On the heels of a new offering for high net worth clients, Edward Jones is giving its top executive a big bump in pay.
Edward Jones CEO Penny Pennington saw her compensation increase by 15.7% year over year to $29.1 million in 2024, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. Her pay package consisted of a base salary of $250,000, $17,354 in deferred compensation and nearly $28.8 million in “income allocated to partners.” (Edward Jones is set up as a private partnership owned by its employees.)
The payday announcement came after yet another series of changes in how the St. Louis-based firm allows advisors to deliver services to clients. Last fall, for instance, Edward Jones announced that certain of its representatives could begin offering comprehensive financial planning for a flat fee of $3,600 a year to investors with $250,000 or more in their accounts.
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Last week Edward Jones added another specialized offering for a select group of clients with $10 million or more in investable assets. Through a program called Edward Jones Generations, the firm is providing advanced services like tax planning, estate and business planning, cash-flow analysis and philanthropic guidance, partly in partnership with the accounting giant EY and the law firm Husch & Blackwell. It’s also giving these high net worth clients new opportunities to invest in the sorts of alternative markets — private equity, private credit, private real estate — where other large wealth managers have increasingly come to stake their future.
The ‘underserved’ ultrawealthy
David Chubak, the head of branch development and the U.S. business unit at Edward Jones, said in an interview Friday that the new offering comes in part in response to high net worth clients increasingly seeking help with their plans to pass assets to heirs. The research firm Cerulli has estimated as much as $84 trillion could be handed down from one generation to the next by 2045 in what many have called the “great wealth transfer.”
Chubak also noted that a large percentage of small businesses in the U.S. have owners who are approaching retirement age.
“So we’re making that investment now, because the trends are saying clients in these segments are looking for and need more support,” he said.
Edward Jones has long defined its main clientele as investors with between $250,000 and $5 million in assets. It also sought to work with clients living or doing business in places where its competitors weren’t bothering to go.
Chubak said the new offering for high net worth clients is in line with that mission.
“The reality is today, there are many high net worth clients who are underserved, who are not getting full access to the more complete side of comprehensive planning and advice, estates, tax, business advice and putting it all together with a caring financial advisor,” he said. “So that’s the goal.”
Chubak said Edward Jones defines anyone with $5 million or more in investable assets as high net worth, and that the Generations offerings will eventually be extended to investors coming in under the current $10 million threshold. Edward Jones reports having about 9 million clients, although it doesn’t break out how many fall into the $10 million-and-above category.
“Our goal is to have a few thousand clients come through Generations over the next couple of months into the next year or two,” Chubak said. “As we learn more, as we see its success, our goal will be to expand it.”
Does Edward Jones need to step up its recruiting?
Jeff Nash, the CEO and co-founder of the recruiting firm Bridgemark Strategies, noted Edward Jones has a reputation for bringing fledgling advisors into the industry and helping them start their careers. Though that’s useful for advisors looking to build a book of business, he said, it does little to provide the type of experienced advisors high net worth clients usually want to work with.
If Edward Jones really wants to compete for clients with millions to invest, he said, it needs to up its recruiting game. Nash said he thinks Edward Jones still has room to bring its recruitment deals and technology offerings in line with competitors.
“That’s the real question,” he said. “If they aren’t going to have competitive deals, they are going to be on the margins. They are going to win a couple of deals here. They are going to get a few high worth clients there. But that’s about it.”
Big changes afoot
Other recent changes made by Edward Jones have included allowing its advisors to come together to form teams rather than work on their own in single-person offices. It also has given them the ability to do “discretionary” trading — or make transactions in clients’ accounts without needing permission for each individual action.
On the technology side, Edward Jones has given all of its branches access to the fintech firm Envestnet’s MoneyGuide product, which provides an easy way to visualize how changes in things like spending and saving can affect their ability to retire by a certain age. It has also brought a new customer relationship management system, or CRM, provided by the industry giant Salesforce to more than 5,500 of its branches.
Throughout all the change, Edward Jones has continued to report strong financial results. In January, it said it ended 2024 with $2.2 trillion in total client assets under care, a figure up 13% year over year. Its advisor headcount rose by 5% year over year to 20,125.
“This five-percent increase in financial advisors over the previous year enables Edward Jones to serve more clients and communities more completely by creating greater access to financial
planning and advice,” Don Aven, Edward Jones principal of experienced financial advisor recruiting and talent acquisition marketing, said in a statement.
Keeping pace with other wealth management execs
CEO Pennington wasn’t the only Edward Jones executive to receive a substantial compensation increase last year, according to the firm’s 10K filing. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Miedler saw his total pay rise by 28.5% year over year to $18.7 million in 2024. Head of External Affairs Kenneth Cella received a 16% year-over-year increase to $22.3 million; Head of Digital, Data and Operations Francis LaQuinta a 9% increase to roughly $20 million; and Chief Transformation Officer Kristin Johnson a 19% increase to about $20 million.
A spokesperson for Edward Jones said the firm’s compensation policies are comparable to those offered by other financial firms. The $29.1 million payday for Pennington, for instance, came in the same year that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made $39 million, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan made $35 million, Citi CEO Jane Fraser made $34.5 million and Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf made $31.2 million
“We are committed to finding and retaining the right group of leaders who believe in our client-centric culture and strive to drive our organization forward,” the Edward Jones spokesperson said.
