Sean Alford is a Senior Financial Planner and Investment Solutions Manager with CFO4Life, an RIA based out of Coppell, TX. He joins the show today to share his career path, from graduating from a CFP undergraduate program to finally finding a good career fit in his current firm and transitioning to a recruiting and hiring role within that firm. Listen is as Sean discusses the recruiting process he went through to join CFO4Life, the career trajectory he has been on over the last few years, and ho...
Jul 16, 2021•29 min
Veronica Taylor is a financial planner at Northstar, a fully virtual organization that helps employees make better financial decisions. She joins the show to share her journey from graphic designer to financial planner, as well as what led her to start a financial coaching company to increase financial literacy and awareness and ultimately close the racial wealth divide. Listen in as Veronica discusses the reasons she made a career change and jumped into financial planning, how she secured her f...
Jul 09, 2021•31 min
Alex Jenkins is the Vice President, Relationship Director, and Investment Specialist with Avantis Investors based out of Charlotte, NC. He joins the show today to discuss his career path from engineering to finance and what it’s like in an institutional money management firm structure. Listen in as Alex shares what first got him interested in the profession and why he changed his focus from engineering to finance. You'll learn why the decision to move across the country for a new role helped to ...
Jul 02, 2021•31 min
Kelly Stanley is a Partner and Fiduciary Wealth Manager at Cogent Strategic Wealth, a firm based out of Chicago, IL that manages $200 million in AUM for 70 client families. She joins the show today to share her inspiring story and how she became a partner at her firm in just 5 years. Listen in as Kelly details her career trajectory, from first being interested in financial planning as a child to securing her first position at a broker-dealer firm and eventually earning the partner role in a very...
Jun 25, 2021•28 min
Dan Yergan is an associate financial planner with Valmark Securities in Akron, OH. Beginning in college with a corporate finance major before transitioning to personal financial planning and securing himself a fantastic internship opportunity, Dan has had an ambitious foray into the world of financial planning. He's a great example of what can happen when you’re pursuing your passion and not afraid to take risks. Listen in as Dan discusses his path to financial planning, including why he chose t...
Jun 18, 2021•33 min
Sameer Somal is the CEO of Blue Ocean Global Technology and the Chief Talent Officer of Girl Power Talk. He is also an entrepreneur, expert witness, and speaker who has presented his thoughts and knowledge around the world. In this episode, Sameer shares how he makes sure his interactions with others are memorable, how he builds relationships, and whether he believes that leaders are born or made. We also talk about the characteristics of effective leaders and how the Girl Power Talk program is ...
Jun 11, 2021•34 min
Ben Peters is Partner and Chief Compliance Officer with Burton Enright Welch, a wealth management firm based out of Walnut Creek, CA. Ben initially started his career as an attorney, but he left that role to pursue a career in financial planning—despite having some misconceptions about the profession. Listen in as Ben shares the strategies he used to pivot from attorney to financial planner, including the strategies he used to network, how he was hired by a firm without any prior financial plann...
Jun 04, 2021•33 min
Shannon O’Toole is the founder of Shannon O’Toole Coaching, a coaching firm based on St. Louis that specializes in employee engagement and retention in the financial planning space. Shannon has 20 years of experience in the industry and has a wealth of knowledge about the good and bad of recruiting and human resources. In this episode, Shannon shares the number one thing that career seekers can do when beginning their job search, why money is not everything when it comes to evaluating opportunit...
May 28, 2021•28 min
Jarrod Upton is a Senior Consultant and CEO, and Brandon Moss is a Senior Consultant, at Herbers & Company, a management and growth consulting firm serving the financial planning industry. Both started on the client side of the industry but found their place and their passion in the consulting world. In this episode, we’re discussing how Jarrod and Brandon got started in the financial planning industry and what prompted them to move from advisor to consultant. They also share what skills and...
May 21, 2021•49 min
Taylor Schulte is the Founder and CEO of Define Financial, a financial planning firm in San Diego, CA. In this episode, he walks us through his career journey from what piqued his interest in finance, to joining a large wirehouse right out of college where he pulled together $15-million in AUM by the time he left. Listen in as he shares the catalyst for his transition to the independent RIA space, how he developed a niche as an out-of-the-box marketing thinker, and how dealing in that niche has ...
