Circle back to 2009: The financial crisis had barely passed, Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, and Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years for his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, more than 24,000 financial advisors who changed firms that year worried that the days of outsized recruiting deals were going to be a thing of the past.
Consider Jennifer and her partner David who left UBS to join Merrill Lynch back in 2009. Like most other advisors who moved from one major firm to another at that time, they didn’t kid themselves into believing that life would be significantly different at Merrill than it was at UBS. They did, however, believe what the hiring manager told them: This would be an opportunity to accelerate growth and gain more support. And, they were certain that this would be the last move of their careers.
