Here Are the Top 1200 US Financial Advisors of 2025
3 min
The nation’s Top 1,200 Financial Advisors grew their way to a new milestone.
The advisory teams that made it into this year’s ranking reported total assets under management of $6.1 trillion, for an average of $5.1 billion per team—both record highs for the dozen years during which Barron’s has ranked the Top 1,200. Last year’s ranking had $5.6 trillion in total AUM and $4.6 billion average AUM per team. In the past decade, the 1,200 cohort has increased its total AUM by 135% and its average revenue by 147%.
Amid all the growth, several advisors made big moves in this year’s rankings, including W Janet Dougherty of Cresset in Chicago, who re-entered the ranking at No. 37 in Illinois after moving from J.P. Morgan . Meanwhile, Ash Chopra of Syon Capital in San Francisco jumped 47 spots in California to No. 47; Hillary Cullen of UBS Private Wealth Management in New York rose 20 spots to No. 77; and Jon Neuhaus of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management in Los Angeles moved up 14 spots to No. 6 in California. Fourteen percent of the Top 1,200 advisors didn’t appear in the ranking last year.
Teams Are a Trend
Top advisory practices have ridden a wave of healthy markets, but that is only part of the growth story. Whereas a decade ago many of the best advisors were sole practitioners with modest support staff, now advisors are working in increasingly complex team configurations.
These teams are allowing advisors to provide an array of wealth management services in addition to the investing expertise that usually sits at the heart of their offerings. As teams acquire more skill in estate planning, taxes, lending, and other value-adds, they are attracting and retaining more business.
For investors looking for a new financial advisor, the trend toward expansive teams is good news. For starters, larger teams have built-in redundancy that helps with succession in the event that advisors depart the practice. A team structure also creates a great training environment for younger, more diverse wealth managers—a wellspring of workers who will be sorely needed in the coming years.
As many of the advisors who built the nation’s best teams enter the late innings of their careers, an advisor shortage is brewing. A recent McKinsey study says the advisor workforce may be short 100,000 advisors by 2034.
How We Do It
The Top 1,200 is Barron’s largest advisor ranking, and it’s actually 51 individual rankings—one for each state plus Washington, D.C., with the number of advisors represented in each determined by its relative population and wealth. Advisors who wish to be considered for the ranking complete a 100-plus-question survey about their businesses, and this year’s ranking had more than 7,600 applicants, up 16% from last year.
Like all of Barron’s advisor rankings, this Top 1,200 list uses both quantitative and qualitative measures . Client assets managed by an advisor, along with the growth of those assets, are a good signifier of the general health of a practice. We also use advisors’ revenue numbers as a proxy for client satisfaction—clients vote on the way advisors are serving them with the fees they’re willing to pay. Last, we evaluate a range of qualitative elements, including regulatory records, advanced credentials and designations on a team, and the nature and structure of an advisor’s team.
We hope this year’s list will give investors a great starting point for finding the best advisor for their needs.
Corrections & Amplifications : Jack Taylor of Truist Investment Services is No. 6 in North Carolina in Barron’s 2025 Top 1,200 Financial Advisors ranking. The advisor originally listed in that spot was removed from the ranking. All the other advisors ranked in that state moved up one place, and R. Neil Stikeleather of Merrill Wealth Management was added to the list at No. 30. Read more about our ranking and see a link to the corrected list at barrons.com/AdvisorRanks .
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The Federal Budget may have softened some of its proposed tax reforms, but it has exposed a bigger issue: too many families are relying on wealth structures that no longer reflect the realities of modern life.
3 min
For many Australians, the 2026 Federal Budget initially felt like a direct challenge to the way wealth is created, held and transferred between generations.
The headlines were immediate: changes to capital gains tax, reforms to discretionary trusts, restrictions on negative gearing and increased scrutiny of investment structures. Unsurprisingly, affluent families, business owners and investors began asking the same question:
Is the way we hold our wealth still fit for purpose?
In recent days, the government has announced several significant amendments following industry consultation and public feedback, including exempting testamentary trusts from the proposed 30 per cent minimum tax and expanding capital gains tax concessions for small businesses.
The backdown is welcome. But it also highlights something much bigger.
This Budget has accelerated a conversation that many Australian families have been postponing for years.
The conversation is not really about tax. It is about wealth stewardship.
For decades, Australians have built wealth through businesses, property, investments and careful long-term planning. Yet many families have not revisited the legal structures surrounding those assets in years, sometimes decades.
We often see clients who have spent years building significant wealth, only to discover their legal arrangements no longer reflect their current circumstances.
Their children are now adults. They may own multiple properties.
They may have sold a business, entered a second marriage, become grandparents or accumulated digital assets that did not exist when their original estate plans were prepared.
The trust that distributes income may need to be reconsidered. The bucket company may no longer be so attractive.
The Budget has simply exposed a reality that already existed: wealth structures cannot remain static while life continues to evolve.
Importantly, trusts themselves are not the issue.
Trusts are legitimate planning tools that provide flexibility, protection and continuity. When used appropriately, they allow families to adapt to changing circumstances over time.
And neither is tax the issue, really. Getting the fundamentals right is more important for long-term, sustainable wealth than a few favourable tax treatments around the edges.
The real issue is complacency.
Too often, families create structures and assume the job is done. It isn’t.
Estate planning is no longer a document you sign once and file away in a drawer. It is an ongoing process that should evolve alongside your life.
We are also seeing a broader shift in how Australians define wealth itself. It is no longer just the family home and an investment portfolio.
Modern wealth includes businesses, digital assets, cryptocurrency, intellectual property, frequent flyer points and increasingly complex family arrangements.
At the same time, Australians are living longer than ever before, meaning wealth may need to support multiple generations simultaneously. This creates new responsibilities and new risks.
How do you help your children enter the property market without exposing family wealth to relationship breakdowns?
How do you structure wealth so that it remains a source of opportunity rather than future conflict?
These are the questions families should be asking now.
The recent debate surrounding testamentary trusts also serves as an important reminder that policy decisions can have unintended consequences for vulnerable Australians. It is encouraging that the government has listened to feedback and clarified its position.
But the lesson remains: the wealth landscape is changing.
Increasingly, governments, regulators and tax authorities are paying closer attention to how wealth is held and transferred. That means families cannot afford to adopt a “set-and-forget” approach to their structures.
The families who will be best placed for the future are not necessarily those with the greatest wealth.
They are the families with the greatest clarity. Clarity around ownership, succession and governance. And clarity around how wealth will transition from one generation to the next.
Ultimately, preserving wealth is not about avoiding change.
It is about preparing for it.
Because the greatest risk is not change itself.
It is losing the ability to respond to it.
Anthony Hunt is Co-Founder of Wealth Lawyers and former COO of Westpac Private Bank. He advises business owners, investors and affluent Australian families on wealth protection, succession planning and intergenerational wealth transfer
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