Our Technology Executive client is an extremely talented individual on a career fast track. He began with a well-known professional services consultant and honed his skill set in a specialized area of corporate finance. He quickly wanted an in-depth challenge, and went to work with a Fortune® 500 company in the FinTech space. After several overseas stints, he came back to Silicon Valley and began working with another Fortune® 500 company, this time in the enterprise software space.
Our client's compensation and company stock grew substabtially as he took on greater responsibilities at work. He maintained a very long-term and opportunistic outlook with his money, which allowed us to amp-up the risk. Our client was comfortable trying to really grow his portfolio, knowing that the future looked bright in terms of his earning potential. With a comprehensive financial plan in place, we were able to look at a variety of 'what-if' scenarios with this client and manage his risk appropriately. We explored insurance needs, college savings, how much house he could afford in the notoriously expensive Bay Area, and how to manage the concentrated risk of his company stock.
The greatest challenge our client faces is how to lower the risk of his company stock because it makes up a large percentage of his net worth. As long as the stock heads higher it's smooth sailing, but our client is well aware of the volatility in Tech stocks and wants to avoid a 50% decline, which we have seen in the Tech space several times over the past 16 years.
We help our client by giving him an analysis on the health of the stock and how it is currently trading in the markets. We have frequent discussions about our view of the markets and the direction we see for his company's stock in the short-term. This client is not a Section 16 insider, which gives us great flexibility to sell company stock when the time is right.
Using our client's financial plan, our knowledge of his tax implications, and our market research, we consistently make educated and non-emotional decisions about when and how many of his company shares he to sell.
Like many successful Technology executives, this client has a plethora of opportunities in front of him. He is seeing a steady flow of new career options, which is exciting but also stressful. Part of our role is to be a sounding board to bounce ideas off of and to explore possibilities. We add value by analyzing the upside and downside of taking a new role, and how a failed venture could negatively impact his finanical situation. We continue to advise him on maximizing his company shares while he continues his journey at a public company.
Our big-picture goal is to help our client optimize decision making in all financial aspects, most importantly by helping him avoid the big mistakes investors and public executives fall victim to.
There are few things more rewarding than to take a client through a rigorous financial planning process, implement the plan, and see the results of our joint efforts.
Effective client-advisor relationships start off on the right foot -- Let's spend 20 minutes on a web call to get to know each other and see if there is a fit.
