Carson Group CEO and founder Ron Carson will step down from his role to become chairman of the board. Burt White, managing partner and chief strategy officer, will move into the role of CEO.
The firm has not yet chosen a replacement for White's previous role as chief strategy officer, a company spokesman confirmed.
According to the company, Carson will retain majority ownership in the firm and will devote more time “to increasing his family's humanitarian impact and championing initiatives such as feeding the hungry, providing clean water and supporting mental health”. As chairman of the board, Carson's focus will shift to the company's future, while White will take the lead in further expanding the firm's growth.
Carson founded the Omaha, Neb.-based RIA. in 1983. The firm includes Carson Wealth, Carson Coaching and Carson Partners. It has $35.5 billion in AUM and serves 50,000 households through its advisory network of 150 partners.
Backed by Bain Capital, which took a minority stake in 2021The Carson group set off on one deliberate inorganic strategy in 2022. Previously, Carson Group had taken minority stakes and facilitated transactions for partner firms with a small in-house M&A team.
White served as chief investment officer at LPL Financial for the past 14 years joining the Carson Group in 2022. Starting in 2017, White oversaw LPL's technology transformation and became a leading figure in rebuilding its technology group. He was closely associated with many representations of its ClientWorks platform.
Carson's wealth management division previously had a long relationship with LPL, using it for custody and brokerage. But the firm had decided moved its affiliation to Cetera in early 2017. In 2018, Ron Carson announced that he would withdraw his personal registration with FINRA and would sign up a limited-purpose broker/dealer to buy legacy, commission-based assets from any of the 80 advisory firms in his Carson Group network that want to go fee-only.
In his role as chief strategy officer at Carson, White was responsible for the firm's growth initiatives in both corporate and investment strategies and the transformation of its investment platform.