A personal motivation for financial planning

Lisa Neira of RegentAtlantic

By Bridget McCrea

For Lisa Neira, the journey into the financial planning profession was very personal. She was in college working toward a business degree when her mother passed away from pancreatic cancer. Both of Neira’s parents worked, but her mother was the primary earner so her father could be there after school, coaching sports and so forth. Neither parent had done any financial planning.

“Our lives changed a lot when my mom passed away, including financially,” says Neira, a wealth advisor at RegentAtlantic in Morristown, NJ. “Our lifestyles needed to change, and it was eye-opening to watch my father navigate that while keeping the family together.”

While grieving the loss, Neira was also thinking about what she could be doing to be more prepared for such unexpected events in her own future. She took a financial planning course in college and began educating herself on the fine points of investing. Neira also signed on for an internship with Merrill Lynch, where she learned more about the positive impacts that financial planners could have on their clients’ lives.

“After that internship, I never looked back,” says Neira. “I worked for AXA Advisors (an insurance firm) after graduation in 2008. At that point in my life, I knew financial planning was the right career choice for me.”

This is her home

After two years at AXA, Neira went to work for Fidelity Investments for the next 10 years. She worked in the firm’s New York and New Jersey offices. She came up through the ranks as a financial advisor and ultimately became a vice president and wealth planner. In 2021, she left Fidelity and joined RegentAtlantic.

“I moved from the broker-dealer side of the business and over to the RIA space,” says Neira. “This is my home.”

Neira, who’s married to NAPFA member Mindy Neira, says, “Mindy had been talking to me about the RIA space for a long time, while I was still at Fidelity, educating me on how an RIA approaches financial planning and working with clients. As we share the same passion and values when it comes to helping people and wealth management, I knew the fee-only/RIA space was for me so that I could truly sit on the same side of the table as the client.”

She also likes that there are no products to sell. “We build customized portfolios for our clients and give advice,” Neira explains. “There’s a lot of autonomy, less unnecessary pressure, and the ability to invest our energy in what our clients actually need. I really like that.”

Founded in 1982, RegentAtlantic is an RIA that was formed when two independent, fee-only firms merged. Today, the firm has 74 employees, including 27 wealth advisors and 21 partners. It has more than 1,700 clients and $5.7 billion in assets under management.

RegentAtlantic acquired Hillview Capital in 2019 with the goal of adding a “deeper bench” within the private alternative space. In December 2021, RegentAtlantic was acquired by CI Financial, a consortium of U.S.-based RIAs. As part of the transaction, all of RegentAtlantic’s partners are now equity partners in CI Private Wealth, the private partnership that holds CI’s U.S. wealth management business.

Proactive planning

Neira mainly works with high-net-worth families who want an advisor to quarterback across all financial areas, including investing, risk management, insurance, and estate and tax planning. As a whole, the firm’s advisors strive to help clients achieve financial independence.

“The value I bring to clients is identifying planning opportunities as their goals and needs evolve alongside our ever-changing legislative landscape,” says Neira. “Our client relationships are very proactive, and that’s what our clients are looking for.”

For example, if a high-net-worth family needs help with its portfolio investing, Neira addresses that concern and then follows up with an active, deliberate dive into the other areas of financial lives that family members may not have even considered.

Expanding diversity and inclusion

RegentAtlantic encourages its advisors to build out specialty niches within its broader client base. Many of those niches are based on the advisors’ passions. For example, Neira and another partner launched the firm’s LGBTQ specialty practice in June to coincide with Pride Month. She says that in her discussions with her wife Mindy, “It was eye-opening to see how entrepreneurial you can be as an advisor at an RIA, and really fold your passion into your work, as I am doing now with launching the LGBTQ specialty practice.”

The new initiative has been well-received. “We’re building a lot of content right now, including podcasts and blog articles,” says Neira. “We also had a launch party in Asbury Park during Pride Month, so that was really fun and exciting for our clients and centers of influence.

“Being part of the community, it really comes down to being more inclusive—both internally here at the firm and in terms of the clients who we’re working with,” says Neira, who adds that the LGBTQ community has unique planning needs that are more complex than those faced by heterosexual couples.

