You Changed Firms: What the Record Still Says About You

When a financial advisor changes firms, the public record does not switch over; it accumulates. The regulator keeps the history on purpose, and the rest of the web keeps it by accident: an old bio page, a directory profile, a conference speaker listing, a Google Business Profile still carrying the former firm's brand. An AI system reading all of that has to decide which affiliation is current, and the advisor's own site is the one place that can settle it.

What the regulator keeps, deliberately

FINRA's BrokerCheck overview says a report includes "the individual's employment history for the last 10 years", inside and outside the securities industry. FINRA Rule 8312 sets what is released, including for people no longer registered, and makes some matters permanent: final regulatory actions, certain criminal matters, investment-related civil injunctions and sales-practice arbitration awards. For an adviser, the SEC's IAPD carries the equivalent registration record.

None of that is a problem to fix. It is the context an accurate answer about you will include. The point is that the regulator's history is ordered and dated, while the rest of the web is not.

What the rest of the web keeps, accidentally

Stale mentions tend to fall into a few groups:

Pages you do not control

The former firm's bio page, its team page, press releases announcing your hire years ago, and old industry directory entries. These can be well established and well linked, which is exactly what makes them persuasive to a system weighing sources.

Profiles you control but forgot

A Google Business Profile named in the old firm's "brand: practitioner" format from Google's practitioner guidelines, a Bing listing synced from it, a LinkedIn headline, a professional association listing.

Your own old content

Articles published under the previous firm's review, PDFs with the old footer, and schema on your personal site that still says worksFor the old firm.

How assistants reconcile a current site against older, better-linked pages that disagree is something we have not measured. It is testable with a dated set of prompts before and after a cleanup, and worth doing that way rather than assuming.

What your site should say after a move

Say it once, plainly, and date it. A bio that states the current firm, the capacity, and the year you joined, and that mentions the previous firm as history, matches the shape of the regulator record rather than contradicting it. Hiding the old firm does not help: the history is public for at least 10 years, and a site that disagrees with BrokerCheck is the less credible source.

Then re-point the identifiers. The CRD number does not change when you move, which is why it is the anchor recommended in the BrokerCheck link FINRA requires. The firm links, the Form CRS link and the regulatory footer all do change, and each is a place for the old firm to linger.

A move checklist

Update the bio with current firm, capacity, start year and a single line of history.
Replace the footer, Form CRS and ADV links, and have the new firm's compliance review the site.
Update worksFor, identifier and sameAs in structured data.
Deal with the Google profile. Google's guidelines say a business whose name change does not meet their criteria is treated as a new business, with the old profile marked closed, so check which case applies before renaming anything, then check Bing.
Ask the former firm to remove or update your bio, and ask directories to update listings.
Run the same questions through a few assistants before and after, and keep the answers with dates.

More on keeping names aligned is in one practitioner, three names and on the AI visibility for financial advisors hub.

Not legal, compliance or investment advice. This describes how AI systems read an advisory practice in public; which rules bind you depends on how you are registered, and your compliance department decides what you publish.

Questions

How long does BrokerCheck show my previous firms?

FINRA says a BrokerCheck report for a currently registered person includes employment history for the last 10 years, both inside and outside the securities industry. Someone whose registration has ended stays on BrokerCheck for 10 years, and longer where certain events such as final regulatory actions or specified criminal matters are on record.

Can I ask my old firm to take down my bio?

You can ask, and it is worth asking, but the old firm controls its own site. What you control is your current site, your listings and the consistency of how you describe the move, which is where the effort pays.

You changed firms. What the record still says, and what your site must say