Cassandra Golden

Michelle Morris is a CFP® and Series 65 credentialed financial advisor with 14 years of industry experience. She is the principal of Brio Financial Planning in Quincy, MA, and has worked as a tax specialist at Leo J. Hart III since 2009. Brio Financial Planning is an independent, fee-only firm serving individuals and families with holistic financial planning and portfolio management. The firm focuses on goals-based planning, offering services such as tax preparation and typically managing assets on a non-discretionary basis with fixed retainer fees rather than percentage-of-AUM charges.

Benjamin Doernberg is a financial advisor at First Step Financial in Boston, MA, holding a Series 65 designation with one year of industry experience. Prior to founding First Step Financial, he worked with Never Again Action and Escape the Room Boston. First Step Financial provides financial planning and advisory services to individual and high-net-worth clients through one-off plans, ad-hoc hourly engagements, and an ongoing subscription option, focusing on modern portfolio theory and broad index mutual funds and ETFs. The firm does not custody or trade client accounts and uses a pricing model based on subscription and hourly fees rather than asset-based charges.

I began my career in the financial services industry nearly ten years ago. Prior to founding Dreamfield Planning Group, I served as an associate wealth management advisor at Sconset Wealth Management—an advisory practice nested in the downtown Boston office of Northwestern Mutual—where I developed financial plans and managed investment assets. In a preceding role in the same office, I led an internal business unit providing investment consulting services to multiple financial advisors representing more than $200 million of assets under management (AUM). Previous to that, I served as an associate financial advisor at a Foxborough, Massachusetts financial planning practice and as a research analyst at a Cambridge, Massachusetts public policy research firm. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in History from Hendrix College and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University. I am both a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and a CFA Charterholder. I have lived for many years in Milton, Massachusetts with my wife Allie and our son Ben. In my spare time, I enjoy travel, reading, playing guitar, and taking long walks with the family dog, Louie.

Adam Apt is a CFA® charterholder and holds a Series 65 license, with 18 years of industry experience. He has been the principal of Peabody River Asset Management, LLC since 2007. Additionally, he serves as Vice President of Investment Analytics at LTSAVE, Inc., where he designs and oversees an automated investment advice system for defined contribution retirement plans. Peabody River Asset Management is a fee-only registered investment adviser providing portfolio management, financial planning, and consulting services to individuals, families, and institutional clients, including charitable organizations. The firm employs a top-down, four-stage portfolio construction process with a focus on ETFs, bonds, and a mostly buy-and-hold approach, supplementing fundamental analysis with quantitative risk models.

Steve Ng is the sole advisor at Woodland Investment Consulting LLC in Boston, MA. He holds the CFA® designation and Series 63 license and has 17 years of industry experience. He has been employed with MFS Fund Distributors, Inc. since 2005 and has served as an instructor at the Boston Security Analysts Society since 1992. Woodland Investment Consulting provides discretionary portfolio management and integrated financial planning primarily for individual investors and pension plans, including defined-contribution plans. The firm follows a value-oriented, relatively low-risk investment approach with broad diversification and a focus on income and capital preservation.

Todd Carter is the principal of The Blue Oak Group, LLC, an investment advisory firm based in Boston, MA. He holds Series 63 and Series 65 licenses and has 15 years of industry experience. Prior to founding The Blue Oak Group in 2008, Mr. Carter worked at Kalos Management and Kalos Capital, Inc. He also co-owns Mercer Consulting, LLC, a real estate consulting firm specializing in §1031 like-kind exchanges. The Blue Oak Group provides alternative investment advice and consulting to select accredited individuals, trusts, and corporate entities, focusing on tax-aware capital deployment and customized alternative allocations as part of broader financial plans. The firm’s approach includes working with a range of alternative assets and coordinating with clients’ existing legal, tax, and wealth teams.