FP Rising Stars: Planners of the Future

August 24, 2021 3:04 PM

We’re delighted to announce the winners of a new award: Financial Planning’s 2021 Rising Stars. This list celebrates 10 early-career financial planners who embody the values of the profession and are on a trajectory to make a difference in the field. Selected from among nominees across the country, the winners are both young advisors and career-switchers. We highlight some of their achievements below. Scroll through to meet them.

Akieva Ellis

Akeiva Ellis, a financial education specialist at Waltham, Massachusetts-based Ballentine Partners, grew up in Brooklyn, a child of immigrants from the Caribbean island of Tobago. Seeing those around her struggle with money led her to a career in financial planning, but she didn’t stop there. Ellis and her husband created a YouTube-based site called The Bemused, which helps young adults make sense of their money, leading Ballentine to change her job to allow her to create content and financial educational strategies for the firm. Ellis, who’s a CFP Board ambassador and active in the Financial Planning Association’s Massachusetts chapter, says one of her missions is to close the racial wealth gap.

Jude Erondu

Jude Erondu is an ESG and sustainability analyst at Pathstone, a Boston-based advisory firm. Erondu’s work centers around helping clients make sustainable, impactful investments. He received a bachelor’s degree in sustainable business at Green Mountain College and later earned a masters in development studies at the London School of Economics. At LSE, Erondu wrote a thesis about why the Niger Delta, where he grew up, experiences poverty despite its many natural resources. Some of Erondu’s other research focuses on how to make bitcoin mining more sustainable. Erondu is also a senior advisor for the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network Youth.

Elijah Essa

Elijah Essa is a planner at Coats Financial Planning, a Louisville, Kentucky-based firm. He received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Western Kentucky University and will start a masters in Personal Finance Planning at Kansas State University this fall. At his fee-only firm, Essa works with many younger clients, which he hopes will advance the industry beyond retirees. He has been volunteering for three years at the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, where he mentors and welcomes new planners to the industry.

Asad Gourani

Asad Gourani is the CEO and founder of AG Wealth Management, a fee-based Ann Arbor, Michigan firm he started a few years after graduating from Eastern Michigan University. Gourani’s firm serves clients who are not able to afford larger firms, especially first-generation immigrants. As an immigrant to the U.S. when he was 18 years old, he says he gravitated toward investments as his career because of the intellectual challenge and the ability to work with underserved groups. He also serves on the board of the Financial Planning Association in Michigan, where he mentors students about career development.

Danielle Harrison

Danielle Harrison, founder of and financial advisor at Columbia, Missouri-based Harrison Financial Planning, says her passion stems from her parents’ financial woes growing up. Her father had cancer and was forced to sell his business to pay medical bills. When he got cancer again and couldn’t work, the family relied on her mother’s secretarial salary. As a financial advisor, Harrison spends most of her time ensuring she can help her clients with whatever they need and has become a trusted resource her family didn’t have. She also works with clients who are both seeking financial independence and charitably inclined, and provides resources to local nonprofits to help supplement their fundraising efforts.

Whitney Hill

Whitney Hill, a senior associate planner at Washington, D.C.-based GRID 202 Partners, left her career in law enforcement behind when she decided to be a stay-at-home parent, using that time to reevaluate her career. She eventually found her way to financial planning after years of giving close friends and family financial advice. Hill used her change of career to help ensure that everyone can have access to a financial planner or advisor. She currently works with HENRYs (“high income, not rich yet”) but would eventually like to extend her work to low-income individuals, incarcerated people and those in rehabilitation and treatment centers.

Enrique Perez

Enrique Perez is the founder, managing principal and chief investment officer at Mission Park Capital, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based fee-only firm. Perez started his career (informally) as an undergraduate at Williams College, where he helped his immigrant parents manage their money and prepare for retirement. Perez also received an MBA from Yale University. Previously, Perez worked in government, including as chief of staff to the secretary of housing and economic development and as managing director at MassHousing, an affordable housing-focused bank in Massachusetts. Perez helps others become financially literate by offering presentations to young adults. He is also involved with the Latinx MBA Association, where he offers personal finance programming to recent MBA graduates.

Lily Styrmoe

Lily Styrmoe is an advisor at TCI Wealth Advisors, a firm based in Tucson, Arizona. Before her career in financial planning, Styrmoe was a backpacking and river rafting guide in the Grand Canyon. She received her bachelor’s in environmental studies from Northern Arizona University. At TCI, Styrmoe spearheaded the firm’s sustainability initiatives and has become its expert on sustainable investments. Because of Styrmoe, TCI now screens companies for clients based on environmental impact. She also volunteers as a mentor for 3rd Decade, a nonprofit that helps young adults with their financial literacy.

Calvin Tseng

Calvin Tseng, an associate advisor at the Los Angeles-based RIA Signature Estate & Investment Advisors, comes from an entrepreneurially driven household. His parents, who endured much when they moved to the U.S. from Taiwan, served as his inspiration to become an advisor. After managing their finances, he learned they were given poor investment advice, and from there, he knew he wanted to help others who had gone through similar hardships. As an advisor, he has served clients by speaking to them in their native language and helped educate students in underserved communities.

Tammy Williams

Tammy Williams, a financial planner at Athens, Georgia-based firm Elwood & Goetz Wealth Advisory Group, spent nearly 20 years in corporate America before returning to school in 2017 to pursue her Ph.D. at the University of Georgia. While studying for her doctorate, Williams volunteered as a financial counselor and was a site supervisor for the university’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. In 2019, she founded an organization dedicated to improving financial education and literacy and providing timely financial solutions for lower- and middle-income individuals called the Foundation for Financial Education Research and Outreach.