Best Financial Planners & Top Wealth Managers

STEP 1

+ NOMINATIONS

D Magazine asks every Certified Financial Planner in the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Financial Planning Association to cast an online ballot. They are asked to name peers, both inside and outside their firms, whom they considered to be the most skilled and experienced financial planners in the industry. Outside-firm votes count more than inside-firm votes.

Nominating financial planners must:

• Be a Certified Financial Planner in good standing.
• Be a member of the Financial Planning Association.
• Currently practice within our geographic boundaries (view here).

STEP 2

+ VETTING PROCESS

Votes are tallied and sorted by D Magazine’s editorial staff.

The staff does not count:

• Self-nominations
• Duplicate ballots
• Nominees outside of our geographic boundaries (view here)

STEP 3

+ INDEPENDENT PANEL REVIEW

The remaining votes are vetted by an anonymous panel of esteemed Certified Financial Planners. The panel changes periodically to ensure consideration is impartial.

D Magazine editors finalize the list by verifying each financial planner’s:

• CFP status
• FPA membership

STEP 4

+ TOP WEALTH MANAGERS

We ask every wealth management firm and team in the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Financial Planning Association, the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, and the Investments and Wealth Institute to tell us about their practices.

Top Wealth Managers are selected based on the following criteria:

• Total assets under management for individual clients of at least $100 million.
• Average assets under management per client of at least $1 million.
• A 95 percent client retention rate over the last two years.
• No current disciplinary actions.
• All firms or teams must have been in existence for at least five years as of the application deadline.
• They must hold themselves out as fiduciaries for their clients and provide them with a written disclosure.

D Magazine editors finalize the list following an independent panel review.

STEP 5

+ NOTIFICATION

We mail and email congratulatory letters to the Best Financial Planners and Top Wealth Managers in Dallas.

After notification, our sales team is allowed to view the list and offer advertising opportunities to winners.

We play fair:

• Advertising dollars have zero impact on the creation of this list.
• Best Financial Planners and Top Wealth Managers are featured in our November issue and marked as a Best or Top in our online directory whether they advertise or not.