Kaktrale Austin is a Senior Vice President and Senior Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Kaktrale provides tailored advice and guidance to individuals, families, and nonprofit organizations, helping them understand and streamline multiple aspects of their financial lives. Committed to client well-being, Kaktrale offers a highly personalized approach that reflects his deep interest in understanding the unique characteristics of each client. He begins each relationship by distilling a client’s concerns, goals, and aspirations, and then delineates a path forward that is designed to advance each client’s distinctive priorities. “I look to build a bridge,” Kaktrale explains, “between where the client is, and where he or she wants to be.”

Kaktrale has extensive experience developing retirement strategies that reflect a client’s cash-flow needs, investment preferences, and distribution requirements. Well versed in multiple retirement vehicles, he appreciates the nuances underlying each client’s situation. Clients look to Kaktrale for assistance with diverse issues, including income preservation, tax-sensitive investment management, defined benefit analysis, life insurance, business succession strategies, and long-term care insurance.* “My goal is to help alleviate the fear and confusion that can cloud the transition to retirement,” he explains.

Kaktrale also works closely with religious organizations and other nonprofit entities to help them enact thoughtful investment programs grounded in a disciplined and transparent methodology. He understands that investment management is critical to each organization’s stability and mission fulfillment. A keen proponent of client education, Kaktrale believes strongly in helping clients become informed stewards of their wealth. He looks to enact enduring structures that contribute to an organization’s ongoing vitality and effectiveness within the wider community.

Areas of Focus:
- Investment management
- Retirement analysis
- Cash-flow analysis
- Business success strategies
- Wealth transfer strategies
I follow the deep-seated Merrill tradition of participating in the communities we serve. This drives my interest in spending time volunteering with organizations in our community.