How to Interview a Financial Advisor

I've managed my own money since 1995, after discovering that my financial advisor had put me in funds that had high costs and under-performed the market. Since then, I've lived through two financial crisis, and grew my wealth despite them. I've been hired by wealthy individuals to interview financial advisors, give wealth management advice, and even invited to pre-IPO companies to share my experience on wealth management.

Despite my talk and many blog posts about financial planning advocating do-it-yourself financial planning, I've come to the conclusion that many people either won't do it or shouldn't do it. This book is written for those people who would like hire a financial advisor, and would rather vet their technical expertise rather than hire someone based on how good he looks, how good his office looks, the kind of car he drives, or the kind of ice cream he buys you.

In this book, I provide quick question and answer type interview questions suitable for vetting a financial advisor. In addition, I provide expanded answers so you can reason about the answers your prospective advisor gives so you can have a deeper understanding of the correct answer. I cover these aspects of financial advice:

What's different about this book?

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Questions and Executive Summary Answers
  3. Expanded Answers: Accountability
  4. Expanded Answers: Personal Finance
  5. Expanded Answers: Asset Allocation
  6. Expanded Answers: Retirement
  7. Expanded Answers: Estate Planning
  8. Conclusion

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Author's Biography

Piaw Na has worked as a pre-IPO employee at 3 companies (Pure Software, Mpath Interactive/HearMe, and Google), and 2 unsuccessful startups (Escalate, and Mirapoint). He's acted as a sounding board for many high networth individuals as well as a "hidden buyer" for financial planners. He's given talks at pre-IPO companies about wealth management, engineering management, and company culture. He maintains a blog at http://piaw.blogspot.com.

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