A dedicated Financial Advisor and Wealth Manager in Charlotte, NC

• Our 7th annual ranking of independent advisory companies is based on assets managed by the firms, technology spending, staff diversity, succession planning and other metrics.
• 2022 Top 100 RIA Firms List
• Ranking Information

• Each year, InvestmentNews honors women financial advisers, industry innovators and leaders who are trailblazers in their firms, the industry, and their communities. These women have advanced the business of providing financial advice through their leadership, passion, creativity and willingness to help others along the way.
• Awarded to workplaces with 30-50% proportion of women in their C-suite.
• Award Information

• The Best and Brightest In Wellness is an innovative initiative that recognizes and celebrates quality and excellence in health awareness. This unique program highlights companies, schools, faith-based groups, and organizations that promote a culture of wellness; and those that plan, implement, and evaluate efforts in employee wellness to make their business and the community a healthier place to live and work.

Eligibility and Requirement for Participation

To be eligible for consideration, companies must meet the following criteria:

• Have a minimum of 10 employees
• Must be in business a minimum of 1 year
• Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity
• Be a publicly or privately held business
• Temporary, seasonal, 1099 employees, independent contractors, consultants, interns, and volunteers are not counted in the number of employees or included in the survey process
• Submit a Scoring and Analysis Fee

• RIA Database ranked the Top 50 Wealth Managers by Growth in Assets on an absolute basis over a one year time frame.
• RIA Database has been providing RIA rankings for Forbes and several industry publications, including RIA Channel (RIAChannel.com) for over ten years. Criteria and requirements for this list include the following:
• All firms are active registered investment advisers (RIAs) with the SEC, and have no regulatory, criminal or administrative violations on file per the SEC as of March 31, 2022.
• All firms provide wealth management services as their primary business. These services may include financial planning, selection of third party investment managers, portfolio construction services, family office services, comprehensive estate planning, asset allocation services or similar functions to high net worth and/or ultra high net worth individuals.
• All qualified wealth managers with $100 million in assets under management or greater were ranked based on percentage of growth over a one year period from assets as reported to the SEC on their Form ADV Part I filing on March 31, 2021 to March 31, 2022.
• Broker/dealers, fund managers and hedge fund managers were excluded.
• See Award Information

• Each year, Accounting Today ranks the top 150 CPA financial planners by their assets under management
• Ranking Information

• Based on 2021 Total Assets Rank
• Ranking Information

• Companies on the 2021 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2017 to 2020. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2017. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent--not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies--as of December 31, 2020. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2017 is $100,000; the minimum for 2020 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to three decimal places. There was one tie on this year’s Inc. 5000.
• Award Information

• A panel of independent judges made up of top names in the industry and led by WealthManagement.com Editor-in-Chief David Armstrong determined the 2021 Wealthmanagement.com Industry Award winners. The best in each category were selected based on quantitative measures of their initiatives—such as scope, scale, adoption and feature set—along with qualitative measures, such as innovation, creativity and new methods of delivery. Because financial services leaders across the industry faced unprecedented challenges this past year, additional executive awards were established to recognize the outstanding leadership being provided by a growing number of C-suite executives in support of their employees, customers and communities.
• Award Information

• Each year, InvestmentNews recognizes standout employers in the financial advice industry. These firms, ranging from small practices with fewer than 20 people to large companies with hundreds, invest in creating a work atmosphere and culture that attracts the best employees. The annual list of top firms is compiled by Best Companies Group through online employee and employer surveys. The collected information is combined to determine the strengths of each of the firms that voluntarily participate in the program and each workplace is ranked on this data.
• Award Information

• To be eligible for a 2021 Inc. Best Workplaces award, your company must submit an application, complete the Quantum Workplace employee survey, and meet each of the following qualifications:
  • Be independent (not a subsidiary or division of another company)
  • Be based in the United States
  • Have at least 10 permanent employees
  • Have been in business at least 2 years
  • Have total annual revenue less than $1 billion
  • There are a few limited exceptions to the qualifications. Please email our team with any questions: bestworkplaces@inc.com.
• Award Information

• Methodology
• This seventh edition of the FT 300 assesses registered investment advisers based on desirable traits for investors. We present the FT 300 as an elite group, not a competitive ranking of one to 300. This is the fairest way to identify the industry’s elite advisers while accounting for the companies’ different approaches and specializations.
• To ensure a list of established companies with substantial expertise, we examine the database of RIAs registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and select those with more than $300m in assets under management (AUM).
• The Financial Times and Ignites Research, the FT’s sister company, invited qualifying RIA companies — more than 2,000 — to complete a lengthy application that gave us more information about them. We added this to our own research into their practices, including data from regulatory filings. Some 760 RIA companies applied and 300 made the final list.
• The formula the FT uses to grade advisers is based on six broad factors and calculates a numeric score for each adviser. Areas of consideration include AUM, asset growth, the company’s age, industry certifications of key employees, SEC compliance record and online accessibility. The reasons these were chosen are as follows:
  • AUM signals experience managing money and client trust.
  • AUM growth rate can be a proxy for performance, as well as for asset retention and the ability to generate new business. We assessed companies on three-year growth rates.
  • Companies’ years in existence indicates reliability and experience of managing assets through different market environments.
  • Compliance record provides evidence of past client disputes; a string of complaints can signal potential problems.
  • Industry certifications (CFA, CFP, etc) shows the company’s staff has industry knowledge and a professional commitment to investment skills.
  • Online accessibility shows a desire to provide easy access and transparent contact information.
• Among the top factors in our scoring, AUM accounted for an average of 72 per cent of each adviser’s score. Their growth rate accounted for an average of 15 per cent. The FT places a cap on the number of advisers from any one state, corresponding to the distribution of millionaires across the US.
• The research was conducted on behalf of the Financial Times by Ignites Research, a Financial Times sister publication. Loren Fox
• Award Information