Adam Malamed is a seasoned executive, entrepreneur, private investor, board director, and senior advisor in the financial services industry with over 26 years of experience. Throughout his career he has honed his expertise in directing high-impact growth strategies, leading organizations through complex business cycles, and creating short- and long-term vision. His distinctive skillset has resulted in the development and execution of strategic initiatives that have driven long-term sustainable revenue and earnings growth broadly applied across an enterprise. As a former senior executive of a public company, he has demonstrated his ability to create significant value for both shareholders and stakeholders by aligning corporate strategy, organic growth initiatives, mergers and acquisitions, and capital-raising activities.
Public Company Executive and Leadership Experience
Most recently, Mr. Malamed served from January 2012 to February 2020 as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE American: LTS), a publicly traded diversified financial services company headquartered in Miami, Florida. He also served as a member of the company’s Board of Directors from September 2018 until February 2020. From 2006 to 2012 Mr. Malamed was the Co-Chief Operating Officer of Ladenburg’s investment bank and helped drive Ladenburg’s acquisition strategy to become a leader in the independent advisory and brokerage industry. Under his executive leadership, Ladenburg’s revenue grew over 40 times from approximately $35 million to $1.5 billion, while its enterprise value grew from $165 million in 2006 to a total valuation of $1.3 billion, when the company was successfully sold for $1.3 billion to Advisor Group, a portfolio company of Reverence Capital Partners, a leading financial services-focused private equity firm.
Ladenburg was engaged in independent advisory and brokerage services, investment banking, equity research, institutional sales and trading, asset management services, and life insurance brokerage through its principal subsidiaries, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc., Highland Capital Brokerage, Inc., Investacorp, Inc., Triad Advisors, Inc., Securities America, Inc., KMS Financial Services, Inc., and Securities Service Network, Inc. At the time of its acquisition by Advisor Group in February 2020, Ladenburg had over 4,400 independent financial advisors across the country, $180 billion in client assets, $80 billion of managed assets, and $100 million of adjusted EBITDA.
During his tenure at Ladenburg Mr. Malamed led strategic growth and operational initiatives for the firm’s five independent advisory and brokerage subsidiaries, their insurance brokerage unit, and their investment banking division. Additionally, Mr. Malamed spearheaded all enterprise-wide collaborative projects, with an emphasis on identifying and implementing growth strategies by aligning capabilities and expertise across diverse corporate functions, teams, and subsidiaries. He helped to create strategies to enhance synergistic growth opportunities and operational efficiencies across all subsidiaries at the firm. Utilizing his extensive experience in both the financial advice and capital markets businesses, he helped lead Ladenburg through the acquisitions of their five Independent Advisory and Brokerage firms that made up the core of the company’s retail financial advice organization, their entry into the insurance and annuity businesses, and their enhanced wealth management product and services offering.
Previously, from 2002 to 2006, Mr. Malamed served as President and Co-Founder of BroadWall Capital, a boutique capital markets focused firm that specialized in providing equity research in the utilities and energy sectors to institutional clients including hedge funds and mutual funds. BroadWall sold their assets to Ladenburg in 2006 which led to Mr. Malamed serving in his executive role at the company. Mr. Malamed started his career as a financial advisor for GBI Capital in 1994 and then served as a managing director for the firm’s private client services division.
Professional Expertise and Business Philosophy
Mr. Malamed is an innovative, future-ready thinker focused on building strategic initiatives that create long-term sustainable value to an organization. He has proven to be an effective leader driving collaboration and growth initiatives through complex situations in both de-centralized and matrix environments. Mr. Malamed delivers results for clients and is a strong advocate for his customers’ base. As an executive leader, he drives and empowers his team to success. He is an astute developer of talent who creates a culture of ever-learning, and data and wisdom-based decision making. He is committed to creating authentic and effective partnerships with all executives, employees, and strategic colleagues with whom he works. Mr. Malamed requires a shared belief system built on unimpeachable ethics and integrity, delivered through transparency and accountability.
Additional Experiences, Education, and Personal Details
Mr. Malamed currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Miami Country Day School, a leading independent school in South Florida, the Miami Children’s Museum, and Invest in Others, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering financial advisors to give back to their communities.
Mr. Malamed has a B.A. in Business Management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and completed the Harvard Business School General Management Program (GMP). He holds Series 4, 7, 9, 10, 24, 63, 79 and 87 securities licenses.
Mr. Malamed was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1972 and resides in Miami, Florida with his wife, Jackie. They are the parents of two sons, Benjamin and Grayson. He enjoys the outdoors and his hobbies include deep sea fishing, free diving and spearfishing, skiing, hiking, biking, and practicing Jiu-Jitsu, where today he is a brown belt and hopes to attain his black belt over the next 3 years.
