Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T is reshuffling its Canadian wealth management leadership as 40-year bank veteran Alex Besharat announces plans to retire in February, 2026.

On Tuesday, Scotiabank said Mr. Besharat’s year-long retirement path will see certain segments of its Canadian wealth management operation split between two new leaders: Erin Griffiths, who heads client solutions at Scotia’s Canadian wealth management; and Todd Barnes, current head of the bank’s brokerage firm ScotiaMcLeod.

Effective immediately, Ms. Griffiths will move into the role of executive vice-president of Global Wealth Solutions, and continue to oversee the bank’s trading platform Scotia iTrade, as well as Scotiatrust, client services and cultural segmentation, which is a focus on high-net-worth newcomers to Canada. Her new role will expand to include Canadian private banking and global investments solutions.

Mr. Barnes will expand his role at ScotiaMcLeod to include Scotia Wealth Management Private Investment Counsel and Jarislowsky Fraser Private Wealth over the next six months. In September, Mr. Barnes will also assume the role of executive vice-president of Canadian Wealth Management Investment Advisory – a newly created division.

At the same time, John McCartney, Scotia’s current head of investor relations, has been appointed as the new head of ScotiaMcLeod, as of April 14 and will report to Mr. Barnes. That business includes more than 600 ScotiaMcLeod investment advisers.

MD Financial Management – a wealth management advisory business catered toward physicians and their families that Scotia purchased in 2018 – will move under Mr. Barnes’s leadership later this year.

Wealth management has been a key area of growth for all of Canada’s Big Five Banks. Earlier this week, Scotiabank reported its global wealth management business – which includes Canada – earned revenue of $1.6-billion in the first quarter, up 19 per cent year-over-year. The boost in revenue was attributed to higher mutual fund fees, brokerage revenue, and net interest income across both the Canadian and international wealth businesses. Additionally, assets under management climbed 16 per cent year over year to $396-billion.

Jacqui Allard, Scotia group head for global wealth management, said her division as a whole has been the fastest-growing business for the bank for almost a decade.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Ms. Allard said the bank has set out aggressive targets to hit 10-per-cent-plus growth over the next five years. Part of that growth will continue to come from a financial planning strategy launched under Mr. Besharat, called Scotiabank’s Total Wealth Strategy, which saw the bank increase the number of client financial plans by 30 per cent.

Ms. Allard said under the new leadership there is a lot of room for wealth management to expand.

“The biggest driver of household formation in Canada is newcomers – particularly entrepreneurs from cultural markets that are underserved, such as the South Asian community,” she added.

Another area of focus will be services to help clients plan for living longer, combining investment planning discussions related to longevity with health care services and wellness plans.

“If you look at our performance last year, we exceeded our targets just in our first year out for this business,” she said. “So we were ahead of where we expected to be at the end of the year, and we’ve just built an absolute ton of momentum in this business.”

Ms. Allard is now focused on passing Mr. Besharat’s baton. As a rookie adviser in 1986, Mr. Besharat rose through the bank in a number of executive roles, including becoming the head of ScotiaMcLeod in 2014. He was appointed Scotiabank’s head of Canadian wealth management in 2015.

“I feel like Erin and Todd are the two leaders who can really deliver it,” she said. “They’ve been training for these roles for the last 15 years. Alex has been developing them to be successors and not everyone could make this kind of model work but these two absolutely can.”