May 14, 2021•36 min
Landon Tymochko is a financial advisor and partner at Leslie Roper Day & Associates, which prides itself on offering “down-to-earth financial advice” for clients of all ages who are experiencing a transition in life. Landon has a unique journey to his current career, having started in a corporate finance position at a large winery before making the leap to the financial planning industry. In this episode, Landon shares why his time in the military and at the winery prepared him well for a ca...
May 07, 2021•33 min
Today we are joined by Hannah Moore, owner of Guiding Wealth, a financial planning firm based out of Dallas, TX. Hannah is also the creator and facilitator of the Financial Planning Association’s Summer Virtual Externship, which is an eight-week virtual program for students, planners who lost their job, and those interested in a career change, that helps them apply classroom theory to real-life practice. In this episode, Hannah shares how she became a firm owner, the reasons why she downsized fr...
Apr 30, 2021•43 min
Aaron Grey is a wealth advisor and the Director of Planning Integration for Buckingham Strategic Wealth Advisors in Denver, CO. He joins the show today to share how he first learned about financial planning and what excited him about the profession—and why he initially chose to pursue an engineering career instead. He also discusses what it was like to join his father's firm, some of the major changes they made to pivot from a heavy investment management offering to a more financial planning-foc...
Apr 23, 2021•30 min
Erica Crane is a Senior Technical Editor and Matt Nelson is the Director of Education at Kitces.com, a leading financial planning education and media company. Both have had very unique journeys to their current roles, with Erica starting out as a Ph.D. student in Molecular Biology, and Matt as an English major before being recruited to a sales position in financial planning and eventually making his way to his current position. In this episode, both Erica and Matt share why they both pivoted fro...
Apr 16, 2021•57 min
Nathan Astle is a board member for the Financial Therapy Association and is pursuing a master's in financial planning with a focus in financial therapy at Kansas State University. He joins the show today to share how money conflict began in his life and how the topic of money was frightening to him while growing up. Listen in as Nathan discusses the differences between financial planning, life planning, and financial therapy. You'll learn what the Financial Therapy Association is all about, as w...
Apr 09, 2021•33 min
Soraya Morris is a Lead Trainer at Envestnet MoneyGuide in Richmond, Virginia. Today she joins the show to share how she got her start at MoneyGuide, as well as how her career has progressed to helping financial advisors across the country serve their clients more efficiently and effectively. Listen in as she talks about how she narrowed down the type of financial planning firm she wanted to target coming out of the Virginia Commonwealth CFP program and how she landed her first position in the p...
Apr 02, 2021•26 min
Tracey Bissett is the founder of Bissett Financial Fitness, based in Toronto, Canada. With 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Tracey joins the show today to share her journey from joining the bank channel after graduation to creating a new venture that melded all of her interests to coach entrepreneurs and young people on the fundamentals of money. Listen in to learn why she chose to provide limited engagement coaching versus full-blown ongoing financial planning—which sh...
Mar 26, 2021•29 min
Colleen Hallinan is the founder of Qii Consulting in Sedona, AZ, and she has had quite a unique journey in the financial planning industry—actually entering the profession on Black Monday in 1987. She joins the show today to share her experience, including how she had success selling 401(k) plans and began coaching and consulting with financial advisors back in the '80s and '90s. She also opens up about how she found an RIA to work for, left to start her own firm, and then ended up rejoining the...
Mar 19, 2021•37 min
Coleburn Spence is a financial advisor at Soundview Advisors in Seattle, Washington, and he joins the show today to share what ignited his passion for financial planning at the young age of 15. He also opens up about why he chose to attend a university that had a CFP program—but not declare financial planning as his major right away—and how he pivoted when he was striking out in the two job markets he had targeted prior to graduation to find his first firm. Listen in to learn what criteria Coleb...
Mar 12, 2021•33 min
Krista Sheets is the President of Paragon Resources, a practice management consulting and training firm that works exclusively within the financial services industry. She joins the show today to share her passion for better understanding personnel behavior and teaching businesses and individuals how to succeed in their professional and personal lives. Listen in as Krista discusses what tools Paragon utilizes to help aspiring professionals select the right profession, corresponding job opportunit...
