Investire | February 2026
Managers in financial advisor networks and banks have essentially three missions.
The first is to act as a link between the bank’s top management and those on the front lines. This is not simply a coordination and command role, but a crucial junction ensuring a single direction aimed at achieving a company’s strategy and objectives.
The second mission is to provide concrete support to their team. Simply leading isn’t enough. To be credible and therefore accepted by their team, managers must be able to roll up their sleeves and, if necessary, get their hands dirty, in times of need or on crucial occasions for the company’s success.
This is why the most successful managers are those who have worked their way up, starting from scratch, demonstrating that they know how to do the job for which they are now called upon to manage other colleagues.
Respect is earned on the field, a bit like the figure of Maximus Decimus Meridius, the protagonist of Gladiator, in the scene where, despite being the commander, he is on the front line alongside his men.
Teamwork also has a significant impact on retaining top professionals, preventing them from switching sides.
A manager’s third mission is to recruit talent from other networks and other banks. A successful recruiter is therefore a manager who knows how to convey their value not only within the organization they coordinate, but also externally, to professionals from other banks or networks.
Managers’ reputations precede them. Considering that they are professionals rooted in a specific area or region, and that the financial consulting sector is relatively small, when a banker or financial advisor from another bank decides to accept even an initial interview, they consult acquaintances and social media, thus leaving no room for improvised managers.
The three aforementioned missions alone would be enough to demonstrate that one cannot improvise as a manager.
But there is a fourth mission, or rather, an effect of the first three, that we discovered empirically during an analysis of customer satisfaction at a major bank.
Customer satisfaction—all other characteristics being equal—changes statistically significantly depending on whether the clients were located in a geographical area managed by one manager versus another.
The difference is not due to a sociocultural or geographical variable, so much so that in the same region—for example, Lombardy or Lazio—customers with the same characteristics expressed very different levels of satisfaction with the bank.
Subsequent analyses led us to a seemingly surprising conclusion: a manager’s ability to manage, motivate, and support their advisors also had a direct effect on the satisfaction of their end clients.
The advisor’s ability to satisfy their clients therefore depends—upstream—on their manager’s ability to motivate and support them.
The success of an entire bank depends on the management approach chosen: in addition to sales results, it would be a good idea to analyze advisor satisfaction; this would help us understand who is on the right track and who is not.
Nicola Ronchetti