Independent.

What does independent actually mean?

Modern Wealth is an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). We are not owned by, affiliated with, or paid by a bank, a brokerage, an insurance company, or a fund family. There is no parent company setting a product shelf, no sales manager handing down quotas, and no in-house products we are quietly encouraged to recommend.

That independence changes what you can expect from the advice itself. When an advisor works inside a large institution, part of the job, whether they like it or not, is to distribute that institution's products. Even a well-intentioned advisor is operating inside a system that was built to sell. We built Modern Wealth outside of that system on purpose, so that nothing sits between your goals and the recommendation you receive.

Who do we answer to?

One party: you. Our recommendations are not filtered through a corporate product menu, cleared by a sales desk, or shaped by what happens to earn the firm the most this quarter. Because we are fee-only as well as independent, the only person who pays us is the client on the other side of the table.

Contrast that with a captive advisor at a bank or brokerage. They answer to an employer, a branch manager, and a shelf of approved products, in addition to you. When an advisor is serving two masters, the client is rarely the one who wins the tie. Independence removes the second master entirely.

What it means for you

Independence is not a slogan; it is the reason our advice can be genuinely objective. With no products to push and no quotas to hit, our only incentive is to give guidance that actually works for your situation, even when that guidance is to keep things simple, wait, or do nothing at all.

Why independence matters most for business owners

If most of your net worth is tied up in a company you built, the decisions in front of you, an exit, a liquidity event, how to turn an illiquid business into retirement income, are far too consequential to route through a product shelf. You need advice that starts with your situation, not with whatever the firm is trying to move this quarter.

Independence lets us sit fully on your side of the table: coordinating with your CPA and attorney, weighing options no product-driven advisor would surface, and building a single plan around your business and your household rather than around a commission. It is the same reason we put our fiduciary duty in writing and take only fees, never products.

Independent. Fee-only. Fiduciary. They are three parts of one commitment: advice you can trust because there is no one else we have to please.