RBC hires Shawn Bernhard for Texas South; DPL names two

RBC Wealth Management hired Shawn Bernhard, a Raymond James branch manager in Tucson, Arizona, as complex director for its Texas South region. She will work with financial advisors in Texas and Louisiana, the firm said Oct. 23.

Bernhard has more than 25 years in financial services, including leadership posts at UBS Wealth Management overseeing major markets in Arizona, and holds the Certified Financial Planner and Certified Exit Planning Advisor designations. InvestmentNews reported the hire follows a year in which RBC pulled sizable advisor teams from UBS. Rosenwald Private Wealth's $1.1 billion Baltimore group left RBC for Indivisible Partners.

DPL Financial Partners named Mark Forman head of experience and Kendal Wetzel head of sales strategy and operations.

The Louisville, Kentucky-based platform for commission-free annuities reports approaching $7 billion in assets under administration.

For RIAs moving commission books to fees, the hires land on the service and sales-operations side of that conversion. Forman oversees service for member advisors, partners and consumers, and DPL has built a portfolio-level tool for reviewing legacy annuities.

Forman previously led experience initiatives at Jefferson National, where he worked with DPL founder and CEO David Lau, and was most recently CMO at Optifino. Wetzel ran sales operations and enablement as a vice president at Jackson National Life Distributors and was earlier director of RIA distribution at Allianz Life.