More Wells Fargo execs follow Kowach to startup
David Kowach’s new firm, &Partners, continues to add management talent from his former employer, Wells Fargo & Co., where he was head of the brokerage group until 2019.
In a little more than a month, &Partners has hired three Wells Fargo Advisors managing directors, Scott E. Drysch, Scott Spang and Nick Giordano, who combined had more than 50 years of experience at Wells Fargo Advisors and its predecessor firms.
Drysch and Spang were “market leaders” for Wells Fargo Advisors, in Austin, Texas, and Richmond, Virginia, respectively, while Spang was “market manager” in Columbia, South Carolina.
Launched over the summer, &Partners is replete with executives from Wells Fargo Advisors, which has seen extensive turnover at the top in the past few years. Kowach left Wells Fargo last year, when he said he was retiring, three years after he moved from the giant bank’s wealth management group first to its retail bank and then to its affluent client group.
InvestmentNews reported in August that &Partners had 13 other founding partners, according to an investor presentation, and almost all of whom have extensive work and management experience at Wells Fargo. The new firm’s goal is to hire 100 top-performing financial advisor teams.
Other large firms have seen financial advisors and senior managers leave and set up new shops to compete with their former employer, but perhaps not to the extent of &Partners, noted one industry executive, who asked to remain anonymous.
“The difference here is these are very senior people in a wealth management organization who have decided that Wells Fargo is not an accommodating home, particularly on the high-end, wealthier client side of the business,” the executive said.
It’s not just &Partners
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