TIMOTHY KNEEN – FOUNDER

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Tim began providing financial consulting services to institutional investors and select families over 30 years ago. He began at Dean Witter and became one of the youngest Vice President’s in its history. He went to enjoy a 20+ year career with Citigroup, where he became a Director with Citi Institutional Consulting. Just before Citigroup became owned primarily by the US Government, United Bank of Switzerland recruited he and his team to join. He later founded IFAM Capital, a firm started with his longtime partner Clayton Hartman from Citigroup and UBS and grew that firm into one of top 100 Registered Advisory Firms/Wealth Management firms in the country as measured by Fidelity. During those years Tim helped develop the investment methodology’s, created the “Known Return” portfolio, and lead business development. At his retirement IFAM was billing in excess of $10 million in annual revenue and was managing well over a billion dollars. His experience is unique in that few firms of this size have accomplished the “triple crown” successfully. Moving between wire-house firms, from a wire-house to an independence, and then successfully transitioned that firm to the next generation of advisors within the firm. He has grown a firm from a few hundred thousand in annual revenue to over $10 million using both organic and acquisition related growth. He was at the forefront of building unique income sources away from traditional wealth management and being able to look outside the box for solutions. Few advisors have this “Real Life Experience.”

While at IFAM, Tim and his team have received numerous awards. He was elected President of the Association of Professional Investment Consultants (APIC), and has served on the association’s chair of both the Research and Evaluation and Conference Committees. He has been awarded the associations highest honor, the Tom Gorman Award, to acknowledge his service to the industry. Tim was also awarded the prestigious “40 Under 40 Award” by the Denver Business Journal, naming him as one of the top 40 young entrepreneurs in the Rocky Mountain Region. He is recognized as one of the “Top 100 Consultants in America” in Barron’s, #1 Consultant in Colorado by the Denver Business Journal, “Top 1,000 Advisors” by Barron’s, NABCAP Premier Advisor for Financial Planning and as one of the top Consultants by Research magazine. Tim is a regular speaker at national conferences, a published author and is regularly interviewed in the media on the economy and investment topics.

Tim’s experience working outside of financial services is likely behind his success in working inside financial services. Tim has been quoted saying, “Until you as an advisor have truly sat in the same chair as your client how can you understand what is best? How do you advise them on how to develop or manage their business, sell or transition their business, unless you have done the same? Tim has started five companies, taken a company public and sold the other companies to both synergistic and financial buyers. He has been a successful real estate developer, as well as business owner of manufacturing, sales and marketing and distribution companies. He has owned/managed in industries as diverse as scrap metal, to golf to fashion. This “Real Life” experience gives him the background to be able to consult to business owners from many walks of life about how to grow their companies, whether or not to seek monetization of their life's work and if so how, as well as working with Family Offices in managing the transition of wealth and knowledge to the next generations.

Today Tim continues to share these “Real Life” experiences with other entrepreneurs across the country through private consulting and speaking engagements with his firm Lumina Consulting.

Tim completed his undergraduate work at the University of Denver and received his CIMA® certification from his work, sponsored through the Investment Management Consultants Association, at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tim is involved with his church, as well as with several local and national charities. He has co-founded and chaired events, including the Red Lady Ball, the Denver Victims Rock and Roll, Sunrise Africa, SaddleUp! Foundation and many other events. He enjoys golf, skiing, tennis and mountain climbing, among many other sports. Tim is married with two children and resides at Colorado Golf Club.

MAXWELL T. SMITH – FOUNDER

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Max’s core focus has been within the financial services industry having nearly a decade of experience working within the industry. Max managed the marketing and sales as well as assisted with operations and research for a Senior Institutional team at UBS. In that time Max learned the ropes of what it meant to be a billion-dollar team at a large wire-house firm. In 2014, he helped lead the transition with Focus Financial Partners to move the team to independence, in creating IFAM Capital. He assisted in building and on-boarding their platform as well as created the firms marketing collateral and developed the firm’s sales and marketing plans.

Upon IFAM’s opening Max managed the marketing and sales team for the firm helping advisors implement and develop their sales process and marketing strategies, he performed portfolio analytics for prospective clients as well as created financial plans for incoming clients. In addition to this he led the merger and acquisition team and chaired the firm’s Marketing Committee. During his time at IFAM Capital the firm completed multiple transactions including building an internal asset management and corporate retirement services division. He led in the building of the asset management platform as well as led the transition of multiple tuck-in’s helping the firm grow nearly 50% in revenue during that time. He also assisted in developing the firms and their advisor’s growth strategies both organic and inorganically. While at IFAM, Max also consulted to other RIA’s and business owners in regards to organic growth strategies, succession planning, merger and acquisition strategies as well as operational and platform guidance.

