Good Life Companies, a Reading, Pennsylvania-based network of independent advisors that includes an RIA and a major firm affiliated with LPL Financial, has opened a second headquarters in Celebration, Florida, a suburb of Orlando and a community developed by The Walt Disney Company.

The new location will open later this year and will house Good Life founder and CEO Conor Delaney, as well as other C-suite executives, consultant recruitment and marketing. Sean Mest, senior director of operations, will lead the Reading office.

“As we've expanded our workforce, we see this as a great opportunity to bring new talent into the company,” Delaney said. “Because we have great universities and schools all within an hour and a half to two hours of here, we can open up new perspectives for the different people we're looking to hire over the next few years.”

Delaney also believes this will help with recruitment as Orlando will be much more accessible for consultants. The new office will be 20 minutes from Orlando Airport, while Reading is an hour and a half from the airport.

“We always felt that if we could bring in consultants to show them what this supported independent business model looks like in Reading, Pennsylvania, we would have a good chance of them taking that leap of faith and joining our independent business model,” he said. “But the challenge was always how do we get them to Reading?”

Delaney founded Good Life in 2012 as a single financial planning practice. Since then, the firm has grown from a founder-led company to one with an executive team and 70 employees in its RIA and a service organization that provides marketing, lead generation, outsourced investment management and virtual administration. The firm's assets under management have grown 180% over the past five years.

The company's core model is to offer a soft entry to consultants coming out of the wirehouses, providing them with real estate, infrastructure, technology, training and support as 1099 independent contractors, but Good Life is also considering adopting a W2 employee model.

In 2021, the company launched a new RIA to attract referrals outside of LPL. This RIA was initially managed by Raymond James and plans to build relationships with five to six additional broker-dealers, but it closed in 2023.

Delaney said his company is committed to working with LPL.