Advisory Council

Steve Beatty stepped into the financial advising world in 1989. His expertise is working alongside owners of closely held businesses for almost 20 years. Since 1993, Steve has been a member of the esteemed Million Dollar Roundtable and has qualified for the Top of the Table since 2004, a distinction of only the top 0.2% of financial advisors worldwide (source: www.mdrt.org). Steve earned his Political Science degree from the University of California-San Diego and additionally earned his Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation from the Exit Planning Institute in Cleveland, OH. Steve was one of the first graduates of the 401(k) Coach Program, a national program from prominent 401(k) advisors. At age 16, Steve started as a sportswriter for the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, San Diego Union, and Los Angeles Times.

Kathleen specializes in estate, business and executive benefits planning, and estate and executive compensation planning with life insurance.

Formerly, she was a member of the Advanced Markets Group of MetLife, where she provided training and advanced underwriting support for the top producers of MetLife and its subsidiaries. Prior to joining GenAmerica Financial (a MetLife company) in 1996, she was in private practice.

Kathleen graduated from St. Louis University with degrees in Accounting and Theatre. She received her law degree and LL.M. in Taxation from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

She is licensed to practice in Missouri, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

Specialties:

• Reducing Current Income Tax through Modern Qualified Plan Design including Cash Balance Retirement Plans.
• Reducing Retirement Tax on accumulated retirement assets through Retirement Tax Minimization Strategies to reposition assets into a tax-free structure.
• Actuarial and Plan Administration Services for Qualified Retirement Plans

12 years in the Life Insurance industry: Business Succession Planning, Retirement Planning, Estate Planning, Life Insurance, Long-term Care, Chronic Illness Riders.

Vice President of Advanced Markets & Competition and Case Design at Ameritas

Andrew leads a group of credentialed individuals that specializes in placing estate, business, and retirement planning cases. His own expertise includes wealth preservation, estate planning, business planning, and executive benefits. He consults with insurance professionals and clients’ tax advisors when appropriate to facilitate sales opportunities.

Andrew is a frequent speaker and has authored articles in Life Insurance Selling, Senior Market Advisor, National Underwriter, AALU, and Journal of Financial Service Professionals. His speaking experience includes Forum 400, Clinic for Advanced Professionals, AALU and LIMRA Advanced Sales Forum. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Financial Service

Frank W. Seneco is an advanced planning life insurance specialist. He is the president of Seneco & Associates Inc., a boutique advanced planning firm in Connecticut.

Howard Sharfman, Senior Managing Director of NFP Insurance Solutions, and the Founder and CEO of FINFit Life has been recognized as an innovative leader in the insurance business for over two decades. He manages one of the premier and largest wealth transfer consulting and planning firms in the country. Mr. Sharfman’s practice is highly focused on servicing families with multigenerational wealth, family offices, private equity managers, and ultra-high net worth advisors. His firm has additional expertise in executive benefits, corporate benefits, general insurance, and risk management.

​Mr. Sharfman’s ideas and concepts have been shared with peers and advisors around the country through many speeches, presentations, and publications. He has been a leading presenter for insurance industry conferences. He has been a keynote speaker at the Canadian Association of Life Underwriting meeting, a featured guest speaker at the Discovery Financial Summit in Johannesburg South Africa, and guest speaker on two episodes of CNBC Financial Planning Show. In addition, he has been a featured speaker at the Chicago Estate Planning Council, Heart of America Tax Conference and scores of other industry and estate planning council meetings. In 2018, Howard was a key speaker at TOT, MDRT, Forum 400, AALU and NAIFA.

​He has shown industry leadership by serving as Treasurer, Program Planning Chair, Executive Committee member, President, and Chairman of Forum 400. He has chaired AALU’s Business Insurance and Estate Planning Committee and serves as President of the MSG, a leading insurance-based study group. Also, he has served on the advisory board of multiple insurance carriers that include MetLife, ING, John Hancock, and Pacific Life. Currently, he is a board member of Life Happens and a former advisory board of Partners Financial. Finally, he was honored to co-author the industry’s response to The Honorable Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, regarding The Administration’s FY 2013 Estate and Gift Tax Proposals.

Mr. Sierk is the President and Lead Strategist for Risk Management Advisors, Inc. Wesley is an expert in captive insurance design, implementation and management, asset protection, executive compensation, corporate benefit planning, and alternative risk transfer.

Wesley has over 23 years helping highly profitable, closely-held businesses limit their risk exposure and taxes through qualified plan structures, onshore and off-shore entities, and trust arrangements. He works with our clients' other professionals (CPAs, Attorneys, and Financial Advisors) to ensure proper due diligence and implementation of our clients' plan designs and needs. He oversees the activities and results of the Risk Management Department. Because of his extensive tax background, he ensures compliance with all of the existing revenue rulings and regulations.

The hallmark of Risk Management Advisors is its commitment to continuing education. Mr. Sierk has been recognized as a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and a Chartered Life Underwriter by the American College since 1996. He was awarded the designation of CRIS (Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist) in 2006. He is one of a few individuals in the world that have obtained the Associate in Captive Insurance (ACI) designation.

Mr. Sierk is a frequent speaker to industry associations as well as law and CPA firms on asset protection and how ordinary businesses can escape the hard/soft market of insurance by creating their own closely-held insurance companies. He has been interviewed by many publications for his insight on insurance issues including The Los Angeles Times, Builder / Architect magazine, and the National Association of Homebuilders. He currently serves as an advisor to the United States Congress for issues that affect the financial well-being of young entrepreneurs and their businesses.

Specialties:
- Captive Insurance Company design, formation, & Management
- Asset Protection
- Tax Reduction Strategies

For over 4 decades, Joel Solomon has been providing financial advisory and brokerage services to high-income and high net worth business owners and professionals. Mr. Solomon has represented Fortune 1000 companies and extremely successful business owners and professionals to assure that their company is providing maximum discriminatory benefit plans for the chief executive/business owner and perhaps other selected executives. Business exit planning is also a specialty along with other risk management consulting especially in the small captive insurance market ( 831 (b) ).

Mr. Solomon created the intellectual property known as the PRSPlan™ and TheRoadmap™ licensed by several worldwide financial institutions which in turn has trained and sub-licensed thousands of financial professionals nationwide.

Specialties: quantitative retirement planning and sequencing of assets; investment selection to provide market's upside potential but with the elimination of downside risk; business exit planning; life insurance premium financing thru our proprietary ParadigmPlan™ Premium Financing arrangement; Captives; tax-qualified plans

Specialties: ESOP/Business Succession consulting, ESOP implementation, and ESOP repurchase liability financing