Nicole Lewis

Family-owned, privately held financial services firm with 40 million individual investors, 200 investor centers, $9.6 trillion in assets under administration, $3.6 trillion in discretionary assets, 35 million retail accounts, and 57,000 employees.
Vice President Branch Leader | 2017-2020
Coached, motivated, and inspired team of planners to thrive by exceeding client expectations, surpassing branch sales goals, and achieving success. Recruited, hired, developed, and promoted internal and external talent. Communicated value, vision, and purpose. Set direction, alignment, and commitment to exceeding branch goals.

• Surpassed annuity sales goal by 191% to attain top-tier regional and national branch ranking by creating deep dive training curriculum coupled with client appointment observations and monthly business reviews.
• Contributed to 400 external financial advisors hired nationally over three years by serving on exclusive branch leadership committee focused on refreshing external talent recruiting handbook.
• Improved 100% of branch’s operational and sales results during first performance year by creating shared business plan, reinventing team environment and mindset, and celebrating shared client success.
• 25% boost in regional employee recognition program peer nominations and 10% increase in employee satisfaction accomplished through improved field communication and staff celebration meetings.
• Increased share of wallet 10% by developing methodic client education and seminar series, hosting client engagement events, and driving customer outreach.
• Collaborated with more than 12 business partners across six business units to create and implement robust onboarding and training program for new branch team.
• Held over 10 national, regional, and local leadership and coaching roles impacting skill development and goal achievement for branch territory.
• Instrumental in securing thousands of client appointments and consolidating millions of new flows within one year of opening new branch by recruiting, hiring, and training 10 new team members.

Assistant Branch Leader | 2015-2017
Co-led multi-billion-dollar financial planning office. Coached, motivated, and inspired team of planners to thrive by exceeding client expectations, surpassing branch sales goals, and achieving success. Recruited, hired, developed, and promoted internal and external talent. Developed onboarding programs for new and tenured planners. Communicated value, vision, and purpose. Set direction, alignment, and commitment to exceeding branch goals.

• Increased pipeline close rate from 40% to 75% for 14 advisors within six months by reengineering advisor monthly business review process as collaborative idea sharing environment focused on sales pipeline development.
• Contributed to training of 60 branch managers and 1,200 advisors on new repeatable Salesforce pipeline review process by visiting branches, facilitating training calls, and hosting office hours for continuous coaching.
• 25% improvement in sales results and enhanced solution diversification across managed money and annuity solutions achieved through investment and annuity product knowledge deep dive training program for junior advisors.
• Boosted client engagement and share of wallet by 10% and sustained client loyalty over two years by developing consistent quarterly market update for hundreds of branch clients held over three days.
• Orchestrated massive local client event spread over three days involving hundreds of clients and dozens of financial planners delivering retirement planning education, resulting in millions of net flows.
• Established, facilitated, and grew Assistant Branch Manager development program for Midwest market to coach, develop, and support leadership capabilities of future VP Branch Managers.

Senior Leader – Regional Center | 2005-2015
Managed variety of teams at flagship regional center, providing service and guidance to retail clients and workplace participants. Created hiring and onboarding programs. Developed, trained, and coached local and national upskilling training programs for associates and managers to gain efficiencies and uncover client needs through deeper profiling.

• $5 million in operational cost savings achieved by reducing average handle time and increasing calls taken across six regional phone centers.
• 100% trading accuracy earned by more than 60 traders through creation of custom training content for newly Series 7 licensed associates.
• 90 sales associates promoted to planning roles and 12 sales managers hired to lead teams through establishment of advanced retirement planning culture in service-dominant workplace participant environment.
• Rewrote, refreshed, and updated 450 pages of associate resource library content for thousands of service associates to leverage when speaking with retail clients.
• Supported over 60 staff promotions to senior-level roles to fuel firm’s expanding talent and growth needs.
• Hand selected to serve on 12-member site leadership team that provided monthly leadership content, guest speakers, and feedback to and from branch management team.