By Greg Bartalos
EP Wealth Advisors has been growing rapidly and shows no signs of slowing. Under the leadership of Ryan Parker -- who joined EP as chief growth officer in 2021 and was promoted a year later to president and elevated to CEO a year after that -- the firm has more than doubled assets in the past two years to about $40 billion.
Parker's career path included leadership roles at LPL Financial, Edelman Financial, and Citizens Financial Group before joining EP, a Torrance, Calif.-based registered investment advisor founded in 1999.
On Barron's Advisor's The Way Forward podcast, Parker says he encourages acquired RIAs to exercise local autonomy so they can maintain a "boutique" feel while benefiting from EP's national structure, resources, and marketing. He also discusses how EP approaches inorganic and organic growth and how it goes about vetting potential partners. Parker also explains why firms considering M&A should focus on differentiation and authenticity. He also discusses the benefits of taking an active role in developing talent.
"Usually the best talent that you have is sitting under your nose," says Parker. "Because of the partnership model, we're constantly hiring through those partnerships. We had a group in Michigan join us at the end of 2024 with 45 employees, and the majority of them were not advisors. They have an opportunity now to look at different career paths, more expanded career paths. I think that is part of the secret sauce."
EP Wealth, which is majority-owned by employees, was ranked No. 13 on Barron's Top 100 RIA Firm ranking for 2025. Berkshire Partners and Wealth Partners Capital Group have minority stakes in EP, which last month announced that alternative asset manager Ares Management bought a minority stake in it. Terms were not disclosed for the transaction, which is part of a broader fund-raising push by EP, which is also raising more debt financing.
Below are highlights from our conversation, which have been edited for clarity. (You can listen to the podcast and read the full transcript here.)
Parker's path to EP Wealth. "I spent the first 15 years of my career on the asset-management side of the business, then got an opportunity to lead some teams at LPL Financial, and then in about 2016 the opportunity of a lifetime, which was to join Edelman Financial as the first CEO not named Ric Edelman. We had a great time continuing to build that firm until we merged with Financial Engines. After that, I took time off, then spent some time at Citizens (Financial Group), up in New England, and then my wife, who's from Utah, decided it was time to move back home. And through that, that's when I reconnected with Brian Parker, who's not related to me, at EP Wealth, and we just found that there was a great kinship for how we could build a company together."
The benefits of providing partners with local autonomy. "Everyone who has joined us, as what we call regional director or regional leadership, is already a proven business owner. They're people who've made the tough decisions around setting strategy, being financially responsible, being able to attract, develop, and ultimately retain great staff. And so the pros are when you find people who are really skilled at that and say, 'We want you to continue to do that, but you're going to do that with more resources and more support,' you are enabling them to exercise their best judgment."
The importance of getting to know potential partners before making a formal offer. "We spend a huge amount of time upfront trying to align not just on the business, but on the philosophy. We want people with strong personalities who know how to go out and win and who are hungry. But they also need to share humility and the ultimate goal, which is to serve. A lot of the mitigation is before you even put together a financial bid or any of those other things. You're making a decision on culture and on the ways that people think and act because those things will carry through past the transaction and into the marriage itself."
Offering full transparency to potential partners. "One of the things that we do is give every prospective seller a list of every single one of the people with whom we've done a partnership and say, 'Just call anyone, email them.' We're not going to curate the list. We're not going to tee up a reference check. We think that gives them more comfort that there aren't skeletons hiding in the closet."
The benefits of hiring people at different points in their careers. "Being able to have people who are coming in at different stages of their career, they're no longer siloed or stuck in one career path. So, we ask ourselves, 'What's each person's highest and best use? How do we have a clear-eyed conversation with them so that they can match up what they love doing with and what they're doing?' But sometimes you have a skill gap, and if someone has the will, we're much better off investing the time and energy to train them than it is to constantly be hiring from the outside."
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 28, 2025 15:33 ET (19:33 GMT)
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