Kestra Hires Wealth Management Head from BlackRock
Kestra Financial, an Austin, Texas-based broker/dealer and registered investment advisor, has appointed former BlackRock executive Kelly Apple as head of wealth management to lead the firm’s investment, planning and advisory operations.
Apple was hired after more than a year’s search by Kestra President John Amore, who previously held the head of wealth management position.
“It’s an executive committee role for us—a really important role for us,” Amore said. “It’s a job that I loved doing, and so it was important to me that we found the right person.”
Apple will oversee Kestra’s wealth management organization, overseeing teams and resources for advisors across investment management, high-net-worth and advanced planning, advisory solutions, retirement, insurance, alternative investments and due diligence. The role goes across Kestra Financial and its breakaway-advisor channel, Kestra Private Wealth Services.
“Kelly and I had the opportunity to meet at the end of spring, and then quickly realized she had the wealth management expertise around, particularly the products and the solutions that advisors use,” Amore said.
Apple joins Kestra from BlackRock, where she spent more than 13 years, most recently as managing director and head of national accounts, leading the team responsible for the firm’s largest distribution partnerships. Before that, she had more than two decades of leadership experience in asset management and intermediary distribution, including senior roles at DWS Investments and Van Kampen Investments (now Invesco).
“My entire career has been really centered around businesses that focused on financial advisors in a number of ways,” Apple said. “My very last role was really working across the wealth management landscape. I led national accounts at BlackRock for their broker/dealer channel, so it was really focused on independent wirehouse-type firms and working with some of their largest clients across the landscape.”
Apple said she had not been looking for roles, but that what she knew about Kestra, combined with conversations she had with Amore and others about the job, made her want to make the move.
“What stood out was the advisor-centric culture that Kestra has, and it really shows in terms of the development of their platform, the resources that they’ve created, and they’ve had tremendous growth because of it,” she said.
Kestra Holdings, which includes RIA Bluespring Wealth Partners, is majority owned by Stone Point Capital and has a minority investment from Oak Hill Capital.
The firm has been competing in the advisor space for talent, including landing a number of Commonwealth Financial Network advisors after LPL Financial acquired the firm. In April, Kestra hired four business development leaders to its recruiting team to focus on advisor engagement and regional support, including two who previously worked at LPL.
Amore, however, stressed the wealth manager was focused on “quality over quantity,” with firm growth coming from organic client growth from current advisors, alongside recruiting.
“It’s really important to us that we can protect the culture and community that we have, and so we are incredibly thoughtful about every advisor who comes into the Kestra community,” Amore said. “I got here six years ago. We had about 1,300 advisors. Now we have maybe 1,500 advisors, but in that time have had meaningful expansion of our business.”
