Best Financial Planners in Edmonton

Barbara is more than a financial planner and Money Coach. She is also a research scientist who investigates a genetic disorder that afflicts young children.

Like many career-driven professionals, she has held several positions over the years. She has lived in four different countries across three continents, learning to overcome language and cultural barriers along the way. All of this has taught her to eliminate clutter from her life and to focus on a few core values, such as personal integrity and financial independence.

Barbara’s clients are well educated and accomplished in their chosen fields. They earn a good income but experience both time and cash-flow challenges due to the demands of their profession. Frequently it’s a new career milestone, a promotion or relocation to a different city, that prompts clients to reach out to Barbara for a comprehensive review of their financial lives.

Many of Barbara’s clients also enlist her support to help them attain financial freedom and begin enjoying the fruits of their labour – well in advance of the traditional retirement age of 65.

Barbara creates financial plans that are both workable and specifically designed for her clients. The empowerment that clients experience in working with Barbara helps them build confidence and significantly improves their financial well-being. But Barbara is most proud of the long-term relationships she’s cultivated with her clients and seeing how their lives evolve.

By looking at the many aspects of what retirement means to clients and building a plan to assist in reaching the goals set out in the discussion. We look at not just the financial aspect of retiring; but, housing, mental and lifestyle goals of each client.

Statistics consistently show a slow and steady decline in confidence that they will be able to afford to retire — especially if they want to continue with their current lifestyle.

A 2011 report from the U.S. Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) found that two out of five people aren’t all that confident about how they’ve prepared for the future. Similarily, a poll from the Associated Press found only 11 per cent of baby boomers in the U.S. felt they could afford to retire in a way in which they’d be happy.

Dawn Vader has lived in the Edmonton area for more than 30 years and is an experienced and knowledgeable Financial Advisor and Certified Financial Planner.

Dawn specializes in Life Insurance and Estate Planning for Individuals and Businesses. Having worked through Alberta’s boom & bust economic cycles, she is passionate about helping her clients achieve long term financial peace of mind.

After 15 years with BMO Bank of Montreal in Commercial roles & Private banking, Dawn founded her own Financial Planning company, Red Seal Financial Ltd.in 2013. She has worked with many individual and business clients coaching them to implement defensive Insurance based strategies and to put tax efficient investment & savings plans in place. Together with a CPA, CMA partner, Red Seal offers full financial planning engagements for businesses and family partnerships.

Red Seal understands that working in cooperation with the client’s other professional Advisors results in the best outcome for the client. The skillset the Red Seal team offers means Executive and Business owner clients can expect a solution tailored to their unique requirements at any phase in their financial lifecycle

Dawn has held several volunteer board positions in the Edmonton area & together with Red Seal actively supports not for profit organizations working in 2016/17 and 2018 with Junior Achievement’s financial literacy initiative for students.

Dawn enjoys an active lifestyle training and competing in open water swim events, travel and believes being in the backcountry without a cell phone is a good thing!

Hi my name is Jim and I have been in the financial industry for 25 years. I’ve made it my mission to help people make better financial decisions through not only my financial education presentations but also my website, best selling books and personal consultations.

Today, I spend most of my time helping employers and employees with Pensions and Group RRSP plans and delivering my financial education programs through forward thinking companies that believe in the importance of helping their employees become more financially stable, not just through benefits and compensation but also through educational support.

I still love the opportunity to work with individuals either through the workplaces we support or when individuals hire me as a FEE ONLY ADVISOR.

If you are an employer that wants to hire me to look at your Group RRSP or Pension program at work or put a financial wellness program or education program on for your employees, let me know, I would love to help.

Or if you are an individual looking for help on retirement, investing or personal finance, be sure to check out my award winning website RetireHappy.ca, my books or contact me for an individual fee only consultation.

Joanne David offers her clients independent financial planning services through many mutual fund and other financial partners. Being independent means she best serves her clients by offering a wide range of investments and insurance products offered by the industry. Joanne has worked in the financial services and investment industries for more than twenty-five years and has been based in Edmonton since 2001.

