Ensemble Hits Its Stride Four Years After Its Cooperative-to-Private Transition
With nearly 1,000 advisors in Las Vegas this week, the growth phase is officially underway.
From left: Danny Finkel, Kristina Boyce, Michael Johnson, and Shahla Lalani. Photo: Laura Ratliff
The headline numbers from Ensemble’s Horizons conference this week in Las Vegas were solid: 11% sales growth, a fourth consecutive year of profit-sharing, and 50-plus new agencies added in the past year. But the more telling figure came up almost as an aside. The number-one source of growth for that new agency, President Michael Johnson noted, is member referrals. “That means that not only are our members engaged, but they are out there acting as advocates on our behalf,” he said.
When Ensemble transitioned from a member-owned cooperative to a privately held company in June 2022, the mandate wasn’t growth; it was stabilization. Johnson was deliberate about the sequence. “Had we had 50 agencies join on day one, we wouldn’t have been scaled up to do that justice,” he said. The team spent two-plus years rebuilding before opening the recruiting throttle—overhauling programming, retooling the tech stack, expanding the partner marketplace. Nearly a thousand advisors attended Horizons this week (roughly double the count from Miami two years ago), with about 40% at their first-ever Ensemble conference.
The fourth consecutive profit-sharing payment, announced last week, reflects a transparency about earnings that Ensemble has made central to its pitch. Members know what they can earn and when the check arrives—and Johnson noted that visibility is rare. “We take great pride in being one of the more transparent consortia about what our members can earn and when they will get it,” he said.
With roughly 120 new preferred partners added over the past year, Ensemble has introduced a three-tier structure—strategic, preferred, and approved—to help advisors make smarter decisions about where to place business. Daniel Finkel, Ensemble’s senior vice-president of partner relations, was careful to frame it as a decision-support tool rather than a directive.
“Every single one of our partners is vetted—they are within our ecosystem,” he said. “But if you have an option between A and B, both great options, maybe it makes more sense to choose B because you’re going to get these incremental value points.” Partners, in turn, get clarity on what meaningful investment in the network looks like.
On the AI front, Ensemble’s leaders are deploying AI internally to streamline marketing workflows and accelerate development on the ADX platform. But Johnson offered the most grounded take on what it means for advisors. AI aggregates what’s publicly accessible. The experiences that define luxury travel often aren’t. “
We completed a hike and came upon an unexpectedly incredible lunch—not bookable online, not searchable online,” he said, describing a recent trip to Hong Kong. “Luxury is about exclusivity, and if it’s visible or bookable through AI, that may not be the experience people are looking for.” His instinct: advisors who specialize in the uncatalogued and inaccessible may benefit from the AI moment rather than lose to it.
Kristina Boyce, Ensemble’s senior vice-president of member services, added a practical dimension. In five years, she said, the bigger story will be efficiency. “I think travel advisors are going to be so much more efficient and be able to double their sales because they’re really operating in a much more seamless world,” Boyce said.
LinkedIn recently ranked travel advisor as the fifth fastest-growing career among people seeking new roles. Ensemble has responded with Fast Track, a program that connects new entrants with the right host agency or supports them in launching their own shop. About 20 Fast Track participants were at Horizons this week. “We’re really focused on equipping those folks who are new to the industry with all of those pieces so that they’re set up for success,” Boyce said, “and our industry then shares in that success.”
When Johnson was asked where he sees the advisor channel in five years, he pointed to the acceleration already visible in the data: industry-wide travel up 3% last year, the advisor channel up 6%, and Ensemble member agencies up 11%.
“The combination of expertise and empathy that an advisor brings is unparalleled and actually growing in importance,” he said—and the complexity of what clients want is only making that more true. “It’s an amazing opportunity for people to get into this field.”
