Dave Barton, vice chairman of M&A at Mercer Global Advisors, one of the nation’s largest and most acquisitive registered investment advisors, has retired.
Barton, 58, stepped away from the company to concentrate his energy on an ongoing health issue, the company confirmed. Martine Lellis, the firm’s former chief talent officer until she was promoted to principal of M&A partner development in May, will take on Barton’s role.
“I am deeply proud to have played a role in Mercer Advisors’ substantial evolution and growth over the past 25 years,” Barton said in a statement. “I remain a committed shareholder with a strong belief in the company’s mission and future. I have full confidence in the company and my colleagues as they partner with advisors to help them achieve the success they envision for their firm.”
Under Barton’s leadership in M&A, Mercer has completed 89 deals—over 10 a year, on average—representing $41 billion in assets under management since 2016.
That includes the 2022 acquisition of Regis Management Company, a $4.4 billion RIA with offices in San Francisco and Menlo Park, Calif., the firm’s largest deal to date.
Before devoting himself full-time to acquisitions, Barton spent nine years as CEO of Mercer. He stepped down from that role in 2017, wanting to spend more time on dealmaking than management. Dave Welling, who previously led performance reporting behemoth Black Diamond, succeeded him as chief executive. Since that transition, the firm has grown from just under $10 billion in AUM to about $64 billion. Barton was twice named RIA M&A Leader of the Year by the judges for the WealthManagement.com Industry Awards, first in 2018 and most recently in 2024.
“This is a moment where there’s both respect and reverence for all the things that Dave contributed to the business but also immense confidence in the team we have and where we are as a business,” Welling said. “I think Mercer’s become bigger than any one person. We’ve built a platform that people are attracted to, and attracted an enormous amount of talent over the past several years to amplify what the business was when I joined.”
Barton joined Mercer in 2000 as general counsel, with subsequent roles as president and chief operating officer. Before Mercer, he worked as a trial attorney in California. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Irvine, and a J.D. from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
He became chief executive in 2008 and was the architect of Mercer’s integrated wealth management model, which brought multiple client services together under one roof. That includes financial planning, investment management, estate planning, tax, and insurance, often acquiring smaller practices with the established business lines and executives Mercer needed.
“When we call ourselves an integrator, not an aggregator, people are joining the team and joining that vision,” Welling said. “It’s far more than operational integration; it’s a belief that the consumer deserves a better wealth management experience and deserves more value, and that the consumer does not want to be the one in the middle of trying to coordinate conversations between their tax advisor, their estate planning attorney, their financial planner, and their investment manager, and others.”
Under Barton, Mercer was among the earliest independent RIAs to elevate M&A activity from pursuing one-off deals to institutionalizing the process with a full-time team to find and vet target firms, structure deals and onboard the acquired advisors. In February, the RIA hired five new executives for the M&A partner development and integration teams.
That includes Andy Burgess, former regional director of business development at NewEdge Advisors; Greg Mayes, former vice president of strategic business development at LPL Financial; and Jay Robinson, former managing director at Schwab. Lellis, now overseeing M&A partner development, said Mercer has over 40 deals in the pipeline—though not all will be finalized.
Mercer also added Stacy Orff, former managing director and head of marketing at DeVoe & Company, as a vice president of platform marketing and Jeff Dadamo, a former executive at Dimensional Fund Advisors, as senior director of M&A investment integration.
Mercer Global Advisors was founded in 1985 as a fee-only financial planning firm by estate planning attorney Kendrick Mercer.
“Dave led this by himself in the early years, and he was an incredibly capable one-man band,” Welling said. “But now we’ve built an orchestra of folks who help ensure that not only do we have the right conversations with potential partners, but we’re positioned to help those partners realize their dreams when they become part of Mercer.”
