By Steve Garmhausen
LPL Financial really wants its 32,000 advisors to embrace financial planning, and a key to making that happen is understanding why some advisors shy away from planning. "When you ask why they're not doing this, they typically say, 'Well, it's not easy to do,'" says Aneri Jambusaria, LPL's chief wealth officer. "That's a challenge that we've addressed directly this year."
Speaking with Barron's Advisor, Jambusaria, a Fidelity Investments veteran who joined LPL nearly six years ago, details the steps the largest independent broker-dealer has taken to encourage more planning. She discusses balancing the advantages of the firm's decentralized structure with a centralized vision for advice. And she explains LPL's recent changes to fees and bonus hurdles.
How would you describe your job? We serve over 32,000 financial professionals at LPL. They in turn serve over eight million Americans. My role is to ensure advisors have access to the full capabilities of a large, diversified wealth management firm so they can deliver best-in-class advice and client outcomes. This includes oversight of financial planning, high-net-worth and ultrahigh-net-worth solutions, traditional and alternative investments, the LPL research team and [outsourced chief investment officer] offering, annuities, insurance, and banking and lending solutions.
What are the levers that you can push to achieve growth? We have a clear view around what we believe enables the most successful advisors. We believe that great advice is planning-centric, and we've done a lot to make planning the center of our advisors' experience, so that they can put it at the center of their investors' experience. We believe advisors should be the quarterback of their clients' financial lives. That means delivering value beyond just investments, including areas like banking and lending and insurance. We believe any independent advisor can compete and win for any end investor. As we have the generational wealth transfer there's going to be a lot of money in motion. We think there's a tremendous opportunity for independent advisors to fill a gap of end investors who are underserved today by more cookie-cutter approaches to advice. By using a personalized touch, we can engage and capture some of that money in motion.
When do you start and end your day? I'm on the West Coast. My alarm goes off at 4 a.m.; part of that is necessary to stay abreast of the markets. I also have a 2-year-old, which means my days start early because of her wake-up times. I'm usually in meetings from 8:00 to 4:00. A big part of that is engaging with the team on what's happening in the markets, working through strategic initiatives and engaging with teams like technology and business development to make these ideas come to life. I'm pretty good at being able to turn off once I leave the office and spend some quality time with my daughter. I will take the 4 a.m. wake-up in exchange for having a little bit of turnoff time at the end of the day.
What kind of growth are you aiming to achieve? We feel strongly that we want our capability set to be on par with any leading wealth manager. That includes building out our banking and lending solutions, our alternative investment platforms, our advisory platforms, etc. We're also focused on growing our capabilities and our expertise, especially on the high-net-worth side. We're actively building out capabilities around advanced estate planning. Part of my role is being responsible for the economic pull-through [earning measurable financial results] of our wealth management solutions. It's me standing up new businesses, new revenue sources, things like banking and lending, for example, and making sure they generate economic pull-through to be able to reinvest back in the platform.
What's your growth target for assets under management? We don't have an AUM growth target. We're an industry leader in growth, and we're looking to continue being an industry leader in growth. A lot of that has historically come from what we call new-store sales: bringing new advisors and institutions into LPL. We obviously are continuing to focus in that area, but we also want to be a leader in same-store sales, to make sure our advisors grow their client relationships and continue to win new clients.
How are you standing up the banking capabilities? We think it's important for investors to think about the way they pay for their mortgage or their kids' tuition similarly to how they think about their investments, and we believe it's important for advisors to play a role in that. We have no plan to become a bank, but we do believe we can deliver exceptional banking services. Over the past few months we've rolled out our cash-management account. Think about this as an account with things like check writing, bill pay, and debit cards. And we're working on a securities-backed lending solution for next year. Securities-backed lines of credit are one of the best ways to generate short-term liquidity when you need it without disrupting the investment strategy.
Are the accounts in partnership with banks? We have a white-label partnership on the back end with a bank called UMB Financial. They're servicing the debit cards and things like that. But the experience looks and feels like LPL.
How are you expanding access to planning for the mass affluent? By now everyone knows that they should be doing planning with their clients, including the mass affluent. When you ask why they're not doing this, they typically say, "Well, it's not easy to do." That's a challenge that we've addressed directly this year. We created the first-of-its-kind, embedded planning experience within our advisor workstation, ClientWorks, called WealthVision Essentials. It's a light version of eMoney that's available at no cost for all our advisors. It's a great way -- especially for folks who are new to planning -- to test out some basic retirement planning. Meanwhile we're going to continue to build out the digital experience in ClientWorks to make planning as seamless as possible. The second thing we typically hear is that a lot of nuts-and-bolts work is required with planning, along with some expertise. So we've built out what we believe is one of the best planning support teams in the industry, a dedicated team who will help you get set up with planning and will consult on tricky or key client situations. Lastly, we provide support to deliver that financial plan. We can help you do the data entry, the analysis, and even in some cases, help you deliver the plan.
