Here's our final batch of ThinkAdvisor Life Health 30 Under 30 award winners for 2017.
These life, health and benefits sector professionals have survived the same economic ups and downs, and underlying societal changes, that have faced the other 2017 award winners, and they've survived another, additional challenge: the alphabet.
The award winners we honored in our first two batches may have occasionally received some opportunities partly because their surnames start with an A, or some letter close to A. Not these winners. These millennials have made a mark, fast, despite having to put up with waiting in more lines, for longer, than about two-thirds of their peers.
All were believed to be under 30 by the time we stopped taking nominations and stopped scouting for own candidates, in early January.
We plan to begin taking entries for our 2018 30 Under 30 program in January.
Meanwhile, here's a look at what these winners have said about their careers, the current state of the financial services sector, and the future of the sector.
Zachary A. Meissner
29
Bellevue, Washington
Vice president/sales manager
Pacific Capital Resource Group (The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company)
ThinkAdvisor Life Health: Why did you choose a career in insurance or financial services?
Zachary A. Meissner: I majored in entrepreneurship because I always wanted to start my own company. Once you actually start to dive into starting a business, the real world risks involved become a bit daunting. The notion of becoming a financial planner really clicked for me because it was an opportunity to start a potentially lucrative independent business venture, but with a set of instructions and low financial outlay.
Describe what you do.
I work to imbue others with passion. I split about a third of my time between running my personal practice, recruiting advisors into our office (and often into the industry), and developing the practices of new advisors.
With clients, it's about getting them to feel excited about planning for their future. Having a plan dramatically increases your chances for success in life.
When I'm recruiting or working with new advisors, I talk a lot about "The 4 I's" of why people do what we do: Impact, Income, Independence, and Intellectual stimulation.
Share an achievement you are especially proud of.
I'm most proud of earning my designations: Chartered Life Underwriter, Chartered Financial Consultant and Chartered Financial Planner.
This is a competitive industry and being the best means balancing the triad of success, which in my opinion comes down to: client interaction and service, practice management, and professional knowledge and/or continuing education. I am currently working on my Masters of Science in Financial Services (MSFS).
Another achievement that I am very proud of is building our clientele.
What is the biggest challenge that you see in the industry or what is the one thing you would change?
The first challenge is the lack of millennials entering the business combined with the fact that the average age of a financial advisor is around 57 years old. The second challenge is the threat of technology or robo-advisors combined with a misunderstanding of what financial planning actually is. With the advent of robo-advisors, consumers are increasingly looking toward online resources for advice.
Also, we no longer mirror the markets we serve: millennials continue to show increasing dedication to planning for their future and women are taking a more pivotal role in the planning process. Constantly changing laws and regulations require new fresh minds to reinvent the industry and client service.
What is the biggest opportunity that you see in the industry?
The biggest opportunity is getting young people, women and minorities excited about a career in financial services. This will allow us to stay viable as an industry.
We also need to be better about leveraging technology to serve our needs, not just within planning and advising but within marketing.
What do you think millennials are looking for in an advisor? How can advisors best serve this market?
Our generation spends a lot of time online. When we want advice on things, our knee-jerk response is to search for the answer on the Internet.
What millennials want from an advisor is both the types of advice that they can't get from a robot, and an ear to listen and counsel. It comes down to emotional management.
What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a young person looking to enter this industry?
The main concern I hear from young people is: "I don't know if I am comfortable approaching my family or friends for business or referrals".
Rather than seeing yourself as a sales person, see yourself as an advocate. The vast majority of people do not have a financial plan, and not one that is comprehensive and addresses the entire gamut of financial planning needs.
You won't always be prospecting through your friends and family; eventually your market will expand and referrals will flow from many different sources. View the interaction with friends and family as an opportunity to help the people you care for most.
Alexa Meyer
26
Bellevue, Washington
Financial advisor
Pacific Capital Resource Group (The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company)
ThinkAdvisor Life Health: Why did you choose a career in insurance or financial services?
I've always been a people person. I've always been a numbers person. There aren't many careers where these two components go hand in hand.
I loved that financial services gave me the ability to develop a practice in my own way and with my own personality showing through. I also sought an industry where I can have it all — the family life I always envisioned and a career that made an impact on the world.
Describe what you do.
I help empower families and business owners to make educated financial decisions for themselves and their future. My approach with my clients is to ensure that we are collaborating in the decision making process; I am the informant, educator, and advisor; they are not being told what to do. We form long-lasting, trusted relationships through this collaboration process as we continue to build their plan through the years.
Share an achievement you are especially proud of.
I was extremely honored to have earned the Bronze award for Penn Mutual's Career Builder of the Year. I really pushed myself that year beyond what I thought was possible and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to make an impact on so many families that year.
What is the biggest challenge that you see in the industry or what is the one thing you would change?
