Client Case Study · Advisor Recruiting

How Xcelsior Advisor PartnersPowers National RIA Recruiting Strategy with FINTRX

Xcelsior Advisor PartnersAdvisor Recruiting

Overview

Xcelsior Advisors Partners is an independent RIA platform built to help financial advisors break away from wirehouse and regional broker-dealer environments and build their own practices on their own terms. The firm handles the operational infrastructure - compliance, technology, vendor management, transitions, and even branding - so advisors can focus on clients from day one. In exchange, Xcelsior takes a 15% platform fee, giving advisors an 85% payout, one of the more competitive structures in the independent space.

Unlike larger aggregators, advisors on the platform are not locked into proprietary models or mandated technology. They can use any product or service that fits their practice. The firm is in an active growth phase, with recruiting at the center of its strategy. Max Rathman, National Director of Branch Development, leads that effort - identifying, engaging, and converting breakaway advisor candidates across the country. As Xcelsior expands into new cities and states, the ability to prospect precisely and efficiently has become a core operational priority.

Max-Rathman — **Max Rathman**National Director of Branch Management

Before FINTRX

The Challenges Before FINTRX

Before adopting FINTRX, Max Rathman, National Director of Branch Development at Xcelsior Advisor Partners, relied on personal relationships and third-party database that had grown increasingly limited. Turning a raw list of names into a shortlist of qualified candidates required hours of manual research, slowing the recruiting process before outreach even began.

No Depth Behind the Names

The firm's previous database provider surfaced advisors by name and location but lacked the depth of context needed to make outreach count. Filtering to the right firm types, advisor tenures, and credentials was just the starting point.

Hours of Pre-Call Research Before Outreach

After pulling a list, Max would manually cross-reference LinkedIn profiles, team websites, and firm information to build enough context to have a meaningful first conversation.

No Way to Assess Fit Without Extensive Legwork

Identifying whether an advisors was actually worth calling required piecing together signals from multiple places - tenure at the current firm, team structure, certification, and background. There was no single place where that picture came together.

Prospecting Driven by Guesswork

Without consolidated intelligence, identifying high-probability candidates meant relying on incomplete data. Even basic signals—like advisor tenure—required manual validation, slowing down his ability to prioritize the right outreach.

Spreadsheet-Based Workflow That Did Not Scale

Managing candidates meant maintaining and updating spreadsheets built from data pulled across multiple sources. As Xcelsior's recruiting ambitions expanded nationally, that approach was not going to hold.

The Decision

Why They Chose FINTRX

Xcelsior Advisor Partners turned to FINTRX to replace a fragmented, manual recruiting process with something far more targeted. Max needed a way to quickly isolate advisors who fit his exact criteria—tenure, structure, and business model—without relying on stitched-together data or gut instinct. More importantly, he needed those signals to be consistent across every search, not something he had to re-validate one name at a time.

With FINTRX

Results & Impact

With FINTRX in place, research is no longer the bottleneck. Candidate validation happens upfront, giving the firm a clearer starting point before outreach even begins. That shift has changed how Max and his team spend their time—less focused on qualifying lists, more focused on engaging the right advisors with relevant context. The result is a more deliberate recruiting process, where outreach is driven by fit and timing, not just availability.

Verified Impact 01

Research Time Cut Down

What once required hours of cross-referencing across databases, LinkedIn, and firm websites is now handled in a single workflow—eliminating the manual effort that previously slowed down candidate validation and early-stage outreach.

Verified Impact 02

Smarter Filtering That Reflects How We Recruits

Max filters by geography, firm type, and tenure to mirror how he actually evaluates recruiting opportunities. Time at the current firm has become a key input, helping him isolate advisors who are more likely to engage—something that previously required manual validation and couldn’t be applied consistently across a list.

Verified Impact 03

Built-In Context That Translates to Better Conversations

The individual advisor summaries in FINTRX have become central to Max's call preparation. As he put it, "the quick summary story on each candidate is my lifeblood...I love to see their story and incorporate it into my call somehow." That level of personalization, he noted, translates directly to better conversations.

Verified Impact 04

Immediate Time-to-Value

Max was up and running with meaningful lists on his first day using the platform. He identified the five key filters he needed, built his initial lists, and moved into outreach without a lengthy ramp period.

Verified Impact 05

A Platform the Firm Sees as Critical Infrastructure

Max pushed for FINTRX to solve a specific problem: getting from broad lists to actionable recruiting targets without the manual lift. It’s now central to that workflow—powering how he identifies, filters, and prioritizes opportunities as the firm expands. Max explained, “I don’t know how I would do it without it.”