The Person Behind the Practice
Before you share anything personal about your financial life, you should know exactly who you're working with — and why they do this work.
Large Institutions Are Built for Scale. Verak Is Built for Depth.
Why Verak Exists
As an advisor at JPMorgan, I developed institutional-level investment and planning depth across various client situations, some complex, some straightforward. I also learned how the structural constraints of a large firm can shape the advice that clients receive — not through bad intentions, but through the architecture of how institutional advisory is designed to work.
Working independently means no proprietary products to push, no quotas to meet, and no constraints on the time, resources, or strategies available to each client family.
It means I can focus entirely on the people who trust me with what they've built.
What I Bring to This Work and How I Choose to Do It
The Background, the Method, the Person
I built Verak around a simple conviction: complex financial situations deserve a practitioner who brings both institutional depth and genuine independence to every decision. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Experience
Before launching Verak, I spent my career, most recently with JPMorgan, advising HNW individuals and families through executive compensation framework, tax strategy and impact, retirement transitions, concentrated stock positions, estate planning conversations, and investment management. Those experiences shaped how I think about financial planning and wealth design today and ultimately why I chose to build Verak.
How I Work
Verak is a deliberately selective practice. Thoughtful planning takes time, and the highest-stakes financial decisions deserve sustained, coordinated attention. Every client works directly with me—not a junior associate or rotating service team—because continuity is an important part of good advice.
What's Important to Me
I'm a husband, a father of three, and someone who takes the long view — a habit that started at the chess board and carried into how I practice. I hike National Parks when I can get there, and I share the house with a bullmastiff named Duncan who has strong opinions about most things. In a one-advisor practice, you're choosing a person as much as a firm. I think you should know who that person is before trusting them with something this important.
You'll Know Me Before You Walk Through the Door
Start the Conversation
Most of the clients who work with me say the same thing: by the time we had a real conversation, they already had a sense of who I am and how I think. That's intentional. The consultation isn't a sales call — it's a direct conversation about what you're navigating and whether the depth I bring is the right fit for it.
- No obligation — the first conversation is a direct discussion about your situation, not a sales process.
- You work with me from day one, not an intake coordinator or junior associate.
- If Verak isn't the right fit, I'll tell you — and point you toward someone who is.
- The complexity you're managing deserves a practitioner who has seen it before.
