Ruth Papazian, who served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer at LPL Financial, has left the firm.

"As a matter of policy, we do not comment on former employees," said Michael Herley, an LPL spokesman.

According to published reports, Papazian left the firm May 20 for personal reasons.

Papazian is credited with being one of the key architects behind LPL Financial's explosive recruiting growth over the last few years. Not long after the financial crisis in 2008, LPL launched a program developed by Papazian called Clients First, designed to help both reps and new recruits find and convert prospects into clients as well as keep existing ones. Papazian also negotiated an agreement for advisors to access prospecting lists from Walter Karl USA.

Part of the goal, Papazian has said, was to help advisors with prospecting and advertising. The program zeros in on specific topics and allows advisors to target clients with messages based on different client profiles and market segments, including messages that focused on women, retirees, pre-retirees and centers of influence, as well as issues like volatility.  

Less than two years after the Clients First launch, 7,200 advisors out of LPL's approximate 12,000 were using the program and 40% of them were very actively using it.

Papazian's work on the program drew praise from advisors. Last year, Marc Freedman of Freedman Financial in Peabody, Mass., called her "one of the best acquisitions LPL has ever made. He praised her "ability to bring things to life by using technology that lots of advisors can access."