With fewer than 60 days under his belt as president and chief operating officer of Worldsource Financial Management Inc. of Markham, Ont., Andy Mitchell has already set his sights on turning the company into Canada’s “premier wealth-management firm for independent advisors.”

He chooses those words pointedly, carefully distinguishing between a wealth-management firm and a typical dealer. A wealth-management firm, he says, is more than just a mutual fund dealership that processes business and acts as a secondary check on compliance for advisors. Rather, Mitchell says, it is a firm that “provides the training, support, technology, products, feedback, face time — all of the tools necessary to take someone from being a mutual fund salesperson to a financial planner,” he says. “There’s a big difference.”

Although Worldsource’s 600 advisors will be the ultimate judge of whether he’s successful, Mitchell is confident that the firm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Toronto-based Guardian Capital Group Ltd. , is headed in the right direction. His arrival on May 1 coincided with a series of road shows on the West Coast, at which, he says, he sensed a strong level of satisfaction among advisors.

For his part, Mitchell is eager to make his mark. “I’m a big believer that the first 100 days on the job are critical to your long-term success,” he says. “Important issues for the organization must be addressed immediately within the first 30 days.”

Although Mitchell is mum about making any major changes, his focus for right now remains on learning all he can about the internal workings of the company and meeting face to face with as many advisors as possible.

“I’ve spent a lot of time listening to advisors and finding out what their needs are, “ he says. “And I’ve found that if you can centralize that feedback and relate it to our distribution arm — and really support the advisors — we’re on our way.”

Making a strong first impression is important to Mitchell, particularly at a firm plagued by a rash of executive turnarounds in the past few years. (Mitchell replaces former president Anthony Stockley, who departed recently and has since joined front-office technology firm Ticoon Technology Inc. Dianne Carmichael, president and CEO of holding company Worldsource Wealth Management Inc., left in 2004.)

“I don’t want to be regarded as the sales specialist or the business-development person,” says Mitchell. “I consider myself to be a very good generalist, and I have a passion for running a business. My job is to help advisors be a better business partner and a better entrepreneur.”

Before joining Worldsource, Mitchell spent nine years on the trading floor in the Toronto and Calgary offices of Bank of America, learning first-hand about the volatility of the markets. That job evolved into a relationship management and strategic development role, in which Mitchell hit his stride. He went on to join Guardian Group of Funds in Toronto as a vice president before he was head-hunted to go to Standard Life Assurance Group of Canada, also in Toronto, at which he was eventually put in charge of running the firm’s mutual fund dealer, Performa Financial Group Ltd.

At Performa, Mitchell initiated a five-year plan to beef up distribution, and within 18 months the firm had tripled its assets under management. But the five-year plan was cut short when Standard Life announced it was selling Performa to Quebec-based Desjardins Sécurité Financier in March. As a result, Mitchell was out of a job, and he joined Worldsource eight weeks later.

Worldsource has been beefing up its executive suite. On June 1, Paul Brown was appointed chairman and CEO of Worldsource Financial Management. Based in Vancouver, Brown will be instrumental in helping Mitchell build the firm’s presence in the West; currently, 75% of Worldsource advisors are based in Ontario, and the pair is eyeing growth in the West first and in the East second. In the meantime, Mitchell says, “Ontario is kind of growing by osmosis.”

Brown gained a foothold in the industry when he launched Vancouver-based Independent Brokerage Group Inc. in 1990. It was subsequently bought by Hub International Ltd. and later merged with Hub Financial Inc. Brown served as chairman and CEO at the Vancouver-based dealer until 2004. After that, he took the helm at Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. , a national producer group specializing in insurance.

@page_break@Like Mitchell, Brown doesn’t have any big strategic moves up his sleeve just yet.

“Initially, the idea is to come into the firm and get to know the culture, the advisors and what their needs are,” he says. “We all come into things with our own biases, but I want to make sure I have a good handle on how the company works before I embark on any strategies.”

Besides driving growth in the West, Mitchell and Brown are keen to boost the firm’s AUM, which stand at about $4.7 billion — an average of $8 million per advisor. Mitchell is quick to point out that is an average; many Worldsource advisors have more than $40 million in AUM, and some have less than $5 million.

“My personal goal and my strategy here is for advisors to have a $10 million AUM average by the end of this year, $15 million by the end of next year and $20 million the following year,” Mitchell says. He would like to grow total AUM to $10 billion by 2010.

That plan may be complicated somewhat by the industry-wide problem of an aging advisor base. Mitchell estimates the average Worldsource advisor is in his or her late 40s, and he expects to lose about 100 of them over the next four years. With that in mind, both Mitchell and Brown are considering ways to hold on to top producers and also bring in fresh talent, while at the same time taking care of advisors who want to leave the business and sell their books.

“The aging advisor is definitely something we grapple with,” says Mitchell. “We need to create a very strong program — and it’s a program, not a process — for succession planning.”

In Mitchell’s mind, the solution is pairing advisors with a five-year retirement horizon with those looking to purchase a book of business, thereby creating a mentorship relationship with a “built-in” succession plan.

The second plan of attack is to beef up Worldsource’s training program to attract employees with no industry experience. Although the banks have been dominant in that area, Mitchell says, the pressure to train is shifting to independent firms. To that end, Worldsource is looking into a long-term program that will accommodate not just those who are new to the firm, but new to the industry as well.

In the meantime, Mitchell is hopeful that a national regulator will come into play to create industry standardization for things such as trade processes and applications forms. “Those are all things that should be standardized,” he says. “Competitive advantage comes in relationships, in service, in long-term strategy — you’re winning the day on your best people giving great service and being ethical, not on what your application form looks like.”

For now, Mitchell, who turns 40 this month, is focusing on the positive: Worldsource’s efficient back office, run by what he calls a “young, energetic group” and an advisor base that is largely positive about where the firm is headed.

“I want to be crystal clear that I’m not here to change the world,” he says. “This firm is working very, very well right now. And I think we have all the tools to build a long-term success story here.” IE