Osaic Adds Marketing and Advisor-Channel Leaders Amid Executive Turnover

Osaic’s latest leadership hires put two priorities in sharper focus: attracting advisors to its platform and expanding its employee-advisor channel. Manish Shrivastava will lead marketing, while Tom Metzger takes charge of Empowered Independence, the W-2 affiliation model Osaic has promoted to established advisory teams considering succession. Their appointments come as the broker-dealer network works through several senior departures.

Shrivastava spent 12 years as chief marketing officer at homebuilder PulteGroup. He will be based in Atlanta and oversee Osaic’s brand, communications, growth marketing and go-to-market work. His remit includes recruiting more advisors and helping current advisors attract and retain clients. The move also brings an executive with no prior wealth-industry experience into a role tied directly to Osaic’s growth plans.

Before PulteGroup, Shrivastava held leadership positions at Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Procter & Gamble. In a statement, he said Osaic had an opportunity to build on its position in wealth management and strengthen its connections with financial professionals. The challenge will be translating experience in consumer-facing businesses into messaging and services that resonate with advisors and their clients.

The role follows a major identity shift for the firm, which rebranded from Advisor Group as Osaic. That effort was led by Jen Roche, then executive vice president of marketing and communications. She left the firm to join LPL in August 2024. Shrivastava inherits a broader mandate than brand management alone: the company says his team will also support advisor recruitment and client growth.

Metzger takes over a growing channel

Metzger’s appointment puts an experienced wealth-platform executive at the head of Empowered Independence. Most recently, he led private wealth at Citizens Financial, where he helped build a national operation with approximately $30 billion in client assets, 18 advisory teams and more than 200 professionals. His earlier leadership roles were at First Republic Bank, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.

Based in San Francisco, Metzger will focus on bringing high-performing advisors into the W-2 model and managing their transitions. That work matters because an affiliation change can involve more than choosing a firm: advisory teams must move client relationships and operating arrangements while maintaining service. Osaic’s ability to make those transitions workable will shape how attractive the channel is to established practices.

Metzger succeeds Cindy Hamel, who led Empowered Independence through a busy period of team moves. Hamel will return to a firmwide operating role as head of business operations and execution. She previously played a central part in Osaic’s acquisitions and its Journey to One consolidation. Her new assignment is to turn strategy into an operating plan and keep advisor-facing groups aligned.

The channel has recently added substantial practices. Bard Financial Services, a $1.2 billion firm, joined the W-2 model in February. In April, Gateway Investments and Pointes North Wealth Management added more than $2 billion in assets to the channel between them. These moves give Metzger an existing base of momentum to build on, though the source figures don’t establish how much future growth the model can sustain.

Osaic president and head of advisor growth and engagement Shannon Reid described Empowered Independence as an important growth area and said Metzger would help expand the channel’s opportunities and support for advisors. For the firm, the task is to pair recruitment with the resources and transition process that can keep incoming teams operating smoothly after they arrive.

Appointments land amid a leadership reset

The hires follow a series of changes across Osaic’s senior ranks. Reid, a Raymond James veteran, joined at the end of last year as the No. 2 to Chief Executive Jamie Price. Dimple Shah, formerly executive vice president of strategy and client experience, left in May and later joined AI managed service provider Humanity Labs. Shah’s move to Humanity Labs followed her departure from Osaic.

Weeks later, Kristen Kimmell, the executive vice president of business development who oversaw recruiting, left Osaic and rejoined RBC Wealth Management as West divisional director. In July, Osaic confirmed the departures of Chief Financial Officer Kristy Britt and Greg Cornick, executive vice president of wealth management solutions.

Those exits make the new appointments part of a wider leadership reshaping, rather than isolated personnel changes. Shrivastava’s work will connect marketing with advisor recruitment and client retention; Metzger’s will focus on recruiting and moving teams into a specific affiliation structure; and Hamel’s role will center on execution across the organization. The practical test will be whether those responsibilities translate into a consistent experience for advisors as Osaic continues to recruit and integrate practices.

For advisors weighing the W-2 option, the recent additions show that Empowered Independence has attracted firms with sizable assets. The next measure to watch is how Osaic supports those practices through transitions and helps them build within the channel. Shrivastava’s broader marketing remit will be tested alongside that effort: attracting interest matters, but the firm’s ability to serve advisors after they arrive will help determine whether recruitment momentum lasts.