To best serve her clients, Joanne holds the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation and has been awarded the and the prestigious Fellow of CSI® (FCSI) distinction. The FCSI is the highest honour and most senior credential in Canadian financial services.

Prior to moving to Edmonton with her spouse, Joanne has held various progressive senior positions in accounting, real estate, and financial services: in both Vancouver and Winnipeg. Joanne understands self-employed individuals since she has been a career that has spanned many years of successful experiences as an entrepreneur: dating back as early as teenage years. Joanne has worked with a wide variety of professionals and working class alike and enjoys learning about people’s life stories.

When I was 23 years old I was recruited to work for one of today’s large well know Wealth Management firms.  At the time, I was newly married, had a young daughter to support and knew very little about financial planning, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, insurance and risk management.

I quickly discovered I loved working with money and finance.  But what I love most was educating clients, getting to know them, their families, and their needs.   I could bring clarity to their financial picture.

Over the last 22 years, I’ve held a number of management level financial positions which include Financial Advisor, Regional Sales & Training Managers, Mortgage Specialist, Insurance Sales, Bank Manager, Investment Specialist and Financial Planner.

Kent founded High Level Wealth Management after identifying a need for independent financial planning and wealth management services in Edmonton. He is currently registered in Alberta as an Advising Representative (AR), Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), and Ultimate Designated Person (UDP).

Prior to starting High Level Wealth Management, Kent spent more than a decade working in the institutional investment industry, with the last five of those years spent as a discretionary portfolio manager responsible for $550 million of fixed income investments at the City of Edmonton. He also contributed to the administration of the City’s broader $3 billion investment program, undertaking tasks such as currency and commodity price hedging, money market and treasury functions, asset mix rebalancing, forecasting investment earnings, and collaborating with the City’s external investment managers.

Kent graduated from the University of Alberta in 2006, earning a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction and various academic awards including the Harold B. Banister Dean’s Citation in Business. In 2010, he earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®) designation, and in 2020 he successfully passed the Chief Compliance Officers Qualifying Examination.

Through his education and experience Kent has developed a wealth management philosophy guided by academic research and historical evidence. He is a strong proponent of low-fee, passively-managed investment products with broad-market exposure and does not believe in the merits of active management (i.e. trying to “beat the market” through individual security selection or other forms of market timing).

Looking after the client is number one. For more than 15 years as a financial advisor Lee has dedicated his career to understanding his client’s challenges and has paired them with financial solutions that will fit their needs today and in the future.

Lee has first-hand exposure to the pitfalls and turbulence created by lack of financial planning, whether it’s not saving enough for goals or retirement or not having the proper protection in place for the loss of a loved one. From these experiences Lee draws powerful parallels that connect solutions to his clients in a way that will ensure their financial security for a lifetime.

Markus started his career in financial planning with TD Waterhouse in 2007, at the eve of the worst financial crisis in over a generation. He quickly learned the importance of ensuring that every invested dollar is tied to stated goals by way of a comprehensive financial plan. The 2009 market crash, and the bull market that followed, also affirmed that every bear market is just a short-term interruption to a long-term permanent up-trend.

While the first part of his career at the bank provided a great training ground, Markus felt that selling proprietary commission-based mutual funds wasn’t the ideal way to implement his clients’ wealth strategies and joined Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management in 2013.

Markus graduated with honors from the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University and has held the Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation since 2009. In 2015 he attained the Chartered Investment Manager (CIM®) designation and since 2016 he has been able to provide discretionary investment management as a Portfolio Manager.

Steve Ambeault is a Portfolio Manager at Morrison & Partners. He specializes in personal, corporate, and trust taxation. His passion lies in assisting people with secure financial plans for their future.

His financial plans have helped people from various occupations in building financial stability.

He became a Chartered Accountant (CA) in 2002. In 2003, he completed the CICA In-depth Tax Course and went on to obtain the Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation. Steve had also worked for KPMG in the past.