RIAs Build Advisor Talent Pipelines as Shortage Looms

OpenArc Corporate Advisory and SageSpring Wealth Partners are training new financial advisors through salaried apprenticeships, team-based work and direct mentorship. Their programs place recruits with established advisory teams rather than requiring inexperienced employees to build client books alone.

Atlanta-based OpenArc runs a three-year program. Recruits join advisory teams and support staff known as pods. During the first year, they learn industry fundamentals. The second year focuses on more advanced planning work. In the third year, they study their pod’s clients and develop relationships.

The firm holds weekly group training during the first two years. Trainees also help seek new client relationships, with senior pod members supporting business development. Participants receive salaries for three years. OpenArc’s goal is for each trainee to generate enough revenue to cover their costs, or come close, after the salary period ends.

Clifford “Trip” Farren, a partner and senior wealth management advisor at OpenArc, leads the program. He described it as an extension of the support he received early in his career.

“It’s a culture of giving back that was started a long time ago by some of the folks on the board,” Farren said. “I received a ton of support that helped me when I launched my career, so I feel a responsibility to pay that forward.”

Franklin, Tennessee-based SageSpring uses a two-year mentorship program. New advisors work closely with senior advisors and spend their first two years “almost in the hip pocket of a senior advisor,” according to President Jeffrey Dobyns.

SageSpring trains mentors and recruits in groups, while most of the program centers on pairing a junior employee with an established advisory practice. The junior advisor observes client work and contributes to the mentor’s business. The participant can take on more responsibility over time and later train another recruit.

Dobyns contrasted the program with directing new advisors to make a fixed number of daily sales calls to friends, relatives or personal contacts.

“I think they are so fixated on activity or sales calls or something that they don’t want to be perceived as if they’re just wasting time if they’re watching somebody,” Dobyns said. “The reality is that that guy’s going to learn really fast if he’s watching.”

SageSpring has about 50 advisory teams, 200 employees and $10 billion in client assets. SageSpring and OpenArc became fully independent firms in recent years with assistance from Dynasty Financial Partners, an RIA services provider. Both firms had been developing internal training programs for decades.

Young professionals often face pressure to win clients before they have extensive industry experience or established reputations. David Wagner, chief executive of Newport Beach, California-based Tidecrest Wealth Management, described that model as difficult to sustain.

“It’s hard for a young person to come in and develop business,” Wagner said. “You expect inexperienced people to do business development, and I don’t think that’s sustainable.”

Wagner has spoken at his alma mater, the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he found limited financial planning coursework. He also launched quarterly information sessions for people interested in entering the profession. The first session, held earlier in October 2026, drew about 15 participants, according to Wagner.

He has encouraged internships, job shadowing, investment clubs and discussions with practicing advisors. Smaller RIAs can also use external partnerships, shared training sessions and office hours with senior employees, according to Wagner.

A 2025 estimate projected that retirements and rising consumer demand for advice could leave the profession about 100,000 advisors short of its needs by 2034. Firms without internal successors may lose client relationships when senior advisors retire. Team-based training gives junior employees time to learn advisory work before taking responsibility for clients.