The great wealth transfer is a huge opportunity, but estate planning is needed to take full advantage. How is LPL delivering that expertise throughout your network? The transfer of wealth from the surviving spouse to the next generation is where estate planning tends to come into play, and we definitely see an opportunity for advisors to be the quarterback of that experience. So many investors have an estate plan in place but have not talked to their advisor about it. So it's important to make sure advisors are asking their clients about their estate plan intentions, and we're working on making that part of the playbook. Many folks don't have an estate plan. Death is not a fun topic to discuss, and there are always a lot of complexities around it. So investors might be shy about discussing it, and advisors might not always want to broach these conversations with clients. We've rolled out a number of technologies to help advisors do that in a seamless way. This includes Wealth.com, Trust & Will, as well as Holistiplan. We're continuing to look at different technology solutions and thinking through how to embed them deeply into ClientWorks.
LPL has a big, decentralized structure. Is that tricky to manage? Would you like to change anything about it? I'll start with one of the benefits of this structure. Our advisors are well positioned to have deep personal connections with their clients. And from my vantage point, that's going to lead to the best possible advice. Consumers always gravitate toward the highest-value solutions, and I think independent advisors are well positioned for success in that regard. One thing we're working on is making sure our decentralized model doesn't come at the cost of having a clear perspective from the home office on what great advice looks like. A big part of my team's responsibility has been defining and communicating what we believe great advice looks like. It doesn't mean it should be everybody's approach -- we want to make sure every advisor is running a business that feels authentic to them. But at the same time, that shouldn't come at the expense of true, meaningful guidance around what's happening in the ever-changing world of wealth management.
Amid the continuing talent recruiting war, how do you balance your growth goals with selectivity? We have a robust due process to ensure that we're not bringing anyone into our ecosystem where there's any concern about the quality of advice they're delivering. We think a lot about how to make sure advisors can be successful when they come to LPL. We definitely hear from advisors who say while there are a lot of capabilities available at LPL, they don't always know how to use them. That continues to be an opportunity for us to make sure our advisors know how to take advantage of all of our capabilities.
In the past two years you've announced a number of changes to fees and raised the bar for advisor bonuses. Is there an overarching goal with these changes? We're trying to do a couple of things. We know that advisory is continuing to grow as the most impactful type of business for both advisors and for delivering the highest benefits to investors. Right now about 56% of the assets on our platform are in advisory, and about 80% of our flows are going into advisory. We've made it a focus to continue to drive for planning-based, advisory-oriented practices. That's the rationale behind reducing the pricing for our advisory platforms, including our Model Wealth Portfolios, last year as well as this year.
The other changes have to do with us taking stock of how we're positioned in the competitive environment. We announced changes around direct business about a month ago. We're one of the few firms in our space that supports direct business, which is business held directly with, for example, a mutual fund provider. Firms that do support it typically have a fee associated with the supervisory responsibilities of overseeing that business. That was an opportunity to just make sure we're aligned competitively with other firms so that we're able to reinvest in platforms and in the client experience. It was a similar dynamic with the production-grid changes last year: We're looking to make sure we're aligned with some of the other competitive benchmarks that we have.
Are there any interesting new business initiatives that you want to call out? We have a fantastic in-house investment team called LPL Research. They have evolved significantly in recent years and now manage more than $100 billion in assets across models, as well as our outsourced chief investment officer service. Not a lot of folks know that we have an in-house money manager. That is continuing to be an area of focus for us, especially as we hear from advisors looking for additional expertise in areas like portfolio construction and what's happening in the markets. Advisors are increasingly looking to us for perspective to share with their clients.
Are you excited about what AI can do for wealth management, or do you think it's overhyped? I believe AI is going to transform every job, including mine, but especially the job of advisors. I think AI is going to be really beneficial in addressing the advisor shortage as folks retire, in conjunction with other initiatives like bringing younger people into the industry. The other aspect of AI that is going to be important to address is the impact of AI on advice itself. It seems fairly likely that there's going to be some disruption to employment, and that has the potential to throw a wrench into our traditional retirement planning techniques.
Thanks, Aneri.
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December 19, 2025 11:44 ET (16:44 GMT)
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