Firm profile

For 100 years, Edward Jones has worked to create a better future for our clients and their families and communities in the U.S. and Canada, one relationship at a time.

Our advice is based on a disciplined, established process that centers on our clients, who are individual investors, and the goals they're trying to achieve.

Each client benefits from a personalized relationship with their financial advisor, who is supported by the resources of a Fortune 500 firm. Every aspect of the firm’s business – from the types of products and services we offer to the locations of our branch offices – is designed to cater to individual investors in the communities in which they live and work. This business model has helped fuel remarkable growth for the firm and helped clients realize the possibilities for their futures.

Our impact

With more than 15,000 locations in North America, Edward Jones has more branch offices throughout the United States than any other brokerage firm in the country. The company’s growth has been extraordinary: Annual revenue has grown from $16 million in 1977 to more than $9.3 billion today. We employ more than 50,000 people, including nearly 19,000 dedicated and passionate financial advisors to serve, educate and support more than 8 million clients in achieving what matters most to them.

Our philosophy

The firm’s investment philosophy – investing for the long term in quality investments aligned with our clients' goals and risk tolerance – appeals to clients who value clear and straightforward guidance as they work toward long-term goals. Our branch-office business model allows financial advisors to discuss personalized strategies with each individual client, with the goal of developing long-lasting relationships to help keep them on track toward their goals.

Our financial advisors

In addition to career financial advisors, Edward Jones financial advisors come from a variety of professions, including engineering, banking and education. They take the time to get to know our clients and think like them, not just about them – helping them navigate their financial journeys. 

Firm leadership

Penny Pennington, Managing Partner

Our history

Edward D. Jones Sr. founded the firm that bears his name in 1922. Through the 1940s, the company was typical of most New York Stock Exchange firms, with this distinction: Representatives from Edward Jones were called “TNT brokers” because they traveled the countryside surrounding the company’s office in St. Louis from Tuesday to Thursday, serving clients in rural Missouri and Illinois.

In 1948, Edward D. “Ted” Jones Jr., son of the founder, returned to the family business after studying agriculture at the University of Missouri and working on Wall Street. While working his territory in rural Missouri and Illinois, he began experimenting with the concept of locating branch offices in communities outside St. Louis. In 1957, he hired a representative in Mexico, Mo., and with the opening of this first branch office, a new era began.

In the 1970s, firm leaders realized the appeal of Edward Jones was not based on rural geography. The firm appeals to a certain kind of investor anywhere. The firm began expanding into metropolitan areas, starting with Chicago and Dallas. Today, more than 70% of Edward Jones branch offices are in urban and suburban markets.

By 1980, the branch-office network had grown to 304 branch offices nationwide. It was then that Ted Jones handed the reins of the firm to John Bachmann, who served as managing partner until December 2003. John began his Edward Jones career in 1959 as a college intern, sweeping out the basement of the firm’s headquarters. He was a successful financial advisor in the 1960s before returning to the home office, where he gained experience in a number of areas before being named managing partner in 1980.

Under Bachmann’s leadership, the firm built on its philosophy of serving the needs of serious, long-term individual investors from one-financial advisor branch offices and moved to the forefront of the industry in terms of technology and training. Those closest to Bachmann throughout his career credit his vision, strategic focus, leadership and commitment to Edward Jones’ culture for making the firm one of the best places to work in America.

Douglas E. Hill, chief operating officer from 1998 through 2003 and managing partner in 2004 and 2005, continued the firm’s tradition of bringing personal investment services to an ever-increasing number of individual investors in communities across the country. With the firm’s nationally recognized training program, which Hill helped develop after having been a successful financial advisor, Edward Jones is training about 100 new financial advisors each month. This growth ensures the firm has the opportunity to continue offering investments tailored to the needs of individual investors in the communities in which they live and work.

In 2006, Jim Weddle became the firm’s fifth managing partner and served in that role through December of 2018. Weddle spent his entire career at Edward Jones, starting as an intern and then successful financial advisor. As a principal in the home office, Weddle later assumed responsibility for the firm’s growth on the East Coast and next managed the firm’s branch offices in late 1997.

Under Weddle’s leadership as managing partner, the firm grew from about 10,000 financial advisors to more than 17,000 throughout North America. Weddle also led the firm to become an industry leader in listening and better understanding what clients value and applying a solutions-based approach that shifts the focus from the product to individual client needs. Now a Fortune 500 firm, Edward Jones is the largest U.S. financial services firm in number of financial advisors, consistently ranked a best place to work.

Penny Pennington became the firm’s sixth managing partner in 2019. Pennington left a successful banking career to join the firm in 2000 as a financial advisor in Livonia, MI. In 2006, she was named a principal and relocated to the firm’s St. Louis headquarters, where she held leadership roles in New Financial Advisor training and then in developing branch teams of financial advisors and branch office administrators in the regions. In 2015 she began to lead the Client Strategies Group, the area of the firm that most directly supports the client experience.

As managing partner, Penny is responsible for the firm’s strategic direction, working with more than 50,000 associates in the U.S. and Canada to make a meaningful difference in the lives of more than 7 million clients by helping them achieve their most important financial goals.

Throughout 2022, Edward Jones will celebrate its Centennial across the communities it serves throughout North America, with virtual and in-person events, connections to philanthropic and community efforts, and much more.

Our Purpose

We partner for positive impact to improve the lives of our clients and colleagues, and together, better our communities and society.

For more facts and figures specific to Edward Jones Canada, download this fact sheet.