Citywire RIA reported on November 10, 2026 that Merit Financial Advisors has brought in Heather Zack to lead a private wealth unit, which Merit's own announcement describes as newly created. According to Citywire RIA, Zack will be responsible for equipping Merit with the services and tools to serve clients with $10 million or more in investable assets, with a structure resembling a multi-family office.
InvestmentNews also reported the appointment on the same day, describing the job as building out ultra-high-net-worth services at a time when enterprise RIAs are competing beyond scale. Merit's own announcement says Zack joined the firm on November 2, 2026, and reports to Alex Hansen, Merit's Chief Advisor Success Officer.
Merit's announcement states that Zack most recently held the title of senior vice president and private client services solutions strategist at Carson Group, and that she shared leadership of the firm's private client business while contributing to building its ultra-high-net-worth infrastructure. Before Carson, she spent 14 years at Commonwealth Financial Network, rising from the advanced planning team to director of high net worth services. The release also says she is an attorney by training and works with the Ultra High Net Worth Institute.
Merit Financial Group, LLC, which does business as Merit Financial Advisors, supports both independent broker-dealer and RIA models. The firm's announcement put its assets under management at about $32.92 billion as of September 12, 2026, including $25.6 billion in advisory assets, $2.5 billion in brokerage, $3.02 billion in employer plans and $1.8 billion in ESOP assets. The same release says Merit has more than 70 offices and has completed 63 acquisitions. Those figures measure assets, not prices or revenue. A profile citing a June 8, 2026 SEC Form ADV filing lists a different figure, about $23.9 billion in regulatory AUM, so the two bases should not be compared directly. Merit's current releases give its headquarters as Atlanta, while older filings list Alpharetta, Georgia.
Merit has been expanding its wealth business through acquisitions. In January 2026, according to Financial Advisor magazine, Merit acquired the wealth team of SSC CPAs + Advisors. Financial Advisor magazine also reported that Zack noted certain Merit-acquired businesses already work with very affluent households, and called the new unit essential to the firm. Earlier deals include the November 2025 acquisition of Blueprint Wealth Advisors, which added $1.2 billion in assets and entered Chicago, and the February 2026 addition of GlennCo, a Newtown, Pa., firm with about $208 million in assets, according to Merit's releases. Wealth Management reported that Merit received a minority investment in December 2020 from Wealth Partners Capital Group and other strategic backers, with HGGC's Aspire Holdings platform leading that group. Other profiles give conflicting ownership details, so ownership is not settled here.
Zack's hiring comes as Merit plans to build out its offering with outside partners. Merit's release says the private wealth offering will rely on trust and estate, private banking and philanthropic providers. Financial Advisor magazine reported that Zack said hiring private wealth specialists is a medium-term step, to follow a review of talent already inside Merit. Carson, which she left for Merit, describes itself as managing more than $57 billion in assets for more than 60,000 client families, according to a CB Insights profile. Commonwealth, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, says it partners with more than 2,000 independent advisors.