Micheal’s planning skills are rare among financial advisors. Before becoming an advisor, he spent 12 years in the military – handling logistics in Special Operations. During two overseas tours (including one in Iraq), his planning and analysis efforts were measured in lives saved and missions achieved.   

 
Since joining Merrill in 2016, Michael has had a different objective – to help clients move smoothly from Point A to Point B, with the least amount of risk possible. A humble and highly principled advisor, Micheal has attracted a diverse clientele of techies (with concentrated stock and company retirement plans), veterans and young professionals (including physicians) who are building wealth and families. Many clients are Black and South Asian who are buying their first home, investing in real estate, or setting money aside for college.
 

 “I am process-driven, fact-driven and inspired by the results of proven strategies,” Micheal says. “Meeting and educating both spouses at every opportunity, I provide simple and straightforward rationales, without fancy jargon. Clients deserve to understand their strategies, market volatility and how I can help them mitigate tax consequences, pass money along to the next generation, or simply follow a sensible saving-and-spending strategy. Equally important, I need to understand each client’s vision of the future and what financial success can help them accomplish.”

 
Asking open-ended questions (and listening more than talking), Micheal wants to know about a client’s career, family, lifestyle, and what they envision five or 15 years down the road. Often he asks, “Tell me about yourself. What’s important to you? What do you spend your time doing? What is it you’d like to do with your money, that you don’t think you can?”

 
For most clients, a primary goal is living well now while planning for retirement. Well aware that each piece of a client’s financial puzzle can directly affect long-term results, Micheal builds multi-pronged strategies that go beyond risk-managed investing and retirement planning to include liability management, tax minimization and estate planning strategies (which he often coordinates with clients’ CPAs and attorneys).

 
When it comes to investments, Micheal utilizes the insights of Merrill’s outstanding research as well as external portfolio managers to create individual client portfolios that typically include individual equities and bonds, as well as other asset classes. He also offers clients ready access to residential and securities-based lending through Bank of America, N.A.

 
“The referrals I receive tell me I’m proficient in assisting a wide range of clients – those with straightforward financial needs and others who can benefit from sophisticated strategies. My career has truly evolved. I became fascinated with finance while working at First Union/Wachovia, which led to me earning a degree in the field. In the military, I actively invested and decided to become an advisor so that my buddies would have money after active service. Today, I make a tangible difference in the quality of my clients’ lives. I couldn’t be happier,” Micheal says.