The registered investment advisor model is like a magnet attracting people from the ranks of broker-dealer and wirehouse firms, and it grabbed another one with the recent announcement that certified financial planner Chad Bester has left Wells Fargo Advisors and joined Mount Yale Investment Advisors LLC, a Minneapolis-based RIA.

For Mount Yale, the plan is that Bester will be just the first of many advisors who join its platform designed to attract wirehouse, broker-dealer or independent advisors who want to operate as fiduciaries.

Bester Wealth Management is a three-person team in Minneapolis that managed roughly $300 million in assets at Wells Fargo. Mount Yale Investment Advisors is owned by Mount Yale Capital Group LLC, which provides portfolio design, asset management and investment product development services to financial advisors. It says it advises on $2.9 billion in assets.

Chad Bester and Mount Yale Chairman and CEO John Sabre were introduced to each other about a year ago, and they began informal discussions that eventually led to a collaboration.

In an interview, Bester, who began at Wells Fargo as in intern 22 years ago, said he was looking for a place where he could take his practice to the next level, and that topic was the gist of the initial conversation he had with Sabre.

“It began with a casual discussion where I said I was looking for options, and we were just exploring ideas. I expected to wind up at another wirehouse because that’s all I’ve known,” Bester said.

But as they talked, Bester said he realized that Mount Yale’s investment capabilities could help him better serve a high-net-worth clientele. And Sabre said he learned a lot about the client-centric service model from Bester. The pair had ongoing discussions during the past year on how they could work together to both grow Bester’s practice and build a platform to attract other advisors.

“Over the past several years we’ve been hearing from people we’ve talked to, particularly at wirehouses and broker-dealers, who said their clients will expect them to be a fiduciary and they need to get to the RIA world,” Sabre said. “We thought that given how we function—we’ve always been fiduciaries—that we could be a landing spot for people who are looking for that.”

He noted that Mount Yale’s platform offers services ranging from investment management to technology and marketing.

“We have an open-architecture way in how people can affiliate with us,” Sabre said. “We’ve designed it so whether you’re younger and want to grow your practice or you’re older and want to develop an exit strategy or somewhere in-between, we have an open-architecture version of how you can affiliate with our firm.”

Bester joins Mount Yale as an equity partner and senior vice president of investments. As a member of the firm’s executive leadership team, he’s helping to craft Mount Yale’s vision to bring additional advisors to the fold via its Advisor Partners platform.

“Growth through acquisition or growth through recruitment is clearly part of our strategy,” Sabre said. “But first we wanted to make sure that we had the landing spot here, and it took us a year to work it out with Chad.”

Bester officially joined Mount Yale in late June, and his arrival was formally announced yesterday. He comes to Mount Yale as an employee of Mount Yale Investment Advisors’ RIA, and his team continues to operate as Bester Wealth Management.