Cetera lifts a high-end talent out of Pershing but can the IBD establish itself as a brand presence among advisors?

Since its February launch, Cetera Financial Group has pieced together an impressive executive team and introduced a souped-up version of Advent Portfolio Exchange.

Now, the question for the Los Angeles – based umbrella company for the 5,000 IBD reps and more than 700 financial institutions that affiliate with its three independently managed broker-dealers, is whether it can quickly communicate to the market, especially potential recruits, the experience of its new leaders and the company’s big investments in technology.

Because Cetera — a reconstitution of the ING broker-dealers — is only about five months old, there is a critical hurdle it still needs to scale.

“The key to success in this space is to build a brand and Cetera has no brand right now,” says Timothy Welsh, principal of Nexus Strategy of Larkspur, Calif.

Making Cetera brand stand for something

The job of making certain that Cetera’s brand stands for something will go to Susan Theder, 43, who is filling the newly created position of chief marketing officer.

Cetera scored a win by hiring her, according to Steve Goering, managing director and head of the financial services practice of The Laramie Group, an executive recruiting firm in Chicago.

“She’s very highly thought of in the industry,” he says. “Every time we got retained to do a senior marketing assignment, her name came up. They’re very lucky to have her.”

The three subsidiary broker-dealers have marketing people who will report to her. Theder will report to Barnaby Grist, who was hired away from Schwab in February. She will also work with Jay Quinn, another February hire of a Schwab veteran, who is Multi-Financial’s vice president and national sales director.

The mission of her new company – which includes the old ING brokers: Financial Network Investment Corporation, Multi-Financial Securities Corporation, and PrimeVest Financial Services Inc. — is to become known as the place that big hybrid RIAs can go to thrive. See: Cetera Financial shores up its technology as it prepares to take on LPL for big hybrid RIAs

Theder will need to try to convince prospective advisors that Cetera is a better place to prosper than well-branded powerhouses like LPL Financial and Raymond James. The argument: big IBDs won’t allow big advisors to customize their offerings enough to retain big, sophisticated investors — and that smaller ones don’t have sufficient resources.

She will also need to find ways to jumpstart the success of hundreds – or thousands – of reps whose businesses have stagnated over the last two years in the market downturn. Her job will be to help them market to attract new investors.

Hiring Theder was a good move that can be traced to Valerie Brown, Cetera’s CEO, who hired Grist, according to Welsh.

Valerie Brown gets it

“Valerie Brown gets it,” Welsh says. “She knew she needed that piece of the puzzle built on to the recruiting side and on to the practice management side.”

Barnaby Grist, Cetera’s executive vice president – wealth management, agrees that Theder is an important puzzle piece.

“Susan’s in-depth knowledge of advisors will play a key role for us in delivering on our promise to help advisors, business owners and institutions accelerate their growth,” he says in a release.

Theder most recently spent five years with Pershing LLC as managing director of global marketing in support of the company’s broker-dealer and Pershing Advisor Solutions, the RIA unit. As part of her job, she helped the company develop a practice management program that emphasized recruiting and marketing programs.

But Theder, a native Bostonian and an East Coast stalwart saw something extra in Cetera to make her move to La-La land.

“The opportunity was exciting and unique enough to make me think that it wouldn’t come around again – not with a management team and board of directors this strong and an entrepreneurial environment this enticing. Cetera is entirely driven to create something special, and it has the resources to do it.”

Backed by deep pockets

Cetera is financed by deep-pocketed Lightyear, a private equity firm that invests only in financial services companies and run by former Paine Webber CEO amd UBS United States chairman, Donald Marron. His new company has invested $3 billion.

Donald Marron is a force behind
Cetera’s big resources and big ideas

Two of Cetera’s IBDs, Financial Network and Multi-Financial use Theder’s former employer, Pershing, to clear trades. PrimeVest is self-clearing.

Theder believes that she will continue to work closely with Pershing – despite being hired away from there. “We hope to continue the strong relationship between the companies,” she says.

Theder will oversee all aspects of Cetera’s marketing and communications in addition to helping guide the firm’s strategic planning and execution as a member of its executive team in Los Angeles.

Prior to her tenure with Pershing, Theder was with Fidelity Investments where she served as vice president – segment marketing and led marketing efforts to RIAs. She spent the early portion of her career as an advisor with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. and as a financial consultant for Baybank Brokerage Services Inc. in Boston.

Theder’s experience of working with Fidelity’s brand and the past few years she’s spent working under Pershing CEO, Mark Tibergien, will serve her well in her new job at Cetera, Welsh says.

Danger of all-star management team

The one caveat for Cetera is bringing so much high-profile talent into one relatively small tent. “The danger is that you bring all these alpha males and alpha females together, There’s not a lot of room to move around. Who’s going to work and implement this stuff?” he asks.