Rob Djurfeldt has stepped down as managing director and head of ScotiaMcLeod Inc., the brokerage arm of Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia.
Djurfeldt, a 28-year veteran at the bank, confirmed in a phone call that he left the brokerage on Wednesday. He declined to comment on the reason for his departure. Djurfeldt’s exit was announced in an internal memo; ScotiaMcLeod representatives could not be reached by press time for comment.
Djurfeldt had been head of ScotiaMcLeod since April 2015. He began his career at the bank in 1991 as a wealth advisor, and moved progressively up to more senior roles.
ScotiaMcLeod made a big comeback in Investment Executive‘s 2019 Brokerage Report Card. Advisors there rated their firm significantly higher this year (by half a point or more) in all 33 main survey categories, with the majority of participants pointing to executives being open to hearing about advisors’ challenges and ideas, and to an overall improvement in corporate culture.
ScotiaMcLeod’s IE rating (the average of all of a firm’s category ratings) hit 8.2 this year, up from 6.9 in 2018, following several years of decline in advisor satisfaction across multiple areas of the business. For example, in the 2018 Report Card, ScotiaMcLeod advisors’ rating for “firm’s receptiveness to advisor feedback” had dropped by half a point or more for the third consecutive year, to 5.8 from 6.4 in 2017, 7.4 in 2016 and 7.9 in 2015.