I co-founded Members’ Wealth with what I believe is a team of exceptional individuals. Recognizing my own strengths and weaknesses and my inability to go far without surrounding myself with a team of high achievers, I sought to build a team of experienced wealth management professionals (a majority whom have worked together before) to lead a top-notch service organization. 

First a little about my background. Despite, or perhaps because of my start with an undergraduate degree in Biology over 20 years ago, I was well prepared for the academic rigors of finance, business and investing. Earlier in my career, I completed the CFA exams and was awarded the CFA charter and ultimately rounded out my education by attending the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania where I earned my MBA. Education and my 20 plus years of experience in financial services including investment analysis, portfolio construction, operations, service, trading, sales, management, and leadership have helped me prepare to build Members’ Wealth into a company my daughters will be proud of.

Prior to founding Members’ Wealth, I had a role which allowed me the opportunity to interview hundreds if not thousands of other financial advisory, wealth management and family office firms.  I have seen the good, bad, and ugly of this industry and feel I have a unique insight into what works and does not work and of the competitive landscape.  I have also been the Director of Research and Partner of a wealth management and multifamily office, West Capital Management, in Philadelphia, which I joined in 2007 and helped build, before the company was sold. I led the firm's Investment Committee and was responsible for due diligence on managers/strategies, portfolio construction, and portfolio implementation. I was also an integral part of the leadership and management team and was part of the sales and servicing of clients. Earlier in my career I held previous roles as an investment analyst at Veritable, LP and Lockwood Advisors, Inc. I began my financial career with The Vanguard Group.  But I am only one person.

To borrow from Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, for Members’ Wealth to succeed, I needed to increase our talent density. So, I went through all the people I had met through the years and sought out those I thought could be the best leaders of their respective areas of expertise and if possible, had experience working together. And while this painting is far from complete and there are still a few key hires I have been actively pursuing, for the starting line, I am proud of the progress we have made.

I also sought to balance our talent density with internal employees and external consultants. We will use consultants to help deliver the best possible service to our clients.  Consultants can be advantageous over employees when: 1.) there is a specific industry expertise that is required, 2.) we seek a "devils advocate" or an objective point of view from a knowledgeable professional outside of our firm, and 3.) it is more cost beneficial to the organization and thus to our clients. We vet these consultants on our clients behalf and we look forward to introducing them to clients as the need arises.

Back to employees...Once I introduce these individual employees, you will no longer hear me use I, it will be replaced with we, because we are very much a team. (However, I will reserve the right to use “I” for when I make mistakes!)

Most boutique wealth management firms rely on the CEO to wear many hats, including CEO, Lead Advisor, Head of operations, marketing and sales and some even throw in CIO or CPA or JD for good measure. From the start, I wanted to delegate as much decision making to more talented individuals as possible. My future goal is to continually seek to reduce the numbers of decisions I have to make and instead rely on the team to move swiftly and decisively based on what is best for Members’ Wealth. I wanted dedicated professionals to lead each group because that would lead to the best service experience for the clients. I look forward to introducing you to them.