I see a lack of understanding in what kind of value we can impart. With so much media around robo-advisors and DIY solutions, it may look like we are heading toward obsolescence in the marketplace. However, as our clients know, a financial advisor's value doesn't necessarily always come in the form of high returns, but in the intangibles: hand-holding clients through complex strategies, having the tough conversations regarding risk management that they might otherwise not address or even think about, educating the client on options they may have never realized they had. This component of the relationship is often more valuable to our clients than the reduced fees they could get elsewhere by doing things on their own. This is what we need to focus on marketing in the future: the relationship.
What is the biggest opportunity that you see in the industry?
Women — that doesn't necessarily mean only working with single women or women as the primary breadwinner, but making sure you are connecting with the woman in the family in an important way. Women tend to enjoy working with professionals more than men. They are often more receptive to advice and therefore end up implementing planning faster.
Long-term, women also refer more clients than men typically do. Many women have been left of the financial planning process in the past, as it is traditionally an aspect of the household that men handle. By making them an equal partner at the table and getting everyone on the same page, the whole planning process moves a lot smoother.
What do you think millennials are looking for in an advisor? How can advisors best serve this market?
Millennials are looking for information and education catered specifically to their situation. Young professionals are taught to research, to use their networks, and to use the internet as a sounding board for major decisions in life.
Despite this, most people realize that all the ready-made financial advice available to them on the web might not be as fine-tuned as they need it to be for practical and highly personal decision-making. This is where we can be of value. By demystifying the world of finance and taking an educational, unbiased approach to our client meetings, millennials see the value in working with professionals.
What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a young person looking to enter this industry?
Begin with the end in mind! Create systems that you know you can sustain or reformat as your practice grows.
Vladimir Nikitenko
25
Atlanta
Financial planner
Lincoln Financial Advisors
ThinkAdvisor Life Health: Why did you choose a career in insurance or financial services?
Vladimir Nikitenko: I always believed that people should pursue a career in something they were genuinely interested in. When talking to buddies in college, I would always ask if whatever they are studying for, if they research it and learn about it outside of what is taught in class and what was assigned. Following that logic, I was interested in finance well outside just the scope of school work… This lead me to purse my passion and become a financial advisor.
Describe what you do.
I am an independent financial planner that focuses on comprehensive financial planning. I make an effort to know every detail about my client and use all that information to put together an all-encompassing financial planning, this includes retirement planning, investments, life insurance, long term care, college planning, and income planning. Once I have an objective plan, we then find the right products or services from a variety of sponsors to meet the needs of the plan.
Share an achievement you are especially proud of.
To me, sentimental achievements are much more important than purely worldly ones. Having said that, I honestly feel the greatest sense of accomplishment when I was able to take a client from start to finish, from chaotic to orderly, from uncertain to protected and knowing that after working with me, they are financially in a much better place than before they met me.
What is the biggest challenge you see in the industry, or what is the one thing you would change?
Self-reliance. With easy access to information, many people believe that they can do everything themselves and ignore advice from professionals. This is not only in the finance industry, I see this in my wife when she tries to diagnose herself and our kids on WebMD. We cannot all be experts in everything, and people need to understand that they cannot do enough research to know what professionals that spend their whole day, and life doing.
What is the biggest opportunity you see in the industry?
The average age of the current advisor. There are not enough young people in the industry and I believe that within the next decade there will be a ton of business and clients that will have to be passed down to the next generation of financial professionals. The need for good advice, planning, and quality financial products will remain, and being there to capture that opportunity is huge.
What do you think millennials are looking for in an advisor? How can advisors best serve this market?
I think millennials need an advisor to tell them what they do not know. Professionals working with millennials need to be sharper and more educated and informed than ever before. With so much information out there, we need to truly be experts in our field. If millennials see this, I believe they will not hesitate to give us their business.
What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a young person looking to enter this industry?
Do plenty of research to make sure you understand what will be expected of you, and how hard you will have to work to succeed, once you are in the business, no matter what happens, stick to your decision and know that you are in it for the long run.
Martin Pfannenstiel
27
Director of business development and chief compliance officer
ChangePath
Kansas City, Missouri
ThinkAdvisor Life Health: Why did you choose a career in insurance or financial services?
Martin Pfannenstiel: I got involved in the insurance industry while playing football at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. I grew up playing sports and was always an involved student, so when I was approached by Mark Heitz of Aviva a carrier located in Topeka, I was intrigued. I studied accounting during my undergrad, and working for a life insurance and annuity carrier allowed me to use both my analytical skills and outgoing personality simultaneously. I've always been somewhat of a go-getter, so after experiencing one aspect of the industry with Aviva, I was motivated to see how I could put my skills and background to use in other areas of the industry.
Please describe what you do.
Essentially, I help provide advisors with advice on how to properly handle and allocate clients in order to ensure the best interest of the client is being met. ChangePath is a registered investment advisor with a direct affiliation to CreativeOne, an agent development organization, so I utilize both advisory and insurance services in order to meet clients' needs. In order to help advisors prepare for approaching DOL deadlines and fiduciary responsibilities, without incurring additional overhead costs, I utilize insurance products as an asset class to hedge portfolios, teach advisors how to weather economic volatility using insurance and integrate annuities into client portfolios.
