James

Gerrard

I am a Certified Financial Planner® professional having practiced within the industry since 2001. I write weekly in The Australian Newspaper wealth section, monthly on ABC News Breakfast TV and regularly appear in various print, TV and podcast platforms discussing personal finance matters.

With me, you get real advice, real opinions and real options. This means that you’re not going to go through a stuffy process to only end up disappointed with a different super fund and some life insurances you didn’t really want.

If you have financial matters to address, if you want clarity - let’s have a chat.

Whether it be sorting out your finances, making your income work harder for you or working out whether when you can afford to retire and beyond, I provide a roadmap to optimise your current situation and direction on what is the best path to take moving forward, with different options either side.

Our firm measures success on how well we’ve addressed the issues you’ve come to us seeking clarity on. We don’t have KPI’s like many firms do based on how much stuff they’ve sold you. We provide options and solutions, they get stuff done and put people in a better financial position based on their extensive experience in working in that space.

I’ve won industry awards and been recognised by the Australian Financial Review’s Smart Investor magazine as a top 50 Financial Planner in Australia and made various other top financial planner lists in addition to having a Bachelor of Applied Finance and Master in Business Administration. I am currently completing a Doctor of Business Leadership and my expertise is in the areas of wealth accumulation strategies, share options / RSU’s, tax planning, retirement planning, expatriate advice, risk protection, estate planning, direct equities and gearing strategies.

I live in East Killara and have been married to Chiara for 20 years and have three beautiful children - Chloe (the soccer star), Avivah (the avid reader) and Vivienne (the baby of the family). In my spare time I enjoy playing 2nd division soccer for Lindfield FC, mountain bike riding at places like Manly Dam and relaxing with my family at our airbnb property at McMahons Point.

In terms of my weakness, it is cars (which are one of the fastest depreciating assets you can buy ie - a bad financial decision but good for sanity!) My garage has previously housed an orange Subaru WRX Club Spec and a ‘hothouse green’ HSV Statesman. My wife says I had my midlife crisis early but today I drive something very sensible.

In summary, our firm is made up of real people with real expertise in personal finance and our business philosophy is simple - do the right thing by people (sounds simple but our industry has been littered with a history of conflicts of interests). But by putting people first ahead of our own commercial interests, we have built strong relationships with our clients as their trusted advisor. In other words, we focus on doing what’s right and everything else falls into place. If this sounds like the type of firm you’d like to work with, then get in touch for a chat.