward Jones.

How does this translate into practice? Often it makes sense to establish a new branch in a location where we already have a presence. Take Florida, for example. Florida is one of the fastest growing states in the country. We have branches there, but we can also see many areas where demand is not met.

The same is true in parts of Texas and Ohio – in Columbus, for example. These are markets that we’ve been in for years and years, but we’re able to see even more opportunity because we have local people in the community who see unmet needs firsthand.

We open branches where we see demand, where we can find a pipeline of good talent, and where we believe we can be truly competitive. This happens in small towns, mid-sized communities, and larger urban areas.

For example, we are currently preparing to open a hub in New York in spring 2025. It is safe to say that Manhattan is one of the most oversaturated wealth markets in the country. I would agree with that, but despite that, there is an unmet demand for advice.