Les Smith, a former Detroit Tigers minor-league prospect who once shared a clubhouse with future MLB stars Eugenio Suárez and Nick Castellanos, has left Edward Jones after 11 years to join LPL Financial. Smith launched Smith Complete Wealth in Spring Hill, Tennessee, with approximately $135 million in client assets already moved onto LPL’s platform.
Smith departed Edward Jones in April with roughly $185 million in total client assets, including about $125 million in fee-based accounts. As of now, $135 million has been transferred to Smith Complete Wealth, with $110 million in fee-based assets. He expects total client assets to reach $165 million once pending transfers and annuities are fully processed.
“LPL is anti cookie-cutter, which I love,” Smith told InvestmentNews. “My investment management style is that I'm big into individual equities, I'm not a big product guy.” He emphasized LPL’s tools for block trading and holding concentrated positions in stocks like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Tesla. “Having that flexibility, autonomy, discretionary trading is huge—that allows me to be a faster, more efficient advisor.”
Smith Complete Wealth includes four support staff and one other advisor, Clay Mallard, who had been registered with Raymond James since 2022. Mallard previously worked with Smith at Edward Jones. Smith joined Edward Jones in 2015 at age 24, after a baseball career that saw him drafted in the 27th round by the Detroit Tigers in 2010 and playing two minor-league seasons as an outfielder.
Smith cited LPL’s true independence as a key factor. “They allowed me to pick what financial planning software I wanted, what tax planning software I wanted. I didn't feel that LPL was going to get any handcuffs.” He also noted LPL’s RIA channel as a future option for his team.
At Edward Jones, Smith built his practice organically by “knocking on doors for six years” in Spring Hill, a Nashville suburb. Upon leaving, he was generating $1.525 million in annual production, ranked in the top 1,500 of 21,000 advisors firmwide, and was top three in gross production for his region while servicing 430 households.
“I think Edward Jones was a great place to start for me, I think I needed that brand name behind me, but over time I just simply outgrew the firm,” said Smith, now 36. “I had a burning desire to be able to do more for clients and be able to truly look out for their best interest, instead of hitting quotas.”
Smith’s move comes amid a broader trend of advisor departures from Edward Jones. A report from Muriel Consulting found that advisor exits from the firm rose to 1,458 in 2025, the highest in five years and a 35% increase from 2024. Edward Jones has also reduced home-office staff and outsourced support roles to India. Smith described the firm’s evolution as slow: “It was like trying to turn the Titanic.”
Smith draws parallels between baseball and wealth management. “I know it's a numbers game, and as long as I continue to have bats, all I need is to get three out 10 hits to be a Hall of Famer,” he said. He now coaches his son and other children in the Spring Hill Little League.
For advisors considering similar moves, platforms like Dispatch are emerging to automate transitions, citing a 16.2% rise in advisor mobility. Meanwhile, LPL and Raymond James have added $1.14 billion in combined assets from recent recruits, including former Edward Jones advisors.
