Savant Wealth Management Poised for Exponential Growth
Firm Announces Strategic Personnel Moves As Part of Long-Term Growth Plan
ROCKFORD, Ill. — Savant Wealth Management, a nationally recognized, fee-only registered investment adviser (RIA), announced a long-term growth plan that includes a significant investment in top-tier talent, technology, strategic acquisitions, marketing, and practice management over the next five years. Savant’s recent strategic minority investment from Kelso & Company, a North American-focused middle-market private investment firm, helped fuel the firm’s growth initiative.
“Since our firm’s inception more than 30 years ago, Savant had been accustomed to bootstrapping its way to increased growth,” said Brent R. Brodeski, CPA, CFP®, CFA®, MBA, founder and CEO of Savant. “With Kelso’s investment and partnership in October 2021, we believe Savant is now well-positioned to augment its capabilities and help build a durable, sustainable, best-in-class national RIA firm for our clients. Our plan is to pivot from incremental to exponential growth.”
The firm’s initial focus has been on strengthening its advisory leadership team, including the following personnel changes:
- Chris A. Walters, formerly Savant’s chief growth and practice officer, will assume the duties of chief advisory officer, a position previously held by Brodeski. Walters, an experienced veteran of the wealth management and banking industries, will oversee all aspects of Savant’s advisory enterprise.
- Jason R. English joins Savant as director of growth, a newly created position that will deepen Savant’s commitment to client acquisition and retention. English was previously VP – Emerging Channels Sales and Strategy at Edelman Financial Engines, where he was responsible for driving the implementation, expansion, and ongoing optimization of the firm’s emerging-channels value proposition.
- John M. Hanley, CFA®, CAIA®, formerly Savant’s director of business intelligence, has been named director of practice management. Hanley will supervise an elite business intelligence team to transform data into actionable data-driven insights to support Savant’s growth initiatives. He will support advisory leaders by helping them implement best practices and “The Savant Way.”
- Brian P. Conroy, CFP®, AIF®, becomes Savant’s regional director for Chicagoland (including seven offices), where he will oversee market growth, recruiting, and the regional advisory team. Conroy previously served as a manager of advisory and business development for three of Savant’s Chicago-area offices.
Savant is actively recruiting for several other key advisory leadership roles and expects to add more regional directors and a head of mergers and acquisition (M&A) to enhance new partner optimization in the near future.
“To accomplish our vision of three-to-five times growth over the next five years, we must position our advisory team – the cornerstone of our business – with the tools, resources, and leadership they need to provide exceptional service and strategic advice to our clients,” said Brodeski. “Our new advisory leadership structure enables our team to further support clients in building their ideal futures. The promotions of Chris Walters, John Hanley and Brian Conroy, and the addition of Jason English will be instrumental in scaling our advisory leadership team.”
“We’re especially thrilled to have Jason English join Savant and we believe he will serve as an excellent complement to our highly talented advisory leadership team,” Walters added. “His experience and track record leading key growth initiatives at both The Mutual Fund Store and Edelman Financial Engines will be invaluable to Savant as we accelerate our exponential growth focused investments to drive organic growth.”
Savant’s five-year growth plan includes not only organic growth, but also an accelerated pace of M&A transactions. Savant acquired three RIA firms totaling nearly $2.4 billion in AUM in 2021 and expects to attract and integrate four to six new partners per year under its five-year plan. Unlike traditional M&A approaches, however, in which aggregators and short-term “roll-up” firms acquire and eventually spin-off their acquisitions, Savant seeks partner firms with a desire to grow, address succession planning needs, and enhance the value proposition they offer to clients, team members, and the communities they serve.
“This is an exciting time for Team Savant and a major step toward our foundational vision of improving 1 million lives,” Brodeski concluded. “Building ideal futures means we must meet our clients, team members and partners at the intersection of growth and excellence. That’s where the magic of success will happen, both now and in the future.”