Pershing restores Ben Harrison as sole heir to Mark Tibergien -- for now -- but solo tenure may be temporary, with other top talent in the wings
Co-Head Maura Creekmore's departure leaves Harrison at the top by default, but the company is mum on future hiring and how much RIA autonomy gets sacrificed in name of 'convergence.'
8 min read- Pershing reinstates Ben Harrison as sole leader of its RIA custody unit after co-head's departure.
- Analysts suggest the move eliminates a confusing 'co-leadership' structure hindering Pershing's RIA appeal.
- Harrison now has an opportunity to implement Tibergien's strategies without conflicting management.
- Ainslie Simmonds, leading PershingX, is a potential future leader within the organization.
Brooke's Note: At the top of every RIA's list of unrealized potential is Pershing with all those B2B capabilities without the drawbacks of retail channel conflict. Yet, Pershing never quite breaks out of the pack. The issue seems to be a more subtle but pernicious conflict. BNY Mellon Pershing seems determined to be a bank first, a clearing firm second and an RIA custodian to the extent that it serves the culture and objectives of the two other channels. Mark Tibergien clearly battled this overhang forever and only late in his career (2019) convinced the mothership to allocate $50 million for capital improvements. Yet Tibergien had seniority and gravitas enough to keep bank cultural commissars out of his office. Ben Harrison was less fortunate. After a year of trying to get the RIA unit into an aggressive mode, he got attached at the hip to a 29-year veteran in Maura Creekmore. For those two years, Pershing published little news and Harrison stopped talking with the passion of his first year. Now, by fate or by default, Harrison gets one more crack, sans babysitter, to lead Pershing to the Promised Land. It'll work out fine if Pershing gives Harrison the space he needs to implement the ideas he learned from The Master, Tibergien. The $39-billion [market cap] bank and the clearing side of Pershing will also have to do what's never been done – loosen reins and loosen purse strings to let Harrison achieve what he and the rest of us crave – sparkling Pershing success.
BNY Mellon Pershing took a mulligan on Ben Harrison and put him back in line as the sole successor to Mark Tibergien, three years after he was originally bestowed the honor.
The move, however, comes by way of default. Maura Creekmore, co-head of Pershing's RIA custody unit, decided, on her own, to leave the firm, effective Jan. 5, to "pursue other interests," a spokeswoman says.
She was appointed as co-head in May 2021 and lasted roughly 18 months in the job.
RIA analysts praise Pershing for taking what they consider a step in the right direction.
“Divided command is almost never a recipe for success. Harrison has got a real opportunity,” says Andrew Besheer, director of wealth research at Boston consulting firm Aite-Novarica, via email.
Indeed, the shared-power arrangement sent a mixed cultural message to RIAs.
Creekmore and Tibergien did not respond to requests for comment.
BNY Mellon is in the midst of laying off about 1,500 employees, and the “reductions will also target management positions,” the Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 13.
Yet the Jersey City, N.J., RIA custodian and broker-dealer is leaving its options open and staying mostly mum about where it's headed, according to analysts.
“We could see this coming from a mile away," says Tim Welsh, president of Larkspur, Calif. consultancy, Nexus Strategy, via email.
“When you have ‘co-' in the title of execs, it never works, particularly for RIAs … Pershing definitely got that wrong,” he adds.
Star power
Whether Harrison will be joined by another co-chief in the executive suite remains to be seen.
But Pershing has another up-and-coming female star in the wings.
Former LearnVest chief operating officer Ainslie Simmonds. She is leading its new ‘all-in-one’ service for RIAs, PershingX. See: ex-LearnVest exec gets Pershing mandate.
She is also a managing director and member of the Pershing executive committee.
Completing matriarchal coup, Pershing raids Envestnet's top drawer to grab Lori Hardwick, whom many thought unpoachable
Prior to joining Pershing, Ainslie was the Global Head of Digital at PIMCO, a $2.2T investment management firm where she led a team responsible for the development of all client facing and sales enablement technologies across 17 offices worldwide, according to her bio.
A line in motion
Creekmore is also the latest in a line of female executives at the firm who burned brightly all the way to a top job, then left soon after. See: Pershing raids Envestnet's top drawer to grab Lori Hardwick, whom many thought unpoachable.
