Earning well doesn't automatically mean you're building toward financial independence. And reaching financial independence doesn't automatically mean you stay there. At both stages the decisions are genuinely complicated, the windows are often narrow, and the mistakes tend to be permanent.
That problem is exactly what I built this firm to solve. I have 15+ years of experience in financial services, including 13 years on the institutional side of the investment industry at J.P. Morgan and Cohen & Steers, working with financial advisors and institutional investors on complex investing and tax strategies. That experience gave me a clear picture of how serious money is managed, and an equally clear picture of what most individuals were getting instead.
I also had a problem with the fee model most advisors were charging (1% of your assets annually). As your portfolio grows, their invoice grows, whether the work changed or not. It's the only professional service that works this way.
So I built a firm on a flat fee instead.
Our clients work in industries where company stock is a meaningful part of their compensation. Some are mid-career, focused on optimizing every vest and keeping the tax drag down. Others are approaching or already in early retirement, navigating a long time horizon, the gap before Medicare, and turning what they have built into income they won't outlive. We work with clients on both sides.
Many people I meet with are losing sleep over the things they can't control. They can tell me last quarter's return on a single fund. Yet they have never run the numbers on whether they can stop working.
The financial industry is built to sell products to solve problems, but many of those could largely be prevented by better planning. The product gets sold, the underlying problem stays, and the complexity is used to justify the fee. My test for whether you're caught in that is simple: if you can't explain your portfolio to your spouse in five minutes, there's a good chance someone is selling you something you don't need.
Good financial advice is a philosophical product before it's a technical one. The math matters, but it only works once you're clear on what the money is for.
But the technical side still has to be right, which is why the credentials are a must. I hold the CFA and CFP® designations. The CFP covers the full breadth of financial planning. The CFA is the gold standard for investment analysis. Together they mean one person is responsible for both the plan and the portfolio, so nothing falls through the cracks between the two. And as a fee-only fiduciary, I don't earn commissions or sell products. Your interests and mine point in the same direction.
If you want to see how this shows up in the portfolios we build, read How We Invest.
Guiding Employees At:
A specialist, backed by a team
Working with an independent advisor usually means a tradeoff. You get genuine personal attention, but you give up the infrastructure, oversight, and continuity that come with a larger organization.
SWP is built to avoid that tradeoff. I am an Investment Adviser Representative of Core Planning, an SEC-registered investment adviser managing over $500 million across a nationwide team of more than 60 independent, fee-only advisors. Core Planning provides the regulatory and operational structure I work within, which means two things for you.
First, more of my time goes to client work instead of administrative overhead. Core Planning handles compliance, supervision, technology, and the back-office systems that keep everything running, so my focus stays on your plan and your portfolio.
Second, I have a deep bench of experienced advisors to draw on when a second set of eyes would benefit you.
You get the depth of a larger firm and the focus of a specialist.