ISS Market Intelligence’s Latest Rep Movement Report Shows Nearly 39,000 Representative Transitions in 2025 As Structural Forces Reshape Distribution, Recruitment, and Talent Strategy Across Wealth Management
NEW YORK (May 5, 2026) – ISS Market Intelligence (ISS MI), part of the ISS STOXX GmbH group of companies and a leading provider of data, analytics, insights, media, and events solutions to the global financial services industry, has released its latest Rep Movement Report. The report offers a comprehensive view of advisor mobility across the U.S. wealth management industry, with detailed coverage of RIA, broker-dealer, independent, and insurance channels.
ISS MI’s Rep Movement Report series provides the long-view context behind the ongoing evolution of the U.S. wealth management landscape. Leveraging its MarketPro Discovery platform’s extensive financial‑advisor datasets and analytics, ISS MI provides a unique view of representative movement across firms, intermediary channels, and business models. As the industry continues to be reshaped and thousands of representatives continue to change firms each year, understanding what drives this movement has become increasingly important for modern firms seeking to identify, engage, and retain advisors.
“In addition to tracking movement at scale, our insights help explain what is driving that movement,” said Alan Hess, Vice President at ISS MI and author of the report. “What we continue to see across the U.S. wealth landscape is steady migration toward independence, with advisors and reps increasingly moving to a more fragmented RIA market. These dynamics make it more important than ever for firms to understand where advisors are moving and how to effectively engage them.”
The latest Rep Movement Report shows that in 2025, nearly 39,000 representatives moved to another firm, an increase of more than 4,000 year-over-year. This represents one of the highest levels of representative mobility in the past decade.
While most movement continues to occur within existing channels as advisors seek improved opportunities without changing business models, longer-term trends continue to point toward an ongoing migration toward independence. The retail RIA channel recorded a net gain of 9,525 representatives over the past five years, while independent broker-dealer channels brought in the second most new reps over the same period.
This shift is increasing complexity across intermediary distribution and requiring both asset and wealth managers to rethink how they identify and engage advisors across a more dispersed marketplace. According to the report, nearly 35,000 RIA firms employ five or fewer representatives, pointing to intense fragmentation within the channel.
Despite high fragmentation in some parts of the market, the report also highlights concentrated gains among a small number of firms capturing a disproportionate share of advisor movement over time. While multiple firms benefit from increased interest in independence, certain platforms have consistently outpaced the broader market in net advisor gains. Notably, over the past five years, LPL Financial recorded more than 7,200 net advisor additions, the highest among all firms and greater than the net gain of the broader independent channel during the same period. The firm’s scale reflects a combination of aggressive recruitment strategies, flexible transition support, and continued investment in technology and advisor platform capabilities.
“ISS MI’s datasets enable clients to monitor these shifts on an ongoing basis, extending insight beyond periodic reporting into continuous tracking of advisor movement, distribution dynamics, and competitive positioning,” said Greg Bawin, managing director, U.S. Research at ISS MI. “Adapting to this changing landscape will require not only new engagement strategies, but also the data and insights needed to reach advisors wherever they move next.”
To download the latest Rep Movement Report, please visit https://www.issmarketintelligence.com/solutions/marketsage/rep-movement-report/
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About the Rep Movement Report
ISS MI’s Rep Movement Report series provides long‑view context on the ongoing evolution of the U.S. wealth management landscape. By leveraging its MarketPro Discovery platform and its extensive financial‑advisor datasets and analytics, the series offers a unique view of representative movement across firms, intermediary channels, and business models. As thousands of representatives continue to change firms each year, understanding what drives this movement has become increasingly important for firms seeking to identify, engage, and retain advisors.
The series delivers one of the industry’s most comprehensive longitudinal views of advisor mobility, tracking nearly 800,000 licensed representatives across firms, channels, and business models. Each report analyzes movement across RIA, broker‑dealer, independent, and insurance channels. By connecting movement patterns with long‑term structural trends, ISS MI helps asset and wealth managers understand where advisors are going, what is driving those decisions, and how to engage them effectively in a rapidly changing distribution landscape.
About ISS Market Intelligence
ISS Market Intelligence (MI) is a leading provider of data, insights, and market engagement solutions to the global financial services industry. ISS MI empowers asset and wealth management firms, insurance companies, distributors, service providers, and technology firms to assess their target markets, identify and analyze the best opportunities within those markets, and execute on comprehensive go-to-market initiatives to grow their business. Clients benefit from our increasingly connected global platform that leverages a combination of proprietary data, powerful analytics, timely and relevant insights, in-depth research, as well as an extensive suite of industry-leading media brands that deliver unmatched market connectivity through news and editorial content, events, training, ratings, and awards.
About ISS STOXX
ISS STOXX GmbH, through its group companies, is a leading provider of comprehensive and data-centric research and technology solutions that help capital market participants identify investment opportunities, detect qualitative and quantitative portfolio company risks, and meet evolving regulatory requirements. With roots dating back to 1985, we today deliver world-class benchmark and custom indices across asset classes and geographies and serve as a premier source of independent corporate governance, sustainability, cyber risk, and fund intelligence research, data, and related offerings. Our products and services give clients the scale and leverage they need to grow their business more effectively and efficiently. ISS STOXX, which is majority owned by Deutsche Börse Group, is comprised of more than 3,800 professionals operating across 30 global locations in 20 countries. Its approximately 5,500 clients include many of the world’s leading institutional investors who turn to ISS STOXX for its objective and varied offerings, as well as companies focused on ESG, cyber, and governance risk mitigation as a shareholder value enhancing measure. Clients rely on ISS STOXX’s expertise to help them make informed decisions to benefit their stakeholders.
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