Pershing poached well known industry figure Lori Hardwick from Envestnet to become its chief operating officer in Feb. 2016. She resigned a year later. See: Lori Hardwick resigns in 'completely unexpected' move.
"What bothers me is that, from an optics perspective, it looks like women don't have the staying power," Hardwick told RIABiz four years ago.
Then Pershing CEO Lisa Dolly resigned in May 2019 after just three years in the top job, out of a “desire to do something different after over 30 years at one firm," according to the company. See: What to make of Pershing CEO Lisa Dolly's surprise exit.
Just today (Jan. 19), Citywire published an article reporting that Pershing just parted ways with 27-year veteran and COO, Karen Novak. She's held that operating oversight role, however, since 2008.
Muddled roles
When Creekmore was appointed in May, 2021, BNY Mellon Pershing chief Jim Crowley never let on that her role was to acclimate Harrison. Instead, he spoke about the need for “restructuring.”
It was explained more as a way of getting RIAs and IBDs to become bank power agents.
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"It will allow our clients to more easily tap into the power of the BNY Mellon enterprise and exponentially bolster the scale, capabilities, and insights we can deliver in the marketplace,” Crowley said at the time.
The BNY Mellon release went on to explain this shift in terms of the convergence and wealth-management and banking.
“It will address the evolving and converging needs of these clients. The firm plans to deliver an improved lending solution, as well as digitized account opening and asset transfers,” the lease states.
Yet Creekmore may have found it a tall order to converge her buttoned up mega-bank with fiercely independent RIAs, Besheer says.
“Her background was enterprise sales and relationship management -- big, global…beasts," he says.
Lori Hardwick resigns from COO job at Pershing in 'completely unexpected' move
"By all accounts, [it was] something she was very good at. Is it possible that putting her in a role like this was a miscast? Dealing with smaller enterprises, individual practitioners, very domestic.”
The right stuff
What's clear now is that Harrison would be well-served to hustle to assert his dominion, Besheer continues.
“[This] is Harrison’s opportunity to … put his own stamp on the business," he says.
“We should see in the next nine-to-twelve months if he’s going to be successful.”
“The clock has not started on [Harrison's] leadership until now," Welsh agrees.
“Watch for [Harrison] to accelerate the business … he is the best and right choice, and has been all along … he grew up in the RIA business," Welsh adds.
Harrison cut his RIA teeth at TD Waterhouse and then TD Ameritrade between 1998 and 2006, before moving to Pershing.
He set a very high bar for success, too, when he accepted the baton from Tibergien nearly three years ago.
“We’re not in any business at Pershing not to be a market leader … We don’t aspire to be two or three … [and] we’re moving in that direction,” Harrison told RIABiz in March 2020. See: Tibergien sets up Ben Harrison to challenge Schwabitrade.
Custody kings
Today, Pershing is a neck-and-neck race for the third position with State Street's spin-off RIA custody division FNZ.
FNZ recently partnered with Envestnet to supply RIA custody. See: Bill Crager reads the room and commandeers State Street's old RIA custody unit for Envestnet with FNZ deal
Both firms, however, are distant to leaders Fidelity and Schwab.
Schwab custodies around $3.2 trillion of RIA assets, up 52% from roughly $2.1 trillion in early 2020, once legacy TD Ameritrade assets are factored in, according to company filings.
In 2020, Fidelity administered around $3.2 trillion of ‘institutional’ assets, a figure that included roughly $932 billion of RIA assets, according to Boston consultancy, Cerulli Associates.
If Fidelity's RIA custody business grew at the same 12.5% clip as its wider institutional business, which now administers roughly $3.7 trillion, it would custody around $1.1 trillion of RIA assets, excluding net new business gains,
As of Jan 2021, Pershing administered over $2 trillion – including $900 billion of custodied RIA assets – up from $822 billion in March 2020, according to the company.
But a large chunk of the $2 trillion comes from folding together its RIA and broker-dealer units.
How Pershing quantifies RIA assets has also been subject to change. See: The old trick of new math Pershing used to make its RIA assets in custody soar.
Neither Pershing nor Fidelity has responded to a request for comment on custodied assets.
Cerulli has yet to provide an up-to-date figure of its own estimates.
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