Hidden Gems: Meet Rhys Williams of Dakota Wealth Management

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhys Williams.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started with the goal of wanting to understand the game. The game of life, not the TV show. I wanted to enjoy a better life for myself, my family, and my friends. Growing up with a single mom and experiencing how hard she worked, it never seemed to be enough. Hard work alone won’t lead to financial security or prosperity if you don’t understand the rules of the game. That led to an interest in business and finance, which eventually led to me earning a finance degree from the University of Florida – Go Gators!

I was born in New York and spent the early part of my childhood in New Jersey. After relocating to South Florida where my uncle lived, he soon introduced me to the sport of track and road cycling which would become a big part of my childhood and young adult years. Learning the discipline of track cycling would prepare me for my eventual path of learning and building a career in the discipline of investment and financial planning. For those who don’t know, track cycling involves racing a single-speed bike with no brakes around a Velodrome (an oval-shaped, banked track) as fast as possible. Oh, and you can’t stop pedaling, with riders packed inches apart from each other. Just because I knew how to ride a bike, that wouldn’t guarantee success on the track. Just like hard work alone doesn’t translate to prosperity in our society. I had to understand and master the rules of the sport.

After college, I ended up taking a non-direct path to my current role as a Wealth Advisor. When a few select “dream job” positions didn’t materialize, I decided to get my foot in the door by landing a job as a commercial credit analyst with a local private bank in Fort Lauderdale working for one of the bank’s senior lenders – a fellow UF alum. Two years later, I made the transition to the investment side where I began as an investment analyst/ jack of all trades for a two-man private wealth team. I had a vision that focused on putting myself in the situation to make it a reality. With my goal of understanding how wealth was successfully built, understanding how to successfully invest for the future, I made the active decision to get to know and learn from my new bosses’ years before they were ever my bosses. During breaks, I would stop by their wing to talk, learn, and ask questions, even sharing my future aspirations.

It was an invaluable experience, being able to have exposure to all the aspects of high net-worth private wealth management from the ground up. I got to be involved in everything from client servicing, investment research, trading, and operations. This hands-on experience was what I wanted – I was truly starting to understand the rules of the game. My boss, Lane was a great mentor. Over time, he would slowly bring me into client meetings which developed into speaking roles. Soon, I was managing smaller relationships in tandem. A few years after that and a bank merger later, I had my own book of clients.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been smooth. But many things aren’t. I would say cycling helped to prepare me, allowing me to get where I am today as a Senior Wealth Advisor at Dakota. It gave me the resilience to overcome disappointment and self-doubt, and the willingness to take the risk of leaving a big well-established bank to a smaller boutique investment and planning firm. When a race didn’t go as planned after months of grueling training, you had to shake it off and get back to work because there was another race the following week or even later that same day. Overcoming the disappointment of not getting a couple of the “dream jobs” to building a book of business from $0 through a global pandemic with a newborn at home was challenging to say the least.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Dakota Wealth Management?
I am currently a Director and Senior Wealth Advisor with Dakota Wealth Management, a boutique, fee-only registered investment advisory (RIA) firm. I have a Certified Private Wealth Advisor designation which focuses on planning and investment management for high and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. I use that knowledge and experience to focus on growing my practice by educating and providing financial planning and investment management for young professionals between 25-45 years old.

The sooner I can teach them the rules of the game and get people on the right path to reach their goals, we can materially increase the probability of achieving those goals. While everyone’s specific goals are different, ‘everyone’ is looking for long-term financial security that allows them and their loved ones to grow and prosper. You want to have enough assets that will generate the income you need later in life to live your version of a comfortable lifestyle without needing to work tirelessly far into your senior years unless by choice.

Honestly, I have never used trigonometry beyond the class in high school. While it is better than it was, some critical areas of success in the real world aren’t taught in school. Many have never been exposed to many of the concepts of financial literacy. I would say the ability to understand what builds a strong credit score, compounding, 401Ks, and budgeting are far more important than knowing how to calculate sin(x). I love being able to educate and work with people I can grow with and teach them the rules of the game. Once you understand how the game works, we can better maximize your resources and have a real chance of building generational wealth. Allowing your future generations to build on that foundation. Many of my younger clients are doing significantly better than their parents were at their age. Managing and protecting this newfound wealth is new to them.

I provide fiduciary-based investment management and financial planning, with a high level of service to those that realize the importance of proper planning and investment management. They want to work with someone they trust to advise them so they can focus their energy on building their careers, spending time with loved ones, and enjoying their passions in life.

In 2020, I launched a program called Gamechangers that focuses on financial literacy for kids and historically underrepresented groups to expose kids to those critical concepts that if they can understand, can empower them to make better decisions that can dramatically improve the trajectory of their lives.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
As a kid, I hated having to move to South Florida. That said, one of my favorite childhood memories is winning my first track cycling race at the Florida State Championships, 10-12 age group. After picking up the sport less than a year before, it was a great sense of accomplishment. While it was incredibly challenging, hard work in combination with mastering the rules and strategy of the sport allowed me to be successful and feel proud about the accumulated effort it took to achieve that success.

Pricing:

• The first $2,000,000 is charged at 1%
• The next $3,000,000 is charged at 0.9%
• Amounts above $5,000,000 are negotiable

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.dakotawm.com

Image Credit:
Family Photo – Stephen Francis (IG:melvinshue)