Today we’d like to introduce you to Umberto Perez.
Umberto let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far?
While attending Florida International University in the late 90’s, I worked at Capital Bank of Florida. My experience at the bank served as an introduction to the broader world of financial markets and helped form my interest in financial advisory services. Following my tenure at the bank I was recruited by MassMutual Financial Group in 1999. At MassMutual I took advantage of all their extensive professional training programs since my belief was, and still is, “knowledge is power”. There I obtained the skills and fundamental knowledge needed to assist clients with their financial goals as an investment advisor. At MassMutual I was honored to be inducted into their Freshman 5 Class as one the company’s new top advisors throughout the country. As my practice grew so did my desire to learn and to continue to develop my craft in the ever-evolving financial planning industry; continuing my professional education, I earned the designation of Certified Financial Planner.
In 2003 I joined Guardian Life and Park Avenue Securities as a registered representative focusing exclusively on improving after-tax investment results for affluent individuals and in 2004 was awarded the Guardian Life Presidential Citation.
From early in my professional career, my philosophy was to always provide clients with utmost objectivity and ethical financial advice. As I gained experience in the industry, I came to the realization that this vision could only be accomplished if I was truly an independent financial planner, not compromised or limited to the platform and products of any one financial institution. With this conviction, in the fall of 2005 I founded my independent financial planning firm; with the purpose of creating an Open Architectural Platform for my investments and insurance strategies. I considered this independency an advantage that has allowed me to continuously be in the forefront by introducing broad based innovative investment solutions with a truly unbiased opinion.
In the fall of 2015, 10 years after I opened my independent financial planning firm, I was approached by my very good friend and mentor Douglas Gill, to partner with him in opening Castleview Partners, a registered Investment advisory firm. Today Castleview Partners has offices in Dallas, Chicago and Miami. We are a group of likeminded individuals with a common goal, to be our clients’ most trusted financial advisor. Today we serve both advisors and clients throughout the country and oversee the management of more than $600 million dollars in assets.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. I started in the business right before the tech bubble, and a few years later we saw the financial crisis, so from extremely volatile markets to new regulations in the financial industry we’ve seen our bumps in the road. Yet, these bumps have always taught me something new and have only made me better in my craft. You can’t teach experience. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform and to meet my client’s expectations day in and day out…my clients are some of my closest friends and I never want to let them down. However, I work in an industry where I can control the service I provide 100% of the time, but I can’t control the outcome of the markets or its performance. Through the years I’ve done a good job in knowing what questions to ask to truly understand a client’s philosophies regarding investment and risk. In turn, I’ve created a format that allows me to set the proper expectations and a platform to educate my clients on all the options and strategies available to them. My goal is to provide my clients with the most professional and friendly experience possible and to over deliver on their expectations. To use a baseball analogy, I don’t go 4 for 4 every day, but at night I always put my head on my pillow knowing I gave it 100% and did the absolute best job I could to meet the expectations of my clients and to continue to grow my firm.
Please tell us about Castleview Partners.
We are an independent financial advisory firm with one passionate focus — providing objective guidance and advice to our clients that helps them to achieve their lifetime financial goals.
Our aim is to be our clients’ most trusted financial advisor. Toward that end, we are organized as a fee-based, SEC-regulated Registered Investment Adviser (RIA). This helps to ensure that our advice is always objective, and our recommendations are solely in our clients’ best interests. Maintaining objectivity requires that we be free of the conflicts (frequently commission-related) that have often been intrinsic to the banks, insurance companies and old Wall Street brokerage houses that historically have dominated the financial advisory business. Even today, most financial advisors are still affiliated with these traditional industry players. We have chosen to be independent of them.
Being licensed as an RIA firm legally requires us to act as a fiduciary for our clients, as distinct from adhering to the looser guidelines which non-fiduciary advisors must follow — guidelines that leave these advisors susceptible to being tempted into making commission-driven recommendations that may or may not be in their clients’ best interests. Since we have always believed that the fiduciary standard is the only appropriate standard for us as advisors — it has always been obvious to us that our clients’ interests must come first in the formulation of our recommendations — this RIA requirement suits us just fine.
Castleview has a team of independent advisors and senior staff whose experience aggregates to more than 100 years. As previously stated, we are headquartered in Dallas with offices in Chicago and Miami and serve clients around the country. We are also increasingly attracting the interest of many independent advisors who are seeking ways to improve their service to their clients (or who wish to free up time they now must devote to the nuts-and-bolts of investment management) — and who are drawn to the powerful, best-of-breed investment and technology platforms that we have built to better serve our clients.
Coral Gables, FL Office
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would not do anything differently. All my experiences in life, good or bad, have helped me grow into the person I am today. As a firm, all the experiences we’ve had as individuals, the hurdles we’ve overcome, have helped us grow into the firm we are today. Life is not perfect, life isn’t fair at times, but I feel we’ve accomplished so much over the years and we’ve only just begun.
My goals are to close new deals every day, get referred new clients and find the next best investment solution. However, what is truly important to me on a personal level, I have in abundance…I’m surrounded by a beautiful loving family at home, great friends and an amazing team at my office. We’re having fun, working hard and enjoying the ride.
Contact Info:
- Address: Coral Gables Location
814 Ponce De Leon Blvd. Suite 500
Coral Gables, FL 33134 - Website: www.castleviewpartners.com
- Phone: 305-648-1501
- Email: uperez@castleviewpartners.com
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