Harbour Bridge Wealth Management Advisors, which has grown considerably since its 2004 founding, added another private client group émigré in October. Jonathan Rochlin, shifted to Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network (FiNet) in Chatham, New Jersey, according to Harbour Bridge founder and managing Principal, Timothy J. Erday, with plans of opening an office in Hackensack, NJ in January 2025.

Rochlin has 18 years of experience and joined Wells Fargo Advisors (WFA) in 2013 from Merrill Lynch. Prior to becoming a financial advisor (FA), he worked 18 years on the institutional side of Wall Street, managing global projects and multiple product lines at prominent firms such as Bear Stearns, Prudential Securities, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan Chase.

Rochlin’s move increases Harbour Bridge’s financial advisor headcount to 12 and brings its assets to $1 billion as of October 2024.

Through 20 years of innovation, Harbour Bridge has been able to find success in the FA desire to embrace economies of scale through shared support, technology and marketing solutions.

WFA welcomes growth at FiNet even though it typically earns smaller margins from independent brokers than employee advisors. Having this option has given WFA away to retain would-be breakaways and hire brokers from rivals that in some cases have better technology or offer richer signing bonuses.

The independent channel is the fastest growing by headcount at WFA, the bank’s Chief Financial Officer Michael P. Santomassimo said in a presentation last week. “It allows us to keep the folks that were moving out of our different channels,” Santomassimo said, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense. “But then also we’re starting to recruit people from other places.”