Tommy Martin, CFP®, CPWA®

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Partner & Chief Executive Officer

“Living ‘wealth that matters’ means putting my faith into action. It means being just as passionate about serving the bottom 1% as we are about serving the top 1%. It means being generous with our family’s resources.”

Tommy is honored to have been named nationally to Investment News’ inaugural list of Top 40 Under 40 Advisors* across the nation, and was selected as 1 of 8 industry visionaries “who will pull the rest of the profession into the next stratum”.

Tommy is an alumnus of Harvard Business School. He completed further training at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and Kansas State’s Institute for Personal Financial Planning, where he was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi and Kappa Omicron Nu scholastic honor societies.

As a long-time advisor to leading surgeons, Tom has had the privilege of conducting financial lectures for some of the top medical departments in the country, including at Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, the University of Michigan, Ohio State College, the University of Florida, and others.

Tommy brings a wealth of experience to his role at Vestia, including previously serving as a private wealth advisor at a leading independent financial planning firm who serves some of the Great Lakes area’s most successful business owners, as well as serving in leadership (ultimately as CEO) for ten years at a physician-focused financial planning firm.

He has also spoken to several professional groups on advanced planning topics. In addition, he developed the CFP® training curriculum at Taylor University while serving as an adjunct professor and member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee. As an avid writer, Tommy wrote the best-selling book, Doctor’s Eyes Only, has published numerous financial articles for nationwide news outlets and also authored the “Financial Planning Guide for Adoption”.

*2014 InvestmentNews: 40 under 40 List: Nominations were solicited from InvestmentNews readers and financial planning industry professionals. Nominees must be 39 or younger and are judged, by the editors of InvestmentNews, on their accomplishments, industry contributions, leadership, and promise (passion, enthusiasm, and ideas). Approximately 1,200 advisors were considered. 3% of candidates were named to the list. Individuals were selected solely based on the subjective opinions of InvestmentNews' editors and are not indicative of the advisor's future performance. Your experience may vary. For more information, please visit investmentnews.com.

Tommy Martin, CFP®, CPWA®

Partner

Share an interesting story about your family.

My wife and I met our freshman year in college and I knew immediately I wanted to marry her. The night of our first date, I wrote on a five-dollar bill, “This is the first $5 for Rachel’s engagement ring.” I then gave that $5 bill to my wife on the first anniversary of our wedding.

Our oldest daughter was adopted internationally and has special needs. We didn’t know it at the time we adopted her, so it’s been both a challenge and a joy to grow through that.

My boys have been doing real internships with my business since they were five years old. I have them negotiate their salary. When they were little, their most important job as an intern was to smile and shake hands and then take notes during meetings. By age 11, one of my sons was doing data analysis for us and presented his findings to a group of 50 adults.

Tell us about something special from your youth.

I set 100 life goals when I was 19 years old that spanned across the major areas of my life. I found this document again recently and it was awesome to see how many I had knocked off the list. Most of them have a story, but perhaps the crazier story is that I was already thinking about this stuff as a 19 year old.

Another goal I’ve accomplished that wasn’t on my list as a 19 year old was to donate a library. I read a lot while growing up and continue to read a lot today, averaging over 100 books per year. One of my favorite quotes is by a different guy named Tommy. He said, “The only things that will change your life are the people you meet, and the books that you read.” Over the past decade, my family has had the opportunity to donate a library’s worth of books to our local schools and libraries. It’s been incredibly rewarding for us as we’ve focused on providing books that teachers desire for their classrooms that they do not have the budget to cover.

When did you first realize you were interested in finance?

While sitting in a client meeting as an intern, I experienced the look of relief that came over a client’s face knowing that their financial life was going to be just fine. I loved that moment and poured myself into the profession.

How did you decide to become an advisor?

I needed a part-time job during college and became an intern. Never planned to go into the field, but love it now that I have!

What is the most important thing you’ve learned about helping other people?

We never know what curve balls life will throw and I love being the first call for a client when life throws something unexpected their way – whether it’s a windfall or a massive challenge. I’ve been through a lot with our clients over the past couple decades.

What are you known for among your friends?

They would tell you that I’ve got a huge heart and am very generous and that I’d give the shirt off my back to anybody. I’m frequently without cash in my wallet because I’ll empty it out to leave tips at Waffle House (yes, I am unashamed to say I love eating at Waffle House).

They would also tell you I love planning vacations. I plan them for our family and for other people’s families as I think time out of town is the easiest way for families to really connect with one another these days.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

My whole family is heavily involved in our local church and community. Collectively as a family we donate about 40-60 hours of time per week to being involved at our church.

We love traveling to Hawaii with my wife’s extended family each summer. We’ve had many incredible adventures. Hawaii is definitely my favorite vacation destination. There’s no better place than swimming at Waimea Falls!

What is your favorite part of what you do at Vestia?

Helping people see what they can’t see for themselves. Often they are working so hard to provide what they already have – an incredible life for their loved ones. I love helping them plan for the present so that they enjoy today while planning ahead for the future.

What book do you always tell people they should read? Why?

Love Works by Joel Manby (former CEO of SeaWorld). It’s all about building a culture in your organization centered on truly loving your workforce and your clients. Not a weird cultish love, but a genuine care and concern for your people’s well-being. We believe our team is our most important asset as a company, so we invest a lot of resources into them.

One of Vestia’s values is to model “wealth that matters.” What does this mean to you?

It means putting my faith into action. It means being just as passionate about serving the bottom 1% as we are about serving the top 1%. It means not being on my cell phone during family dinner but instead being fully engaged in them. It means being generous with our family’s resources – giving a surplus! (That’s another one of our values at Vestia).