Please share an achievement you are especially proud of and describe why.
The achievement I am proudest of is obtaining my juris doctorate degree, along with successfully becoming certified to practice law in Kansas. The ability to have a legal understanding, while obtaining my taxation certification in law school, enables me to better serve others, advocate on behalf of advisors and positively impact those I work alongside.
What is the biggest challenge you see in the industry, and what is the one thing you would do to change it?
I think nearly everyone can agree one of the biggest challenges everyone faces is time. There's never enough time in the day to complete everything that needs to be done, such as implement technologies that could drastically mitigate or eliminate the majority of non-revenue driving activities or confer with peers and mentors about struggles and successes they've faced. We can't create more time — there are only so many hours in the day — but as an industry, we need to break down barriers so more advisors can implement technologies to scale their business and heighten the client experience. How do you change that? Embrace technology. Not only do the new technologies available provide time efficiencies, effectively scale practices, but they also provide transparency and better client experiences.
What is the biggest opportunity you see in the industry?
Opportunity lies in the middle class. It's truly an underserved market, but one that has significant potential. Although we're in an information-overload culture and many are influenced by Google searching, it' hard to identify the intricacies of retirement planning that could impact them. Often, many don't know what they don't know. Nor, will they know where to look. And therein lies the opportunity for advisors. With the current regulations, opportunities are going to swing in favor of holistic planners because of the very nature of our business — clients seek long-lasting, foundational relationships with their planners. And, studies show the middle class sticks with them. As advisors, can we earn a coveted place with clients by being the primary contact for financial resources and knowledge? This increases your value and client retention. Like I said, clients often don't know what they don't know, and it's our responsibility to continually earn their business.
What do you think millennials are looking for in an advisor? How can advisors best serve this market?
I believe millennials are looking for many of the same things others seek: integrity, transparency, lower fees, better value and better stewards in general. And why shouldn't they get those things? I also believe they're in search of advisors who utilize better technology in their practices, in keeping up with the times. Older advisors with less innovative technology aren't having success capturing millennial clients as a result of the lack of a number of the factors I mentioned above.
The difference is millennials also want the long-term financial journey to be simplified and straightforward, so that's the approach we should take. And, how do you overcome those millennials seeking instant gratification? We effectively communicate and help them visualize the tremendous impact planning can have on their lifestyle. We're not trading oranges for apples. We're teaching them to trade oranges for a full apple tree later. If you can hone in on your presentation skills in a manner that resonates, it immediately becomes relevant. And that's the key to compensate for instant gratification-minded clients: relevancy. As advisors, everyone benefits when we are powerful and relevant story tellers that can help clients visualize their future.
What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a young person looking to enter this industry?
My advice: finding a quality mentor is the key to success. And, there are qualities to look for in mentors that can help grow your business acumen and round out your soft skill set. Great mentors can be individuals who are still climbing, deeply vested in seeing you succeed, want to shape your future or help you better yourself. I am fortunate enough to have two extraordinary colleagues who have tremendously helped me, Mark Heitz and Lance Sparks. And those connections have been paramount in sculpting me as a professional.
Zoltan Pongracz Jr.
29
Shelton, Connecticut
Financial advisor/financial planner
Barnum Financial Group
ThinkAdvisor Life Health: Why did you choose a career in insurance or financial services?
Zoltan Pongracz Jr.: A career in financial services kind of chose me. My parents and I immigrated to the United States when I was around four years old. I attended several elementary schools, and I did not think much about a career in my younger years. Fast forward some years, I ultimately became the first in my family to attend college and I set out to pursue a career in hotel and casino management, which the school that I chose was well-known for. Along the way, I took a finance course and fell in love. When I graduated, I connected with a friend who had gone to work for Barnum Financial Group, and he encouraged me to come in for an interview. I entered the firm's training program and became an advisor in 2011. Since then, I've enjoyed building a business and truly helping my clients at the same time.
Describe what you do.
If I had to sum it up, I would say that I help my clients make smart financial decisions to achieve what they want, protect what they already have, and provide support for the people who depend on them. Most of my clients have multiple needs and they are looking for a personal CFO to quarterback their entire situation. I will often work with the other professionals in clients' lives such as their CPA and estate planning attorney.
Share an achievement you are especially proud of.
I've won industry awards and firm recognition, but my biggest accomplishments I would mention are actual cases where my team has had a tremendous impact on a family. I've done a decent amount of work in the field of special needs planning, and one financial plan in particular ended with a result that was not only life-changing for the clients but also for me. Times like that remind me of why I am in this business.
What is the biggest challenge you see in the industry, or what is the one thing you would change?
The upcoming changes to the Department of Labor's fiduciary rules going into effect in 2017 and 2018. I could not agree more that financial professionals should be held to high standards and this overall should be a good thing.