Max is a founder of Lumina Consulting and today focuses around consulting to wire-house advisors in not only the break-away process to independence but also assists in the development of the new firm’s operational platforms, succession strategies as well growth strategies each unique to the firm’s objectives. In addition, Max works with established independent financial firms in creating their own unique growth strategies, creating succession plans and develop operational efficiencies to be able to increase productivity. He also works with independent financial firms looking to get into merger and acquisitions and assists them in developing M&A strategies, provides assistance in firm due diligence, proforma creations, valuations, deal structures as well as transition and tuck-in consulting post-closing. He also assists business owners outside the financial industry in developing succession strategies and create capital events and works with owners to develop growth and business strategies that are unique to meet the company’s objectives.

Max currently lives in Denver and enjoys skiing, golfing and hiking as well as in a member of the Denver Rotary’s Emerging Professional Cohort.

   Lumina Consulting    

Wealth Managers

 Wealth Managers

Wealth Managers

High performing firms should bring 60-70% EBOC (Earnings Before Owner Compensation) and be growing by adding $50 to $100 million in net new assets a year. This can be difficult but it can also be done. We know because we did it and have helped many others achieve like results. We provide our deep experience in the industry to assist your firm in implementing our “real life” solutions from building our own firm with over $10 million in annual billables. Whether that be succession strategies, organic growth strategies or having the ability to stream line operations to reduce expenses and save time we use our own real life experiences to help. Having built a practice at a wire-house, moved from wire-house to wire-house, then moved to independence and spent thousands of hours consulting to others we get to bring all that experience to bare in helping you accomplish your goals.

Registered Independent Advisors

Becoming a high performing firm can be difficult. The tasks at hand for advisors are large in today’s industry. Lumina Consulting is here to help. We provide our deep experience in the industry to assist your firm in implementing our “real life” solutions from building our own firm with over $10 million in annual billables and growing to become a leading financial advisory practice in the country. Whether that be succession strategies, growth strategies or having the ability to stream line operations we use our own real life experiences of having moved from wire-house to wire-house and then to an independence, creating our own marketing plans and building our own platform, to be able provide a unique, creative solution for your firm.

Registered Independent Advisors

Becoming a high performing firm can be difficult. The tasks at hand for advisors are large in today’s industry. Lumina Consulting is here to help. We provide our deep experience in the industry to assist your firm in implementing our “real life” solutions from building our own firm with over $10 million in annual billables and growing to become a leading financial advisory practice in the country. Whether that be succession strategies, growth strategies or having the ability to stream line operations we use our own real life experiences of having moved from wire-house to wire-house and then to an independence, creating our own marketing plans and building our own platform, to be able provide a unique, creative solution for your firm.

Break Away Advisor Services

Breaking away from a large wire-house can be one of the most difficult decisions you face in your career. Not only will you face the decisions such as joining a large aggregator, a platform provider or going it alone but you also must learn which is the best platform, reporting software, billing systems, CRM, accounting software, compliance firms, staffing and everything else that comes with being a large RIA firm. It can be overwhelming for someone who has not been in the independent space and does not have “real life” experience in doing it themselves. At Lumina Consulting we bring our knowledge of transitioning from a wire-house to wire-house and from a wire-house to independence to then running a top RIA practice to you to provide you with all the knowledge we wish we had when doing it ourselves.

Break Away Advisor Services

Breaking away from a large wire-house can be one of the most difficult decisions you face in your career. Not only will you face the decisions such as joining a large aggregator, a platform provider or going it alone but you also must learn which is the best platform, reporting software, billing systems, CRM, accounting software, compliance firms, staffing and everything else that comes with being a large RIA firm. It can be overwhelming for someone who has not been in the independent space and does not have “real life” experience in doing it themselves. At Lumina Consulting we bring our knowledge of transitioning from a wire-house to wire-house and from a wire-house to independence to then running a top RIA practice to you to provide you with all the knowledge we wish we had when doing it ourselves.

Our Core Services

Initial Consultation that covers:

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Core value and mission statement development

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Owner and Staff interviews for issue recognition

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Succession and exit strategy planning.

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Operational analysis to stream line efficiency

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Marketing and growth plan creation and implementation

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Risk analysis for key employee departures, procedures for protecting clients, trading, and reporting

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Investment management practice review of performance and policies

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Merger and acquisition strategy development

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Break-away and transition consulting

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Financial due diligence to make sure the firm is stream-lining cost

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Profit/Loss statement and proforma creation

On-going project based consulting includes:

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Development of a strategic growth plan utilizing the practices we implemented to build our firm and the most successful ones we have seen in the industry

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Merger and acquisition consulting based around the development of a sound plan that has a known funding source, a target acquisition and a well thought out operational plan on how to handle your success

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Operational transitions to streamline operations and reduce cost structures as well as increase efficiencies utilizing the lessons we learned in our own practice

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Investment management reviews to try to maximize your performance, bring consistency to your clients, and reduce overall costs. We use all kinds of solutions from using our experience to find the right asset managers to improve performance, to option overlay strategies to reduce risk, to outsourcing parts of your process to improve overall results and allow you to focus on running and growing your business

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Ongoing consulting to the firm’s principles and staff to update plans that were put in place, create well thought out staff development plans, strategies to transition ownership over time, and potential partnerships that will benefit you today and in the future.

Contact Lumina
Contact Lumina