The Founder
About The Well: RIA and Wealth Management Recruiters Built From the Inside.
Steve Perry was Managing Partner before he was a founder. 17 years on the inside taught him what the industry was missing. This is why it matters.
Mission & Vision
The Mission and Vision Behind Our Recruiting Firm.
Our Mission
"To enable our clients to maximize growth by drawing from the best. We help wealth management firms hire the right advisors, leaders, and operators. The right person. The right fit. Every time."
Our Vision
"To become the trusted source of 100,000 placements by 2030. We are planning boldly, leaving room for faith and miracles, and building a firm that fuels growth for clients and generosity for the world."
The Origin Story
Why Steve Perry Built a Wealth Management Recruiting Firm.
Growth stops the moment you run out of great people.
Joins New York Life as an advisor.
Over 17 years, Steve built an advisor team from scratch to 40 in five years, then led a firm of 125 as Managing Partner. He interviewed thousands. He hired hundreds. He learned firsthand the weight leaders carry when growth depends on people.
Founds The Well. The firm he wished had existed.
After nearly two decades inside wealth management, Steve and his wife felt a clear call. Step out. Build something new. Serve firms differently. The Well launched in November 2023 with one purpose. To be the search firm growth-stage wealth management firms trust most.
Serves 158+ wealth management firms across the country.
The Well has invested over $2 million in technology, systems, and recruiting infrastructure. Today a focused team of nearly 20 serves every major wealth management market in the United States.
On the Record
Steve Perry, Founder of an RIA Recruiting Firm Built From the Inside.
Steve grew up in San Diego, started his first business at 15 and became a life insurance agent at 20, making partner in his local firm five years later. He joined New York Life as an advisor in 2006 and spent 17 years there. He built a team from scratch to 40 in five years and led a firm of 125 as Managing Partner. In November 2023 he founded The Well to recruit for wealth management firms and nothing else.
In August 2026 WealthManagement.com covered the firm's RIA Talent Report in "A Lot of What We Know About Talent Search Is Wrong" and quoted Steve on how rarely advisor offers landed inside the posted salary range. He talks about hiring and firm capacity on industry podcasts, among them The Advisors Edge Podcast, the Top Advisor Podcast with Bill Cates, Unpacked with Ron Harvey, the Simply Be Found Huddle and the Elite Financial Advisor Podcast.
He is the author of The Capacity Model: How to Build Your Best Life (2021). Connect with Steve on LinkedIn, or read his full bio. Reporters can find his headshot, a short bio and our boilerplate in the press kit.
The Team
The Wealth Management Recruiters Behind Every Search.
Every search has one dedicated specialist, with the rest of a team of nearly 20 behind them. Our partnerships leaders came up inside the industry. Jay Robinson, Managing Director of RIA Partnerships, has 30 years in financial services, more than 20 of them working only with RIAs, at Charles Schwab Advisor Services and Mercer Advisors. Clay Eschrich, Managing Director of Wealth Management Partnerships, spent 17 years as a Regional Vice President at Allianz Life and more than a decade as a District Sales Manager at Prudential Financial, after starting out as a high school science teacher in Minnesota.
With Steve, that is 82+ combined years across our leadership team. Brandon Murphy, our COO, led the operational build of a fintech startup before joining. Every recruiter on the team has a bio, a photo and a LinkedIn profile. Meet the team.
What Our Record Shows
What Our Recruiting Record Shows.
We have served 158+ wealth management firms since November 2023, from a four-person Dallas RIA to a $25 billion national platform. Our median search runs under eight weeks from kickoff to accepted offer, and across a full quarter of placements the median time from kickoff to introducing the candidate who was ultimately hired was 16 days.
The RIA Talent Report is built from our first-half 2026 record: 1,441 recorded calls and a talent graph of 6,445 people across 49 states. One finding: 78% of the advisors we placed were not looking when we first reached them. Every published figure on this site is checked against its source before each deploy, and a number that drifts fails the build. Read the report and ten case studies.
How We Work
How Our Wealth Management Recruiting Works, and What It Costs.
We recruit for advisory firms of every model: independent RIAs, hybrid firms, insurance-based advisory firms and broker-dealers. We place W-2 employees: advisors and planners, client service and operations, compliance, and firm leadership up to the CEO. We do not do M&A, book-of-business transfers or breakaway deals.
There is no fee to start a Direct Hire Search. The placement fee is 25% of first-year OTE, due when the candidate you hire accepts the offer. If we are the wrong firm for your search, we say so on the first call. Every fee is on our pricing page, and every phase of a search is on how it works.
"If you're looking for a team that listens well, moves with urgency, and genuinely cares about finding the right fit, you'll be in great hands."Gracen Harrison, Wood Financial Group
Our Most Unusual Differentiator
A Recruiting Firm Founded in Faith, and We Make No Apology for It.
Every team meeting opens or closes in optional prayer. We fund Bible college students overseas, their tuition, room, and board. In return, they pray for our company and our clients by name, every single day.
We see this as a true strategic advantage, with results that cannot be explained any other way.
Our Values
The Values Behind Every Recruiting Search We Run.
Not wall art. These guide every decision.
"There are countless good recruiters. And we hope to never be one of them."
We strive to be an excellent partner throughout our clients' growth. Excellence means the best service, communication, and results in the industry, with the humility to know there is always room to improve.
Faith is not a marketing angle here. It's how we operate.
We work hard and hold outcomes loosely, trusting there is a hand in the results beyond our own effort.
Work should strengthen bonds, not compete with them.
Most of our team works remotely, fully present with their spouses, kids, and loved ones. When our team prioritizes what matters most, exceptional results follow.
"Generosity costs us something. And that is why it matters."
Generosity is not an occasional act here. It's a discipline, and it raises the bar for everyone who sees it.
Stress is a signal to grow capacity.
Growth is rarely comfortable, but always worth it. Here it means constant improvement in our communication, processes, and technology. Growth makes us the people and professionals we are called to be.
158+ Firms That Have Trusted The Well
The RIA Firms and Advisory Firms That Have Trusted The Well.
Clients include Merit Financial Advisors, Focus Financial, SEIA, Mission Wealth, Coldstream Wealth Management, Mutual Advisors, Avior Wealth Management, Sowell Management, Oak Harvest Financial Group and Thoreson Steffes Trust Company. Rated on 178 Google reviews, as of November 2026.
"We built The Well for the firms and professionals who deserve more than a resume shop."
Steve Perry
Founder & CEO, The Well Recruiting Solutions
Talk to Steve and the partnerships team. We reply to firms within one business day.
Reviewed by Steve Perry, Founder and CEO. Updated October 2026.