Choreo, the registered investment advisor created in 2022 when private equity group Parthenon Capital lifted out the wealth management business of accounting firm RSM, will bring on two growth and practice management consultants and two business development officers within the next month. These new full-time executives will help the firm’s advisors network and build relationships with CPA partners in their market.
Larry Miles, Choreo CEO, declined to say who would fill those positions.
Over the last two years, Choreo has been building out its CPA partner program, the Choreo Partner Alliance, primarily by buying RIA subsidiaries of CPA firms. That includes RSM, Cherry Bekaert Wealth Management, GreerWalker Wealth, and most recently, the wealth management business of BDO USA.
Choreo is also partnering with a small number of CPAs that have not sold their RIAs to the firm. There are also several dozen in the pipeline, Miles said.
“CPAs are very methodical, they're very pragmatic, and I think that they have certainly taken note of the fact that firms like BDO and RSM and Cherry, have chosen Choreo as the home for their wealth management folks. And I think that gives us a lot of credibility,” he said.
Choreo partners with CPAs in four ways: sharing real estate, sharing revenue, providing education to the CPA firm’s employees and giving them an equity stake in the RIA.
Now that those relationships are in place, these practice management consultants will help the firm’s advisors take advantage of those referral sources. The business development officers will make personal connections with their CPA partners. These executives are also meant to ensure clients the CPAs refer have the same experience with Choreo across the board.
“We want our partners in Atlanta to know that if they refer a client to us in Augusta, Georgia or Seattle, Washington, it's going to be a similar experience,” Miles said.
Miles joined the firm two years ago when Parthenon lifted out RSM’s wealth management business and renamed it Choreo. He has spent the last two years building out a lot of the infrastructure the firm lacked, including finance, marketing, growth and human resources. He inherited some good technology systems around Black Diamond and eMoney, he said, but the tech stack also had to be built out. Previously, the RIA was relying on RSM for a lot of those resources.
Now that those teams are in place, Miles can focus on bringing the next level of management, which will focus on growth and practice management.
He says the firm has a multi-year goal to become one of the larger, more influential RIAs in the country. He said upon the official close of the BDO deal, the firm will have 48 offices across the country, over 8,000 clients and about $24 billion in total assets.