Former LPL President Bill Morrissey Rides Again – With Atria

Former LPL Financial Leader Named Managing Director, Head of Independent Channel At Private Equity-Backed Atria

Atria Wealth Solutions announced the creation of the role of Head of the Independent Channel, appointing LPL Financial and Fidelity veteran Bill Morrissey to the role and as a Managing Director of the firm. 

Morrissey, who is widely credited for architecting a significant portion of LPL’s growth over the past decade, served as its Divisional President of Independent Advisor Services from 2014 to 2015, and then as the firm’s Divisional President of Business Development from 2016 through 2018, before retiring from the company.

Atria today has over 2,500 financial advisors and more than $100 billion in assets under administration, according to the company’s website. The company is backed by Lee Equity Partners, which has been very active across the wealth management space.

Newly Designed Role Reports Directly to CEO

In the newly designed role, Morrissey will expand and advance the firm’s growth in the independent wealth management space, reporting directly to Doug Ketterer, the CEO and a Founding Partner of Atria.

“The addition of Bill better positions us and our independent financial professional clients to realize the abundant growth opportunities that exist today while maintaining and furthering our commitment to the culture and quality of our financial professional community,” Ketterer said.

Morrissey said, “I am thrilled and humbled to join such a strong executive leadership team. Atria’s culture of innovation and execution is truly unique. The Atria team has built a special business that is leading the evolution of the independent wealth management space.”

Building on Strategic Growth

“In just five short years since our launch of Atria, our organization has achieved remarkable results that take decades for most firms in our industry to deliver,” Ketterer said.

He continued, “From architecting and implementing our award-winning advisor and end-client platforms, to redesigning service models, and adding to and enhancing the holistic wealth management services and solutions we offer to the financial professionals we support through our broker-dealer and RIA subsidiaries – we remain focused on these key drivers of our differentiated value proposition that have transformed the delivery of financial advice.”

In a statement to WSR, Morrissey said, “While it’s still early days for me here at Atria, I see an enormous appreciation and support for emphasizing quality over quantity when it comes to recruiting, organic growth of existing advisors’ businesses and future acquisitions.”  

Morrissey continued, “What is especially unique about Atria is the greater emphasis the firm places on the growth of its existing advisor relationships as well as an emphasis on recruiting of high quality advisors.”

Depth of Industry Experience

With over two decades of experience, Morrissey has held many senior executive positions including, most recently, Head of Wealth Management at Guardian Life Insurance. In addition to various senior management roles at LPL Financial, he has also served in executive positions at Fidelity Investments and Merrill Lynch.

Morrissey also served on the Board of Directors of the Financial Services Institute and the Insured Retirement Institute. 

While at LPL, Morrissey drove success in organic growth, recruiting advisors both directly under home office supervision and through branches, and over 13 large and dozens of small acquisitions, including the largest acquisition in LPL’s history – National Planning Holdings in 2017 – which brought $72 billion in additional assets under management (AUM) to the firm.

Morrissey also built and scaled LPL’s advisory program, including sales and marketing, platform development and investment consulting. Morrisey stated, “During my leadership, the platform helped grow the firm’s AUM from $15 billion in March of 2004 to $72 billion in March of 2007, and today it has over $500 billion in assets.”

He attributes the success of the platform to the vision he brought to it: “Creating an investment consulting discipline that seamlessly enabled financial advisors to move from commissionable business to a more robust revenue model with more of a fiduciary role with clients, and an emphasis on high-quality, relationship-driven business.”

Julius Buchanan, Managing Editor at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jbuchanan@wealthsolutionsreport.com