[Updated] Why Brian Stimpfl left TD Ameritrade and where he is headed

One of TD Ameritrade Institutional’s top executives, Brian Stimpfl, left the week before last after making a major mark on the company.

The managing director of advisor advocacy had been with the Jersey City, N.J.,-based RIA custodian since 1993. Over the past 17 years, he led many of the initiatives that TD undertook to stay competitive with larger rivals.

These efforts have been greatly appreciated by the company, according to Tom Bradley, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional. “Brian gave us 17 great years,” he says. “I love the guy and we’re very supportive of him.”

“He had a great run at TD,” says Timothy Welsh, president of Nexus Strategy LLC in Larkspur, Calif. who got to know Stimpfl over the years through industry groups. For instance, the two men served on the FPA’s volunteer committee.

Stimpfl, 41, says he made the choice to leave TD on his own, and that he’ll quickly move on to his next endeavor. See:Brian Stimpfl resurfaces in an entrepreneurial mode

Couple of possibilities

“I have a couple of really exciting possibilities that I’m evaluating right now,” he says from his home in Huntington, N.Y., which is on Long Island. “I expect my stay on the sidelines to be pretty short.”

Stimpfl declined to specify the nature of those opportunities, but said he’s open to both corporate and entrepreneurial situations.

Welsh credits Stimpfl for developing TD’s successful program of referrals from its retail branches to RIAs.

“He worked both sides of the organization successfully in developing the retail referrals,” he says. Stimpfl helped to oversee that effort from 2003 to 2008, he says.

Revamping Veo

Stimpfl was also a big part of revamping Veo, TD’s technology platform for advisors. He has his MBA from Baruch College, where he focused his studies on computer information systems. Most RIAs deem Veo a big success for the company.

Stimpfl helped to found TD Ameritrade’s practice management program about a decade ago. It has become an increasingly large part of TD’s value proposition for RIAs.

The custodian is expanding the program now.

The RIAs who have become consulting clients since the expanded program went into effect experienced a fourfold jump in net new assets and a doubling of new client accounts, when compared to the prior six months, according to Stimpfl.

Dumbfounded

“We were dumbfounded by how quickly the results made themselves clear,” he said in December interview. For more comments from Stimpfl, see: TD Ameritrade takes on Schwab with big consulting push

More recently, Stimpfl was also responsible for positioning TD Ameritrade as the custodian that sides with financial advisors on regulatory issues. TD has had some success taking this stand because its branch brokers don’t offer comprehensive advice.

TD is now putting Skip Schweiss, president of TD Ameritrade Trust Co., in charge of overseeing regulatory advocacy on behalf of the company.

“We’ve very strong there,” Bradley says. “We won’t skip a beat. That’s a sign of a fine legacy [left by Stimpfl].”

Stimpfl says his departure from TD is amicable and that he helped transition some of his duties to other executives over the past couple of months.

“It was the hardest decision of my career but I don’t have any regrets,” he says. “Some times you have to challenge yourself. I’m looking forward to [learning] what I don’t know.”

Though it may seem hard to understand why Stimpfl would choose to leave a company where he seemed to be successful, his decision may relate to how he was positioned in the company ranks, Welsh says. There may have been little room for advancement within TD – a situation with implications for executives at all the larger asset custodians, he says.

Baby Boom bulge

“A lot has to do with the small size of the RIA custody industry and the Baby Boom bulge in senior management,” he says. “How many places can you go?” The opportunities have become fewer still with custodians like Schwab cutting middle management positions in the recent downturn, he adds.

Welsh says that there are a number of executives who reach their 40s as executives in RIA custody then have to make hard choices. He includes himself – as former director of marketing at Schwab Advisor Services – and David Welling, who recently went to Black Diamond Performance Reporting after also working senior roles at Schwab, as examples of people who sought entrepreneurial opportunities after long, positive careers with custodians.

“We missed the boat by five to seven years,” he says. “It’s not a glass ceiling but a Baby Boomer ceiling.”

Stimpfl was one of six executives who reported to Tom Bradley. The other five executives are: Thomas Nally
managing director, institutional sales, Schweiss, Zohar Swaine, managing director of the institutional strategy and product organization, John Tovar, managing director of institutional brokerage services and Paul Zettl, managing director of institutional marketing and corporate events for TD.

Hiring spree

TD Ameritrade Institutional has been in a hiring mode over the past couple of years, according to recruiter Steve Goering of the Laramie Group in Chicago in a February interview. The hiring spree started with Zettl, who was hired away from Fidelity Investments to oversee marketing two years ago. Since then TD has hired Kate Healey from Merrill Lynch to oversee product marketing; Matt Bryan, marketing manager for breakaway brokers, who was hired away from Van Kampen; Kelly Caffrey, who came from Pershing to market RIA advocacy and practice management; and Mari Pagliughi, who came from Merill Lynch to oversee an effort to make better use of the internet as a marketing tool.

Brooke’s Note: I have interviewed Brian Stimpfl many times over the years. Many times he was en route to his Long Island home from Jersey City and I wondered whether he had simply tired of the one-to two-hour journey. He has two young children. “It was a long commute and there was a lot of travel but I’m a pretty Type-A kind of guy so, no, it really didn’t have an effect,” he says.