Orange County has lost one of its top female executives as Jodi Rolland, former regional managing director for Merrill Lynch & Co., has taken a promotion at the company’s Denver office.
Rolland now is one of six division directors for the investment bank’s 65,000 employees, and the only woman in that position.
“There’s not much further up I can go from here,” Rolland said in a phone in-terview from Denver.
Rolland spent three years as the regional managing director for Merrill in Newport Beach, overseeing 800 employees in 20 offices across Southern California.
Brett Thelander takes over as regional manager in Newport Beach after being promoted from Merrill’s Cleveland office.
Merrill is the county’s largest stock brokerage, offering financial advice and other services to individuals and businesses.
Grown Operation
In the three years that Rolland ran the Southern California region, revenue grew by nearly a third (Merrill doesn’t disclose a specific revenue figure for its local operation). Local assets are $25 billion.
“The amount of progress we made was staggering,” Rolland said.
Rolland, who hails from Thief River Falls, Minn., has been with Merrill for 15 years and served as its national sales director in Princeton, N.J., for almost two years before coming to OC.
Her interest in investing started early on.
While taking night classes and working full-time for a window maker at age 19, Rolland said she invested $5,000 she’d got as a bonus check.
A few weeks later her money was gone. She had been swindled, Rolland said.
“I thought there have to be some honest people out there,” she said.
After graduating from the University of North Dakota with a bachelor’s in financial management, Rolland took a job with Merrill as a financial adviser in Minneapolis.
By the time she was 26, she was managing $125 million for clients.
Rolland’s first three leadership posts with Merrill were in Denver, where for four years she helped the company grow during a difficult market.
Her performance landed her the job of Merrill’s national sales director, where she was groomed for higher leadership positions, she said.
Oversees 12 States
As a division director, Rolland oversees 12 states and almost 3,000 employees in Merrill’s Rocky Mountain division.
Her position was created when Merrill decided to expand from four divisions to six.
Rolland’s new duties involve coaching managers, marketing and creating strategy and giving speeches, she said.
Her new title puts her at the same level as her old boss Greg Mech, who is based in Newport Beach as Merrill’s division director for the West Coast.
Mech brought on Thelander as regional managing director.
Thelander’s title is one of 27 in the company. He’ll oversee managers in OC, San Diego and Palm Springs.
Thelander, 42, has been with Merrill for 14 years and spent the past two years as a managing director in its Cleveland office.
He got his first job with Merrill in his hometown of Denver, and later moved up the company ranks while working in Oklahoma.
He said he doesn’t plan to change much in OC and will continue where Rolland left off.
“Jodi left the business in great shape,” he said. “The group here is really well known in our organization.”
Bigger Market
Compared to Cleveland, OC has a larger pool of rich people to cater to, he said.
Having easier access to Merrill’s specialists in estate planning, trust work and retirement will help in serving his clients, he said.
“We used to do a lot over conference calls. Out here it’s close by,” he said.
Merrill’s private banking and investment group for customers with $10 million or more is something Thelander didn’t have in Cleveland, he said.
His biggest challenge is educating people about all that Merrill has, he said.
“It’s about getting all the pieces to work with the client,” Thelander said.
