How planner Rianka Dorsainvil designed her new RIA

With a base that includes first-generation wealthy clients and social media influencer moms, financial planner Rianka Dorsainvil launched her own registered investment advisory firm.

Iris Mannings Photography

About four and a half years after Dorsainvil and another member of the Investopedia Top 100 Financial Advisors, Lazetta Rainey Braxton, merged their advisory practices together to form 2050 Wealth Partners, the pair have moved back to standalone firms while wishing each other well. Dorsainvil opened the virtual doors of her firm — Lanham, Maryland-based YGC Wealth — at the beginning of the month, she noted in an interview. She also unveiled the YGC brand in posts on social media and the website of her other business, RRD Consulting. Dorsainvil's practice has been fully remote since 2015, well before the pandemic forced others to change.

"Even back then I knew I didn't want location to be a barrier for clients to work with me," she said, noting that many longtime clients have since moved from the area in and around Washington, D.C., to other parts of the country or world. "It just shows how accessible financial planning can be if we shift our mindset from a traditional brick and mortar firm to something that can be more accessible to the masses."

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The practice management and professional development lessons for advisors in the relaunch of Dorsainvil's individual advisory practice, which previously went by the name Your Greatest Contribution, extend far beyond its current size of around $10 million in client assets. 

Dorsainvil has written for Financial Planning in columns such as "An open letter to planners of color" and "On being a Black, breastfeeding wealth management professional." She has also helped lead the way in areas such as client fee models and as a member of the CFP Board's Diversity Advisory Group and as a former president of the Financial Planning Association's NexGen organization. 

After the birth of her second child, Dorsainvil began thinking about creating her own firm anew; she wanted to give back to her local and professional communities again through efforts like a program for aspiring certified financial planners and participating in her FPA chapter, she said.

"I feel like I'm finally coming out of a new-parent fog where I can now get back to being as active as I once was before," Dorsainvil said. "I have a new excitement, a new appreciation and so much gratitude for being able to do what I do every single day, which is to help individuals and families build a legacy and wealth. I mean, who wouldn't want to come to work every day?"

Citing the idea that there is "a reason and season for partnerships," Dorsainvil said that she and Rainey Braxton felt they had fulfilled the goals of their collaboration. 

The merged advisory practices had "thrived on open communication and a shared dedication to each other's growth and the growth of our team and clients" and an "honest and constructive dialogue" that "allowed us to navigate opportunities and challenges while serving our team and clients with care," Rainey Braxton said in an email.

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Rainey Braxton, a former chairwoman of the Association of African American Financial Advisors, has written influential FP columns like "It's past time to advance Black advisors," "Wells Fargo CEO's comments fit a disturbing pattern" and "Ready to act on diversity, equity and inclusion? First, take a self-exam." 

The experiences of founding her first RIA, Financial Fountains, during the financial crisis and co-leading 2050 Wealth Partners during the pandemic and protests against racism in 2020 led to Rainey Braxton's new firm — The Real Wealth Coterie — she said.

"These two entrepreneurial ventures advanced my vision for my newest RIA, The Real Wealth Coterie," Rainey Braxton said. "Real Wealth aligns mission, mind and money with cohesive engagement among the Coterie — our team, clients and alliance partners. Modeling the ultrahigh net worth family office, TRWC's intimate engagement deepens trust and unification in TRWC's wealth management ecosystem for our mass affluent and HNW households. Our client experience will continue to unleash human capital, embrace life stages, enhance multigenerational planning and advance entrepreneurship to facilitate a life and legacy that honors our clients' values and goals."

Dorsainvil is similarly thinking about the future through her work with CFP examination instruction firm Zahn Associates, which offers students a scholarship that incorporates individual study sessions with her and is named after her podcast, 2050 Trailblazers. In addition, she's "actively bringing on new clients" on top of her base of about 35 households in two segments: those with less than $400,000 in wealth who pay an annual retainer fee, and a group above that level charged a price based on assets under management plus the flat yearly amount, Dorsainvil noted. YGC Wealth will soon add another planner to its team as well.

READ MORE: Financial advisors get flexible with fees — with or without AUM charges

In the announcement of the launch, Dorsainvil referred to YGC as "an inclusive, culturally competent and technology-forward financial planning firm" — a reference to the firm's use of technology such as its remote workplace and artificial intelligence tools, as well as the "nuances that I don't just brush over, that I make sure I embrace them and acknowledge them to my clients," she said. For example, clients who are the first in their families to build wealth often need specific planning services to manage student loan debt and forms of "survivor's remorse" that may affect their psychological relationships with money.

"It's like, 'I made it out. I am the first to graduate college from my family. I'm the first to earn six figures in my family. Do I put my oxygen mask on first or do I help my family?' I say, 'You can do both, however, it has to be very strategic,'" Dorsainvil said. "I provide them with tools and resources to be able to navigate not only the tangible, the finances, but to navigate the internal, emotional struggle that they may be dealing with, too."

Dorsainvil has "another core clientele" that she developed through connections on social media channels such as Instagram, she noted. She rolled out "a strategic model for influencers and their brands" after fellow mothers began reaching out to her through social media channels, where she said she has "always been an open book" discussing the "three F's: family, finance and fitness." In fact, many of her clients first found Dorsainvil through social channels.

"They love the content that I put out there. I not only share wealth management or financial education guidance on my Instagram, I also share my personal life, my postpartum journey," she said. "You're going to see my kiddos, you're going to see me lifting heavy weights in the gym and you're going to hear about finance."