Merit Financial Advisors

Onboarding Specialist

• Lead the end-to-end planning and execution of asset transitions for newly acquired organizations into Merit’s enterprise and investment systems.
• Partner with principals, advisors, and operating teams of acquired firms to develop transition plans that preserve continuity of client service and minimize disruption.
• Conduct pre-close due diligence, work with Merit’s transition team, and resolve open issues.
• Serve as the primary coordinator across Investment, Trading, Operations, Technology, Compliance, Client Service, and M&A integration teams.
• Manage outside vendors and custodial relationships supporting account onboarding, data conversion, asset transition, and investment model assignment.
• Coordinate account opening, repapering, custodian workflows, asset transfers, registration changes, restrictions, and exception resolution.
• Oversee mapping and assignment of client accounts to Merit investment strategies and models.
• Ensure accurate capture, validation, and transfer of critical client and account data, including distributions, capital-gains buffers, cash buffers, tax-management instructions, investment restrictions, and standing instructions.
• Develop quality-control procedures and reconciliation checkpoints.
• Maintain transition dashboards, issue logs, decision records, risk assessments, and executive status reporting; escalate material risks or delays.
• Use data analytics to measure transition progress, accuracy, exception trends, model adoption, operational readiness, and post-transition stabilization.
• Develop KPIs and post-transition reviews to identify root causes and improve future onboarding and asset-transition processes.
• Create repeatable playbooks, workflows, controls, and communication standards for future transitions.
• Provide education and support to acquired-firm principals, advisors, and staff regarding Merit’s investment platform, transition processes, and operating procedures.
• Promote a collaborative, solutions-oriented approach balancing transition speed with fiduciary, operational, compliance, and client-service considerations.

Manager, Onboarding – Asset Transitions