Here's Our Story

I became a financial advisor at 22 years old. It’s all I’ve ever done professionally.

I grew up in this business.

I spent days, nights, and weekends cold-calling tens of thousands of strangers, simply hoping for the chance to earn their trust. I know what it feels like to win a new client, and I know what it feels like to lose one. I’ve managed portfolios through bull markets, financial crises, and everything in between. I’ve worked inside a large public company, and I’ve built an independent RIA from scratch with no outside financial backing.

Through every stage of my career, one lesson has remained constant: the advisors who succeed are the ones who adapt to what clients need next.

Because I’ve lived the advisor experience firsthand, I understand their frustrations. Most financial advisors don’t lack passion or expertise, they lack time.

Today’s advisors are expected to be investment managers, financial planners, tax strategists, estate planning coordinators, behavioral coaches, business owners, marketers, compliance officers, and relationship managers, all at once. Every client is different. Every regulation adds complexity. Every year brings new planning opportunities. The result is an endless backlog of valuable advice that never gets delivered.

And that was before artificial intelligence changed everything.

A few years ago, I realized something uncomfortable: despite all the marketing, nearly every RIA operated the same.

We all claimed to be different, yet we were assembling the same collection of disconnected software — the same “tech stack” — to get through the day. Every new problem was solved by adding another application, another login, another integration. We called it innovation. It was just more technology stacked on more technology.

Eventually, stacks fall.

Even the best Magna-Tiles eventually collapse. (I know, I have three young children.)

At almost exactly the right moment, I was introduced to Michael Simon.

Michael had already co-founded and taken two technology companies public. While I was experiencing the day-to-day pain of being an advisor, he and his engineering team had spent years solving a completely different problem: why financial plans and investment portfolios exist as separate worlds. Together, they had already built the technology to connect the two: creating an entirely new way for advisors to engage clients.

We immediately realized that neither of us had the complete answer alone.

I understood advisors. Michael understood how to build technology that changes what’s possible.

Together, we created Claro Advisors with a simple mission: to build the best home for financial advisors in the world.

Not another RIA with a better payout. Not another collection of software. A completely new operating system for wealth management.

I wish I’d had this platform back when I was cold-calling strangers — something that gives me back the hours I lost to paperwork, so I could spend them on the client in front of me instead. That’s what Claro’s technology does today. It gives advisors back more than 20 hours every week by automating the operational work that used to eat their calendars: the compliance checks, the reporting, the busywork between meetings. Our Intelligent Hub watches every account for what actually matters to that client, a tax-loss harvest opportunity, a plan that’s drifted from its goal, a life event that changes the picture, and puts it in front of the advisor before they’d ever have caught it on their own. Our Portfolio Engine connects the investment side directly to the financial plan, so a client’s portfolio isn’t just managed. It’s working toward the exact goals they told their advisor about.

The goal has never been to replace financial advisors. The goal is to remove everything that keeps them from doing what they do best: building relationships, giving advice, and changing their clients’ lives.