Mar 05, 2021•33 min
Today we are joined by three special guests—Deanda Wilson, Brooke Cantrell, and Sean Gold—who all recently passed the CFP examination. In this episode, they will each describe their own unique path to passing the exam the first time, describing in detail their exact study plan approaches and daily schedules. They will also explain the pros and cons of the review provider vendor they used and how much time it ultimately took to receive their passing results. Listen in as they share what actions t...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Dominique Henderson is the Founder of DJH Capital Management, a fee-only RIA, and The Founder of the Jumpstart Coaching Lab, a community for aspiring financial professionals offering virtual mentorship, training, and coaching. He joins the show today to discuss how his exposure to a diversity of cultures early on in his life paid substantial dividends for him as he began his career and building his firm. Listen in as he explains why he left a position that was paying him close to $300k per year ...
Feb 19, 2021•38 min
Amy Mullen is the President of Money Quotient, a training and consulting firm in Portland, OR for firms who want to integrate life planning into their client service model. She joins the show today to share the empirical evidence on the life planning approach and how financial advisors using the Money Quotient tools are seeing higher levels of implementation of recommendations and overall higher client satisfaction. Listen in as Amy discusses how the steps to create an evidenced-based client exp...
Feb 12, 2021•37 min
Sue Chesney is the founder of Delegated Planning, an outsourced financial planning resource for financial planning firms. One of the leaders in the virtual CFP world—and an accidental business owner after a virtual assistant sparked the idea for Delegated Planning—Sue shares her career path, from how she got started in the profession to her role today, employing nine virtual CFPs serving 40 financial planning firms nationwide. Listen in as Sue opens up about how she was suddenly thrust into mana...
Feb 05, 2021•38 min
David Kolbe is the CEO of Kolbe Corp in Phoenix, AZ, and he joins the show today to share the history, mission, and vision for Kolbe Corp and how they are empowering people to live their lives to the fullest. Breaking down the three parts of the mind, David explains how the conative—or doing —part of the mind can be traced all the way back to the ancient philosopher Plato and why everyone should know their unique natural instincts so they can approach problem-solving in the most efficient and ef...
Jan 29, 2021•39 min
Dave Grant is the founder of Retirement Matters, a fee-only financial planning firm in Chicago, IL. Dave joins the show today to share his career journey, including how he found financial planning, his experiences in his first position, and why he left the firm to join a larger local competitor. He also opens up about how he handled the career crossroads he was faced with when deciding whether to join another firm or start his own. Listen in as Dave discusses the changes he went through as he tr...
Jan 22, 2021•27 min
Inga Timmerman is an Associate Professor of Finance at California State University - Northridge, as well as Founder and President of Attainable Wealth, a fee-only financial planning firm in Los Angeles, CA. Today Inga joins the show to share her educational path after coming to the United States fresh out of high school, why she pursued her Ph.D. and a career in academia in addition to her CFP, and what made her take the plunge into starting her own firm. Listen in as she explains the difference...
Jan 15, 2021•30 min
Hallie Kraus is a financial planner with The Humphreys Group in San Francisco, CA. Today she joins the show to share how she was introduced to financial planning through a credit counseling position and what made her want to get into the profession, as well as why the wirehouse channel was top of mind for her when looking for a position and why she ultimately left the wirehouse channel for the fee-only RIA channel. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/2Ku...
Jan 08, 2021•31 min
Betty Wang is the Founder and Owner of BW Financial Planning in Denver, Colorado. She joins the show today to discuss why she pursued a career in financial planning, how she secured multiple internships while in school, and the reasons she chose not to join a financial planning firm after graduation (instead opting for the institutional side of the business). Listen as Betty shares the keys to succeeding in corporate environments, as well as why she left corporate America. You'll learn what it w...
Jan 01, 2021•33 min
Dennis Moore is the COO with Quest Capital Management in Dallas, Texas, and 2021 President-Elect of the Financial Planning Association. Dennis joins the show today to discuss why he pursued a career in financial planning, how he found his internship and first full-time job after graduating from a CFP program, and tips for effectively making the transition from student to professional. Listen in as he opens up about why he pivoted away from being a full-time client-facing advisor to pursue an MBA...
Dec 25, 2020•34 min
