Wellington-Altus president Jordy Chilcott leaving firm

Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc. president Jordy Chilcott is leaving the firm and will be replaced by Dennis Stewner.

Chilcott, an industry veteran who joined Wellington-Altus in December 2020, will exit the firm on July 31. While he has not announced his next move, he said in an interview with Advisor.ca that he looks forward to returning to the asset management side of the industry.

Chilcott has worked in finance for more than three decades. He started out as a securities trader in the 1980s and then worked on the asset management side with large investment players including Scotiabank, Dynamic Funds and Sun Life Global Investments (Canada) Inc.

Stewner, Wellington-Altus’s executive vice-president, chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer will take over as president of Wellington-Altus Private Wealth and Wellington-Altus Insurance. Stewner joined the firm in January from Winnipeg-based insurer People Corporation.

As part of the transition, Frank Laferriere will become executive vice-president of digital strategy and compliance as well as president of Wellington-Altus USA. Laferriere has been with the firm for two months as its digital and technology lead, having come from the Mandeville Group of Companies based in Burlington, Ont.

Those appointments are pending the required corporate filings and registrations, the firm said.

During Chilcott’s time with Wellington-Altus, assets under administration (AUA) grew from $10 billion to more than $27 billion, said Shaun Hauser, Wellington’s founder and CEO.

“He has left this place better now than it was when he first joined,” Hauser said.

The firm’s focus remains on growing assets, he said, and recruiting client-centric, independent advisors who fit with its high service standards.

To help with that, the firm is creating a new chief experience officer role focused on advisor engagement, which will report to the CEO. The hiring process has just begun.

The new role comes after Jerry Thomas, formerly senior vice-president of wealth strategy and advisor consulting with Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, joined one of the firm’s “larger” advisor teams in Toronto as COO.

The new chief experience officer isn’t replacing Thomas but will take on the advisor consulting part of his former job, Hauser said, while the firm will be looking to add other senior roles that focus on the wealth strategy component.

The dedicated support role will help combat the mounting pressure on advisors amid growing client demands and industry change. “Advisors should expect more from their dealer partners,” Hauser said.