Solon VlastoCFP®

What sparked your interest in financial planning? What fuels you every day in your work?

My father introduced me to the world of finance when I was young. Although I didn’t directly dive into it early on as a career, I continued to study various personal finance concepts and investing strategies; especially how to help others navigate a fairly complicated topic and have an impact on their plans and goals.

Client situations can be quite diverse and reviewing each one with their various nuances and crafting solutions for meeting their plans and goals continues to drive me every day. No day is ever the same.

What’s a particularly rewarding example of how you helped to create impact for a client?

I had a couple with plenty of resources but they weren’t sure they were doing the right thing when it came to investing and planning for their future goals. With some analysis and adjustments of how they were saving we developed a plan that was successful for them – and they actually didn’t need to be as risky as they thought to meet their goals. This is not an unusual case and often new clients are similar in one way or another.

How do you do good in your community?

I enjoy working with industry partners like the Financial Planning Association and their community planning days where they set up in areas where financial planning is not typically something people have access to.

When you retire you’re going to…?

Financial planning is fortunately something you can do for quite a long time so no end in sight at this point!

Where did you grow up? Where do you live now?

I grew up in Stamford CT and moved to Northern Virginia about 20 years ago. I met my wife Kimberly here and have lived in this area ever since.