Neira is also a member of RegentAtlantic’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committee. “DEI has been a priority within our firm,” says Neira, who along with one of her colleagues completed the NAPFA DEI Certificate and Training program in the spring of 2022.                                                                               

“We continue to have thoughtful discussions to take actions and build upon our culture, create an inclusive environment, and enhance our practices to attract and retain diverse talent and clients,” she adds.

Working through the layers

A NAPFA member since 2021, Neira says membership provided the opportunity to meet amazing peers and people to learn from. These ties are important because moving to the RIA space was a big shift for her.

“It’s nice to be around professionals like myself and in an environment that’s very welcoming and supportive,” Neira says.

At the NAPFA Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Region symposium in March, Neira says the benefits of NAPFA’s educational opportunities and network were apparent. The event’s sessions expanded her thinking on how RegentAtlantic can help its clients beyond just investing.

“There are so many layers to financial planning and to people’s financial lives,” says Neira. “The knowledge that I get from being a NAPFA member and attending the organization’s events is now being transferred to my team. Their clients can also benefit from some of the things that I’ve learned.”

Market volatility brings challenges

Right now, Neira has her eye on the current stock market volatility. She also adds inflation, rising interest rates, and geopolitical tensions to that list of challenges.

“Our clients have been through volatile markets before, but that never changes how scary it can be when they go through it again,” says Neira, who is working with one client who has successfully weathered past storms, but is now just a few months away from retiring and more concerned than ever about volatility.

Neira is helping that client and others understand their options and make the best, most informed decisions—all while seeking to “stay the course” with their financial plans. This can be a delicate balance.

“Part of my role as a financial advisor is to help clients tackle their challenges and to try to find silver linings during these markets,” says Neira, who has been talking more about Roth IRA conversions and turning investment losses into tax savings. “We don’t want our clients to miss a good planning opportunity.”

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Giving back This past summer, RegentAtlantic teamed up with the BLX Student Internship program in an effort to help attract a more diverse group of young financial planners to the profession. The program’s goal is to provide an opportunity for aspiring Black and Latinx financial planners to obtain internships at fee-only financial planning firms. With white males accounting for 73% of CFP® professionals, according to CFP Board, the BLX Student Internship believes moving the financial planning profession forward will require the field to more accurately represent the U.S. population. BLX has partnered with NAPFA and fee-only financial planning firms because it believes this model reduces as many conflicts of interest as possible. All four of BLX’s co-founders run fee-only firms. “They partner with wealth management firms like ours to pair those firms up with Black and Latinx college students who are interested in the financial planning world,” says Lisa Neira, a wealth advisor at RegentAtlantic. For the summer of 2022, RegentAtlantic had one BLX intern, and it plans to participate again in 2023. “Our hope is that we can continue to build out our internal diversity by getting involved with these types of initiatives,” says Neira. In addition, many RegentAtlantic advisors—Neira included—do pro bono work through Advisers Give Back, whose mission is to close the racial and gender wealth gap. “We’re always looking at how we can better serve communities and specifically underrepresented groups,” says Neira. “Advisers Give Back is a great way for us to give our time back and really help people who need it.”

 

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RegentAtlantic, at a glance

Location: Morristown, NJ

Website: regentatlantic.com

Year founded: 1982

Number of staff: 74

Number of clients: 1,700

Amount of money managed: $5.7 billion 

Description of typical clients: High-net-worth families

Typical client needs: A proactive and comprehensive plan that addresses all areas of their financial situation, including investments, risk management, insurance, and estate and tax planning.

Favorite financial planning website: financial-planning.com

Favorite nonfinancial planning website: espn.com

Piece of advice to fellow NAPFA members: “Network and build the connections with other advisors and peers. Join the sessions and symposiums, and then listen and learn because you’re going to be a better advisor for it. You’ll also be able to better serve your clients. Be sure to bring the knowledge gained back to your team. When you go to a NAPFA event, for example, schedule some time during your next team meeting to talk about what you learned. That way clients across your firm can benefit from what you’ve taken away from those experiences.”