CFA®
Chartered Financial Analyst
One of the most rigorous designations in investment management. Requires passing three levels of exams and demonstrating professional experience in investment decision-making.
— About
David M. Ward
CFA® · CEPA · Brookside Strategy & Consulting
I've been advising business owners and high-net-worth families for over 30 years. The first thing I tell new clients is this: the first time you meet me, you won't hear me say anything about investments. I want to hear where you're trying to go first.
Everything else follows from that conversation.
— The Story
— Where I started
I spent more than 20 years helping people preserve wealth. Then I realized that's not how wealth actually gets built.
I started out as a portfolio manager. Equities, fixed income, diversification, risk management — I managed over a billion dollars in client assets across high-net-worth families, senior executives, foundations, and retirement plans. And I was good at it.
But I kept noticing something I couldn't explain away. The clients who had actually built real wealth hadn't done it through a balanced portfolio. They'd done it by concentrating everything on one thing — their business, their practice, their one concentrated bet — and building it relentlessly.
— What I noticed
Real wealth is built in a concentrated fashion. Most financial advice ignores that completely.
30 years ago, a lot of it was executives with significant stock options and company stock — wealth concentration in a single company. Now I'm seeing more and more business owners. Same dynamic, different vehicle. They've got a concentrated position in a single asset — their business — and they need to know what it's actually worth and where it's going.
The conventional advice — diversify early, protect against downside, keep everything balanced — is often exactly the wrong advice when your wealth is still being built. I realized I needed to stop giving advice designed for employees to people who were never employees in the first place.
— How I work now
I lead with advice, not investments. And I'm selective about who I work with.
People call me “The Professor” — not because I make things complicated, but because I work hard to make complicated things simple. I've been doing this long enough to know the difference between a tactic and a strategy, and I spend most of my time helping clients stay focused on the latter.
I built this firm to be selective. Not because I'm trying to be exclusive, but because I genuinely think I can do more for people who are compatible with the way I work. If there's a mismatch, I'll tell you. I'd rather lose a client on the front end than do mediocre work for the wrong person.
What I care about is your finish line. Where do you want to go? What do you need to get there? What are you building toward — not just financially, but in terms of the life on the other side? That's the conversation I want to have. Everything else is just tools to get you there.
— In His Own Words
How David thinks about the work.
These aren't marketing lines. They're how David actually talks about what he does — pulled from real conversations with clients and colleagues.
If you tell me that your investment portfolio only earned 11% when you wanted 12% — you're focusing on the wrong thing. What matters is: do we have a strategy in place to get you where you want to go?
The first time you meet me, you won't hear me talk about investments. Investments are a deliverable. What matters is where you want to go. I don't care what Bitcoin's doing today.
There's a big difference between wealth and income — and most people aren't taught that. People focused on tactics rarely build lasting wealth. Strategy is what holds up when the distractions hit.
Most business owners are putting out fires. They don't have the bandwidth to work on all eight value drivers — or to be held accountable for making sure they're being addressed. That's part of what I do.
If it did bother me, I would've picked another line of work 30 years ago. Market volatility is like the weather to me — it just is. What I care about is whether you're being compensated for the risk you're taking.
Stay in the game. Life is hard, business is hard — but if you stay in it and take the punches, you're on the right track. And you are what you think about. Focus on what matters and stop letting distractions dress themselves up as strategy.
— Credentials & Background
30+ years. Built deliberately.
The designations matter — but what matters more is that the work reflects them. Every credential here represents a specific area where David chose to go deeper than required.
CEPA
Certified Exit Planning Advisor
Specialized training in business exit planning — covering valuation, value acceleration, owner readiness, and the transition process. One of relatively few advisors in the country holding both CFA and CEPA.
30+
Years of Practice
Portfolio management, investment advisory, exit planning. $1B+ in client assets managed across high-net-worth families, senior executives, foundations, and business owners.
Pomona College
B.A.
Undergraduate degree from one of the nation's leading liberal arts institutions.
Cornell University
MBA
Graduate business education from the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.
CFALA
Past President, CFA Society of Los Angeles
Board member and volunteer instructor — taught Portfolio Management for the CFA Review Program jointly with USC.
— Community involvement
- Past board member, Crescenta Canada YMCA
- Past board member, Urban Education Partnership
- California Dollars for Scholars
- Crescenta Valley Little League
- Crescenta Valley United Softball
- School of Law board member
— Discovery Call
Ready to have a real conversation?
A Discovery Call is 30 minutes. No pitch. I'll tell you what I see in your situation and what I'd prioritize — you decide if it makes sense to go further.